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.
Or going the other way; taking shots that were composed for 4:3 but filmed in widescreen and just sticking the extra bit back. The widescreen-ified early Buffy seasons now has a load of shots with crew and kit on the edges.
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?
I have a somewhat guilty indulgence of watching Futurology videos on YouTube. Isaac Arthur has done some quite enjoyable ones on colonising Venus :
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.
Or the other way; taking shots that were composed for 4:3 but filmed in widescreen and just sticking the extra bit back. The widescreen-ified early Buffy seasons now has a load of shots with crew and kit on the edges.
I wish I could remember which director it was - but he despised 'Cinemascope' and it's ilk. So he'd frame all his shots with trees/hills/houses at each side of the frame to make them back into 4:3 again.
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.
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!
Only one TV in our household. Bedroom TVs considered uncouth.
My Argos catalog fantasy of the early 90s, pictured above. Not realised, due to insufficient funds.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
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.
Both things can be true to an extent - though I have more time for Truss than many others.
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.
What caused his almighty epiphany?
Theory: WilliamGlenn's order of preference:
1) Britain in EU 2) Britain self-governing 3) All bullshit halfway houses
Perfectly consistent with his behaviour. No epiphany required.
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.
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.
Or going the other way; taking shots that were composed for 4:3 but filmed in widescreen and just sticking the extra bit back. The widescreen-ified early Buffy seasons now has a load of shots with crew and kit on the edges.
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.
Wasn’t her casting opposite him the catalyst for him quitting as he thought it ridiculous playing a love interest to women so much younger than him. A top chap with self awareness. She was a fantastic looking woman though as you say.
Mind you she had stiff competition from a young Alison Doody, of Last Crusade fame, in jodhpurs through the film.
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.
Both things can be true to an extent - though I have more time for Truss than many others.
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.
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.
What caused his almighty epiphany?
Dunno. Maybe he was doing it as an extended intellectual excercise in holding a position against all comers then, now, or both. He's very clever.
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.
Do you realise how difficult, slow and expensive it is to get anything done anywhere on NR property. There is a network wide GSM system with 100% coverage of network rail track but it is GSM-R, a rail operators only system, not public telephony, but identical system to public mobile telephony.
Despite this, and that public telephony is being rolled out in the depths of the underground, where space for equipment in edwardian underground stations is at an absolute premium and the logistics are horrible, NR have been unable to form a partnership with public operators to do it. They epitomise @Malmesbury 's process state. And are a flavour of what is coming down the line if the rest of the rail industry, bus industry and energy industry are nationalised.
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.
What caused his almighty epiphany?
The absurd way the EU handled the vaccines during the pandemic.
And then once the epiphany happened, he had the zeal of the convert.
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.
No it isn't.
Yes it is.
No it isn't. Beauty in people serves a purpose - it helps find the best possible breeding partners. Beauty in buildings is the same - we like thick walls, deep set windows, natural materials, green gardens, rich ornament, columns and arches, because they connote safety, security, plenty, strength - good places to live in and reproduce. It is precisely NOT a matter of personal taste.
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.
Doubt that The Blob was to blame, for Liz Truss looking like a VERY skittish dear in the headlights of an over-sized lorry, during the transition from QEII > KCIII following the death of her late majesty.
THAT's what first gave yours truly an inkling, that LT might NOT be up to cutting the mustard as PM.
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.
Wasn’t her casting opposite him the catalyst for him quitting as he thought it ridiculous playing a love interest to women so much younger than him. A top chap with self awareness. She was a fantastic looking woman though as you say.
Mind you she had stiff competition from a young Alison Doody, of Last Crusade fame, in jodhpurs through the film.
Yes. He was older than her mother.
He has great chemistry with Maud Adams (also beautiful but in her 30s) in Octopussy.
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.
Doubt that The Blob was to blame, for Liz Truss looking like a VERY skittish dear in the headlights of an over-sized lorry, during the transition from QEII > KCIII following the death of her late majesty.
THAT's what first gave yours truly an inkling, that LT might NOT be up to cutting the mustard as PM.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
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.
No it isn't.
I think the Bond franchise should have ended when Connery stopped. Since then it has been an absurd anachronistic parody of itself.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
I was at school with Jess Philips (though I never knew her). Pretty sure her accent is fake or exaggerated, since almost no one at Grammar school in Birmingham at that time had a broad Birmingham accent. Cannot prove it though.
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.
No it isn't.
I think the Bond franchise should have ended when Connery stopped. Since then it has been an absurd anachronistic parody of itself.
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.
No it isn't.
Yes it is.
No it isn't. Beauty in people serves a purpose - it helps find the best possible breeding partners. Beauty in buildings is the same - we like thick walls, deep set windows, natural materials, green gardens, rich ornament, columns and arches, because they connote safety, security, plenty, strength - good places to live in and reproduce. It is precisely NOT a matter of personal taste.
It absolutely IS a matter of personal taste.
It also changes over time. Which serves changing purposes.
In the past being overweight was a sign of beauty as in an era of most going hungry, being prosperous enough to be well fed made you more likely to survive and thus more attractive.
Similarly with buildings many old buildings we find beautiful today were considered ugly when they were first built, but are now considered classics and beautiful. Again serving a purpose, if a building is old enough to have survived hundreds of years its more likely to still be able to be here serving its function further in the future.
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.
No it isn't.
I think the Bond franchise should have ended when Connery stopped. Since then it has been an absurd anachronistic parody of itself.
If you think it wasn't that when Connery starred, I have a Diamonds Are Forever to sell you.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
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.
No it isn't.
Yes it is.
No it isn't. Beauty in people serves a purpose - it helps find the best possible breeding partners. Beauty in buildings is the same - we like thick walls, deep set windows, natural materials, green gardens, rich ornament, columns and arches, because they connote safety, security, plenty, strength - good places to live in and reproduce. It is precisely NOT a matter of personal taste.
It absolutely IS a matter of personal taste.
It also changes over time. Which serves changing purposes.
In the past being overweight was a sign of beauty as in an era of most going hungry, being prosperous enough to be well fed made you more likely to survive and thus more attractive.
Similarly with buildings many old buildings we find beautiful today were considered ugly when they were first built, but are now considered classics and beautiful. Again serving a purpose, if a building is old enough to have survived hundreds of years its more likely to still be able to be here serving its function further in the future.
Do you have some examples of buildings that are now widely regarded as beautiful that were decried as ugly at the time? Not dismissing your point, I'd just be interested.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
Can you imagine any other Deputy PM being cool enough to get away with this:
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?
Someone who is comfortable with hire and fire and zero hours contracts.
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.
No it isn't.
Yes it is.
No it isn't. Beauty in people serves a purpose - it helps find the best possible breeding partners. Beauty in buildings is the same - we like thick walls, deep set windows, natural materials, green gardens, rich ornament, columns and arches, because they connote safety, security, plenty, strength - good places to live in and reproduce. It is precisely NOT a matter of personal taste.
It absolutely IS a matter of personal taste.
It also changes over time. Which serves changing purposes.
In the past being overweight was a sign of beauty as in an era of most going hungry, being prosperous enough to be well fed made you more likely to survive and thus more attractive.
Similarly with buildings many old buildings we find beautiful today were considered ugly when they were first built, but are now considered classics and beautiful. Again serving a purpose, if a building is old enough to have survived hundreds of years its more likely to still be able to be here serving its function further in the future.
Do you have some examples of buildings that are now widely regarded as beautiful that were decried as ugly at the time? Not dismissing your point, I'd just be interested.
At what time? It all goes through fashion cycles.
'Georgian Houses' have gone through several, as have the different types of Victorian, and normal urban terraces.
And since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, not an objective quality, that's how it always has been and always will be.
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.
No it isn't.
I think the Bond franchise should have ended when Connery stopped. Since then it has been an absurd anachronistic parody of itself.
If you think it wasn't that when Connery starred, I have a Diamonds Are Forever to sell you.
Yeah, it had jumped the shark by then, but still managed to get worse.
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.
No it isn't.
Yes it is.
No it isn't. Beauty in people serves a purpose - it helps find the best possible breeding partners. Beauty in buildings is the same - we like thick walls, deep set windows, natural materials, green gardens, rich ornament, columns and arches, because they connote safety, security, plenty, strength - good places to live in and reproduce. It is precisely NOT a matter of personal taste.
It absolutely IS a matter of personal taste.
It also changes over time. Which serves changing purposes.
In the past being overweight was a sign of beauty as in an era of most going hungry, being prosperous enough to be well fed made you more likely to survive and thus more attractive.
Similarly with buildings many old buildings we find beautiful today were considered ugly when they were first built, but are now considered classics and beautiful. Again serving a purpose, if a building is old enough to have survived hundreds of years its more likely to still be able to be here serving its function further in the future.
Do you have some examples of buildings that are now widely regarded as beautiful that were decried as ugly at the time? Not dismissing your point, I'd just be interested.
How about the "useless and monstrous" structure in Paris that casts a "hateful shadow" over more beloved monuments? Aka the Eiffel Tower.
Or the Guggenheim Museum? The Empire State Building? The Sagadra Familia, Barcelona? The Louvre Pyramid? The Golden Gate Bridge?
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
Can you imagine any other Deputy PM being cool enough to get away with this:
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
Can you imagine any other Deputy PM being cool enough to get away with this:
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.
No it isn't.
I think the Bond franchise should have ended when Connery stopped. Since then it has been an absurd anachronistic parody of itself.
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.
Jesus wept.
Let's try and save our own planet before heading off to screw up the one next door.
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.
No it isn't.
I think the Bond franchise should have ended when Connery stopped. Since then it has been an absurd anachronistic parody of itself.
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.
No it isn't.
Yes it is.
No it isn't. Beauty in people serves a purpose - it helps find the best possible breeding partners. Beauty in buildings is the same - we like thick walls, deep set windows, natural materials, green gardens, rich ornament, columns and arches, because they connote safety, security, plenty, strength - good places to live in and reproduce. It is precisely NOT a matter of personal taste.
It absolutely IS a matter of personal taste.
It also changes over time. Which serves changing purposes.
In the past being overweight was a sign of beauty as in an era of most going hungry, being prosperous enough to be well fed made you more likely to survive and thus more attractive.
Similarly with buildings many old buildings we find beautiful today were considered ugly when they were first built, but are now considered classics and beautiful. Again serving a purpose, if a building is old enough to have survived hundreds of years its more likely to still be able to be here serving its function further in the future.
Yes and no.
Music might be an analogy. There are loads of different styles of music, moving in and out of fashion. But if it's not in tonic keys, most people are pretty repulsed by it.
There are architectural fashions, but there do seem to be deep subconcious preferences as well. There's a bit about them here;
Nutshell seems to be that our minds need something to latch onto, and a lot of the big, blocky buildings of recent decades are too plain and too flat to do this.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
Can you imagine any other Deputy PM being cool enough to get away with this:
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
I was at school with Jess Philips (though I never knew her). Pretty sure her accent is fake or exaggerated, since almost no one at Grammar school in Birmingham at that time had a broad Birmingham accent. Cannot prove it though.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
I was at school with Jess Philips (though I never knew her). Pretty sure her accent is fake or exaggerated, since almost no one at Grammar school in Birmingham at that time had a broad Birmingham accent. Cannot prove it though.
People who were educated at Grammar Schools, especially if they had non-Grammar friends can have two accents. One for school and maybe home and another for the street.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
Can you imagine any other Deputy PM being cool enough to get away with this:
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.
Jesus wept.
Let's try and save our own planet before heading off to screw up the one next door.
We could get @Leon to go there and investigate. The reports would be sublime.
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.
No it isn't.
Yes it is.
No it isn't. Beauty in people serves a purpose - it helps find the best possible breeding partners. Beauty in buildings is the same - we like thick walls, deep set windows, natural materials, green gardens, rich ornament, columns and arches, because they connote safety, security, plenty, strength - good places to live in and reproduce. It is precisely NOT a matter of personal taste.
It absolutely IS a matter of personal taste.
It also changes over time. Which serves changing purposes.
In the past being overweight was a sign of beauty as in an era of most going hungry, being prosperous enough to be well fed made you more likely to survive and thus more attractive.
Similarly with buildings many old buildings we find beautiful today were considered ugly when they were first built, but are now considered classics and beautiful. Again serving a purpose, if a building is old enough to have survived hundreds of years its more likely to still be able to be here serving its function further in the future.
Yes and no.
Music might be an analogy. There are loads of different styles of music, moving in and out of fashion. But if it's not in tonic keys, most people are pretty repulsed by it.
There are architectural fashions, but there do seem to be deep subconcious preferences as well. There's a bit about them here;
Nutshell seems to be that our minds need something to latch onto, and a lot of the big, blocky buildings of recent decades are too plain and too flat to do this.
If Kevin McCloud wrote music, can you imagine how discordant it would 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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
Can you imagine any other Deputy PM being cool enough to get away with this:
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
I was at school with Jess Philips (though I never knew her). Pretty sure her accent is fake or exaggerated, since almost no one at Grammar school in Birmingham at that time had a broad Birmingham accent. Cannot prove it though.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
I was at school with Jess Philips (though I never knew her). Pretty sure her accent is fake or exaggerated, since almost no one at Grammar school in Birmingham at that time had a broad Birmingham accent. Cannot prove it though.
People who were educated at Grammar Schools, especially if they had non-Grammar friends can have two accents. One for school and maybe home and another for the street.
A more extreme example was highland children who spoke Gaelic at home, but English at school, under the threat of the belt.
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.
Jesus wept.
Let's try and save our own planet before heading off to screw up the one next door.
We could get @Leon to go there and investigate. The reports would be sublime.
Would there be alcohol? Would his laptop work? Would we believe his reports? On the other hand, if he missed the return flight ….. 😆
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
I was at school with Jess Philips (though I never knew her). Pretty sure her accent is fake or exaggerated, since almost no one at Grammar school in Birmingham at that time had a broad Birmingham accent. Cannot prove it though.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
I was at school with Jess Philips (though I never knew her). Pretty sure her accent is fake or exaggerated, since almost no one at Grammar school in Birmingham at that time had a broad Birmingham accent. Cannot prove it though.
People who were educated at Grammar Schools, especially if they had non-Grammar friends can have two accents. One for school and maybe home and another for the street.
A more extreme example was highland children who spoke Gaelic at home, but English at school, under the threat of the belt.
Then there is Welsh Children who spoke English at Home and School. Except in Welsh Lessons and at home when they didn't want their parents to understand what they were saying (said parents generation not having been subjected to compulsory Welsh).
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
I was at school with Jess Philips (though I never knew her). Pretty sure her accent is fake or exaggerated, since almost no one at Grammar school in Birmingham at that time had a broad Birmingham accent. Cannot prove it though.
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.
Yes, I think Starmer dislikes Johnson for being a shameless liar who has coasted through life by being a Public Schoolboy jester, while Johnson dislikes Starmer for being a Puritan who sees straight through him.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
Jess Philips is someone I feel I ought to dislike but who I find strangely alluring and interesting with surprising depth of character and if met at a much younger age I would be prepared to put up with quite a lot of things I didn't much like to "make it work"
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
I was at school with Jess Philips (though I never knew her). Pretty sure her accent is fake or exaggerated, since almost no one at Grammar school in Birmingham at that time had a broad Birmingham accent. Cannot prove it though.
People who were educated at Grammar Schools, especially if they had non-Grammar friends can have two accents. One for school and maybe home and another for the street.
A more extreme example was highland children who spoke Gaelic at home, but English at school, under the threat of the belt.
Same in Wales. Welsh at home and in Chapel, the Welsh Not at school.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
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.
Jesus wept.
Let's try and save our own planet before heading off to screw up the one next door.
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.
Jesus wept.
Let's try and save our own planet before heading off to screw up the one next door.
It’s perfectly fine. You can colonise the surface of Venus.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
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.
Jesus wept.
Let's try and save our own planet before heading off to screw up the one next door.
It’s perfectly fine. You can colonise the surface of Venus.
I'm your Venus, I'm your fire, what's your desire?
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
What happens if Trump’s in prison?
No restrictions aiui.
For comparison, if the Leader of a British political party was in prison at the time of an election, could they be elected to Parliament and, if so, be appointed PM.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
By "pop his clogs" do you mean a vacancy created by DJT's demise or resignation as nominee?
Answer is, NO as J.D. Vance would NOT automatically become the new GOP nominee for President.
Instead, the Republican National Committee (two members from each state, one male & one female) would chose new POTUS nominee. IF they picked Vance (likely) then they'd also need to select a new nominee for VP.
This is complicated by state laws regarding qualifying for each state's general election ballot, however think that as practical matter they would acknowledge Rep Nat Comm's decision.
Another complication might be result of timing, that is IF a vacancy occurred AFTER ballots were printed. In that case, Trump would still be on ballots, with either the Electoral College OR state legislatures (!) or US House (!) sorting it out.
BTW, same applies IF there is a post-convention vacancy in the Democratic ticket.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
By "pop his clogs" do you mean a vacancy created by DJT's demise or resignation as nominee?
Answer is, NO as J.D. Vance would NOT automatically become the new GOP nominee for President.
Instead, the Republican National Committee (two members from each state, one male & one female) would chose new POTUS nominee. IF they picked Vance (likely) then they'd also need to select a new nominee for VP.
This is complicated by state laws regarding qualifying for each state's general election ballot, however think that as practical matter they would acknowledge Rep Nat Comm's decision.
Another complication might be result of timing, that is IF a vacancy occurred AFTER ballots were printed. In that case, Trump would still be on ballots, with either the Electoral College OR state legislatures (!) or US House (!) sorting it out.
BTW, same applies IF there is a post-convention vacancy in the Democratic ticket.
'Pop his clogs' = 'Kick the bucket' = 'Meet his maker' = 'Shuffle off this mortal coil'.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
What happens if Trump’s in prison?
No restrictions aiui.
For comparison, if the Leader of a British political party was in prison at the time of an election, could they be elected to Parliament and, if so, be appointed PM.
There are cases of prisoners standing for POTUS.
If he's in a Federal lockup, the expectation I think is that he would pardon himself.
If in a State Prison, he can't do that - so it's imo either cut a deal (eg judge suspends sentence for a period) or run it from prison, or find a way for his corrupt SCOTUS to intervene.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
What happens if Trump’s in prison?
No restrictions aiui.
For comparison, if the Leader of a British political party was in prison at the time of an election, could they be elected to Parliament and, if so, be appointed PM.
Yes, if the sentence were no more than a year. You can stand if you’re in prison and the sentence is no more than a year. If you are already an MP and are sent to prison for no more than a year, there’d be a recall petition, but if that doesn’t collect enough signatures, you remain an MP. If it does collect enough signatures, you’d cease to be an MP, but you’d be able to stand in the resultant by-election. Of course, you don’t technically need to be an MP a to be the PM anyway.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
By "pop his clogs" do you mean a vacancy created by DJT's demise or resignation as nominee?
Answer is, NO as J.D. Vance would NOT automatically become the new GOP nominee for President.
Instead, the Republican National Committee (two members from each state, one male & one female) would chose new POTUS nominee. IF they picked Vance (likely) then they'd also need to select a new nominee for VP.
This is complicated by state laws regarding qualifying for each state's general election ballot, however think that as practical matter they would acknowledge Rep Nat Comm's decision.
Another complication might be result of timing, that is IF a vacancy occurred AFTER ballots were printed. In that case, Trump would still be on ballots, with either the Electoral College OR state legislatures (!) or US House (!) sorting it out.
BTW, same applies IF there is a post-convention vacancy in the Democratic ticket.
'Pop his clogs' = 'Kick the bucket' = 'Meet his maker' = 'Shuffle off this mortal coil'.
Here endeth the British idiom lesson for today.
The Inuit have 50 words for snow. The Scots have 60 words for rain. The British have 70 words for death.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
What happens if Trump’s in prison?
No restrictions aiui.
For comparison, if the Leader of a British political party was in prison at the time of an election, could they be elected to Parliament and, if so, be appointed PM.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
By "pop his clogs" do you mean a vacancy created by DJT's demise or resignation as nominee?
Answer is, NO as J.D. Vance would NOT automatically become the new GOP nominee for President.
Instead, the Republican National Committee (two members from each state, one male & one female) would chose new POTUS nominee. IF they picked Vance (likely) then they'd also need to select a new nominee for VP.
This is complicated by state laws regarding qualifying for each state's general election ballot, however think that as practical matter they would acknowledge Rep Nat Comm's decision.
Another complication might be result of timing, that is IF a vacancy occurred AFTER ballots were printed. In that case, Trump would still be on ballots, with either the Electoral College OR state legislatures (!) or US House (!) sorting it out.
BTW, same applies IF there is a post-convention vacancy in the Democratic ticket.
'Pop his clogs' = 'Kick the bucket' = 'Meet his maker' = 'Shuffle off this mortal coil'.
Here endeth the British idiom lesson for today.
The Inuit have 50 words for snow. The Scots have 60 words for rain. The British have 70 words for death.
(Sits back and awaits replies from PB pedants.)
The Scots have a good deal more than 80 words for the English.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
What happens if Trump’s in prison?
No restrictions aiui.
For comparison, if the Leader of a British political party was in prison at the time of an election, could they be elected to Parliament and, if so, be appointed PM.
There are cases of prisoners standing for POTUS.
If he's in a Federal lockup, the expectation I think is that he would pardon himself.
If in a State Prison, he can't do that - so it's imo either cut a deal (eg judge suspends sentence for a period) or run it from prison, or find a way for his corrupt SCOTUS to intervene.
You noticed my avatar! (Provided you can decipher it via your tiny dumbphone screen!)
Question is moot, as Trump is NOT gonna be in a federal prison, state lockup, county jail or city pokey anytime soon, certainly NOT before the First Tuesday after the First Monday in November.
1 - Prosecutor Jack Smith has put in his Appeal to the 11th Circuit to reverse Judge Cannon's decision to dismiss the Trump Florida case.
2 - Chump's lawyers have put in a motion asking the New York Court to dismiss the entire Stormy Daniels / Election Manipulation case where he was something convicted. Some spin on the recent SCOTUS Presidential Immunity decision.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
What happens if Trump’s in prison?
No restrictions aiui.
For comparison, if the Leader of a British political party was in prison at the time of an election, could they be elected to Parliament and, if so, be appointed PM.
Bobby Sands MP.
It was because of Sands’ election that the government brought in a rule that people serving time of >1 year, in the UK or Ireland, couldn’t stand.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
What happens if Trump’s in prison?
No restrictions aiui.
For comparison, if the Leader of a British political party was in prison at the time of an election, could they be elected to Parliament and, if so, be appointed PM.
There are cases of prisoners standing for POTUS.
If he's in a Federal lockup, the expectation I think is that he would pardon himself.
If in a State Prison, he can't do that - so it's imo either cut a deal (eg judge suspends sentence for a period) or run it from prison, or find a way for his corrupt SCOTUS to intervene.
You noticed my avatar! (Provided you can decipher it via your tiny dumbphone screen!)
Question is moot, as Trump is NOT gonna be in a federal prison, state lockup, county jail or city pokey anytime soon, certainly NOT before the First Tuesday after the First Monday in November.
I can dream. One of them can still rule that he is in comprehensive violation of his trial release conditions, or in contempt of Court.
Judge Merchan on September 24th is - in remote theory - the one to watch.
1 - Prosecutor Jack Smith has put in his Appeal to the 11th Circuit to reverse Judge Cannon's decision to dismiss the Trump Florida case.
2 - Chump's lawyers have put in a motion asking the New York Court to dismiss the entire Stormy Daniels / Election Manipulation case where he was something convicted. Some spin on the recent SCOTUS Presidential Immunity decision.
That picture looks like the opening shot of the scariest porno ever. “The stepmomford wives”. The poor plumber arrives to fix the tennis club showers.
The way those women look at Trump is how I've imagined how Leon and MisterBedforshire would look at Trump
Trying to work out which is which
This one is Leon.
This site is like a weird schizophrenic fanboi @leon site. When I'm here commenting you all bang on endlessly about how I dominate the comments and comment too much or force you to talk about what I want (I mean, really?)
And then when I disappear for a day or two you start endlessly chatting angrily about me or discussing my absence in vituperative terms like I’ve just dumped you
On topic; There's another disadvantage to blind oppositionalism: It can allow you to be manipulated by others. I don't doubt, for example, that some in the permanent government used it at least a few times on Obama, telling him, for example, that he had an excellent idea; it's just like one George W. Bush proposed.
(Fortunately, he was talked out of making large changes in PEPFAR, as he was considering early in his first term. As I recall, Bishop Tutu helped persuade Obama to leave the program alone.)
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
By "pop his clogs" do you mean a vacancy created by DJT's demise or resignation as nominee?
Answer is, NO as J.D. Vance would NOT automatically become the new GOP nominee for President.
Instead, the Republican National Committee (two members from each state, one male & one female) would chose new POTUS nominee. IF they picked Vance (likely) then they'd also need to select a new nominee for VP.
This is complicated by state laws regarding qualifying for each state's general election ballot, however think that as practical matter they would acknowledge Rep Nat Comm's decision.
Another complication might be result of timing, that is IF a vacancy occurred AFTER ballots were printed. In that case, Trump would still be on ballots, with either the Electoral College OR state legislatures (!) or US House (!) sorting it out.
BTW, same applies IF there is a post-convention vacancy in the Democratic ticket.
'Pop his clogs' = 'Kick the bucket' = 'Meet his maker' = 'Shuffle off this mortal coil'.
Here endeth the British idiom lesson for today.
The Inuit have 50 words for snow. The Scots have 60 words for rain. The British have 70 words for death.
(Sits back and awaits replies from PB pedants.)
The Scots have a good deal more than 80 words for the English.
On topic; There's another disadvantage to blind oppositionalism: It can allow you to be manipulated by others. I don't doubt, for example, that some in the permanent government used it at least a few times on Obama, telling him, for example, that he had an excellent idea; it's just like one George W. Bush proposed.
(Fortunately, he was talked out of making large changes in PEPFAR, as he was considering early in his first term. As I recall, Bishop Tutu helped persuade Obama to leave the program alone.)
PEPFAR - the ONE good thing that Bush the Younger did (and it was and is a good thing for sure) because Dick Cheney gave W a chew toy to keep him occupied.
Which reminds me, among the many notable GOP no-shows in Milwaukee this week are all the Bushes and all the Cheneys.
Now consigned to the Dust Bin of History, due to backlash among REPUBLICAN base voters, against the Cheney-Bush Administration's Iraq War warmongering.
Completely off topic, but I think most of you will like this WaPo story: 'TROON, Scotland — For decades American golfers and golf freaks would come over here and pay a nodding homage to the British Open rough, which to the American eye counted as golf-course exotica. Ample rain in 2024 figured to dole that rough a starring role in this 152nd Open which tees off Thursday, especially the savage gorse with its knack for eating both your ball and your skin (during retrieval of ball). Yet it doesn’t go exactly like that anymore, for a reason only a grinch could find objectionable.
“We are all now starting to recognize,” Bob Taylor said by telephone from England, “that golf courses are more than just the golf course. They’re actually nature preserves.”'
Taylor is an ecologist, so his opinion deserves some respect.
(I've like golf courses for decades, since they are excellent places to cross country ski, when the weather is right. At least once, I was able to ski on one while another man was golfing. It was early spring, so there were long stretches of snow in the shadier parts of the course, while the fairways were open.)
Check this out. It's so ridiculous that if you saw it in a film you wouldn't find it plausible.
In addition, briefers told lawmakers Crooks was identified as a person of interest a full 62 minutes before the shooting took place.
The timeline was briefed as follows:
5:10 Crooks was first identified as a person of interest 5:30 Crooks was spotted with a rangefinder 5:52 Crooks was spotted on the roof by Secret Service 6:02 Trump takes the stage 6:12 Crooks fires first shots
For those watching the Biden nomination, the DNC appear to be moving ahead with their plan to do a virtual nomination possibly as early as 1 August (I.e - 2 weeks away). That would cement Biden as the nominee before the convention starts in mid August.
So time is running out. Yes they could change the process, but really to be blunt it’s decision time this coming week, surely.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
What happens if Trump’s in prison?
No restrictions aiui.
For comparison, if the Leader of a British political party was in prison at the time of an election, could they be elected to Parliament and, if so, be appointed PM.
Bobby Sands MP.
In 1918, no less than 47 Sinn Fein MPs were elected from prison.
For those watching the Biden nomination, the DNC appear to be moving ahead with their plan to do a virtual nomination possibly as early as 1 August (I.e - 2 weeks away). That would cement Biden as the nominee before the convention starts in mid August.
So time is running out. Yes they could change the process, but really to be blunt it’s decision time this coming week, surely.
Yes. Do note, however, that "virtual nomination" process will involve the same Democratic delegates & alternates as in-person roll-call voting at the actual Democratic national convention. Which are overwhelming pledged to Biden.
HOWEVER also note that "pledged" delegates have jumped their traces in the past, and might well do so in not-so-distant future. Virtually or otherwise.
The KEY point is that the less time before Decision Day, the better the chances of Biden surviving his current crisis. Thus his & his campaign's strategy of running out the clock.
Very interesting development, combined with Biden's declared willingness (perhaps NOT the right word) to drop out of the race, "If I had some medical condition that emerged . . ."
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Trump is the official nominee. Roll call was yesterday. Betfair is acting incorrectly keeping the market open
Yes, i was wondering about this. Their rules say when the convention nominates.
Yes, should have spotted this.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
What happens if Trump’s in prison?
No restrictions aiui.
For comparison, if the Leader of a British political party was in prison at the time of an election, could they be elected to Parliament and, if so, be appointed PM.
Bobby Sands MP.
In 1918, no less than 47 Sinn Fein MPs were elected from prison.
Also number of by-election victors before the 1918 GE, at least one with the catchy slogan, "Put Him In to Get Him Out".
I don't believe it. Has the huge error in Putney been pointed out yet on here? Turns out 6,500 votes were not reported on election night in the constituency, about 10% of the total. It didn't affect the result or order of candidates, but a 17% drop in turnout always looked a bit unusual. It looks like another spreadsheet error, like there was in Plymouth Sutton & Devonport in 2017, not a problem with physically counting the votes.
I don't believe it. Has the huge error in Putney been pointed out yet on here? Turns out 6,500 votes were not reported on election night in the constituency, about 10% of the total. It didn't affect the result or order of candidates, but a 17% drop in turnout always looked a bit unusual. It looks like another spreadsheet error, like there was in Plymouth Sutton & Devonport in 2017, not a problem with physically counting the votes.
Incidents such as you describe are almost inevitable, given the rush! rush! rush! to not just count votes into the wee hours after polls close, but also to finalize the results immediately or close enough.
In USA election authorities also strive to count ballots quickly BUT also have time after Election Night to canvass the returns for errors and omissions, such as what reportedly happened in Putney.
ADDENDUM - AND you are correct, strange drop in turnout, or in "ballot falloff" in US elections (voters who cast ballots but who skip voting on some candidate or measures) should be investigated . . . preferably BEFORE results are certified.
Have personally been involved in two elections, where it turned out unusual falloff patterns were due to perfectly legitimate votes NOT being tabulated; as in case of Putney the ultimate result was unchanged because the uncounted votes occurred randomly.
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.
No it isn't.
I think the Bond franchise should have ended when Connery stopped. Since then it has been an absurd anachronistic parody of itself.
Um, no. Casino Royale and No Time to Die are great films. The Spy Who Loved Me and Skyfall are good, too.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI-old7YI4I
Only one TV in our household. Bedroom TVs considered uncouth.
My Argos catalog fantasy of the early 90s, pictured above. Not realised, due to insufficient funds.
Opposites can get on JRM and Jess Philips did in their TV programme, as did Portillo and Abbott, but they have to respect each other's views.
1) Britain in EU
2) Britain self-governing
3) All bullshit halfway houses
Perfectly consistent with his behaviour. No epiphany required.
Mind you she had stiff competition from a young Alison Doody, of Last Crusade fame, in jodhpurs through the film.
Despite this, and that public telephony is being rolled out in the depths of the underground, where space for equipment in edwardian underground stations is at an absolute premium and the logistics are horrible, NR have been unable to form a partnership with public operators to do it. They epitomise @Malmesbury 's process state. And are a flavour of what is coming down the line if the rest of the rail industry, bus industry and energy industry are nationalised.
And then once the epiphany happened, he had the zeal of the convert.
THAT's what first gave yours truly an inkling, that LT might NOT be up to cutting the mustard as PM.
He has great chemistry with Maud Adams (also beautiful but in her 30s) in Octopussy.
In contrast I find Angela Rayner wholly uninteresting and a bit offputting.
I don't think it is just down to what female characteristics give me the horn.
(disclaimer - not ever met or contacted either of them).
Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.
Biden says he'd step down as presidential candidate if a 'medical condition emerged' – video
According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.
In response, Biden said:
If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.
Earlier this month, Biden said during an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos that he would only drop out of the race if the “Lord Almighty” told him to do so.
Biden’s comments come amid increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid over concerns of his age and mental competency, particularly after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/jul/17/trump-vance-biden-democrats-election-politics-live-updates
It also changes over time. Which serves changing purposes.
In the past being overweight was a sign of beauty as in an era of most going hungry, being prosperous enough to be well fed made you more likely to survive and thus more attractive.
Similarly with buildings many old buildings we find beautiful today were considered ugly when they were first built, but are now considered classics and beautiful. Again serving a purpose, if a building is old enough to have survived hundreds of years its more likely to still be able to be here serving its function further in the future.
https://x.com/jucopel/status/1810091737416598010?t=LbnCjSbdLc8TVnu1ivd_ZA&s=09
Or
https://x.com/AngelaRayner/status/1598966575566036992?t=flZB1a_R-Z4sk5OIl-2RtQ&s=19
But I agree with you on Jess Phillips, one of the few MPs with genuine wit. A night out with her would be a real laugh.
'Georgian Houses' have gone through several, as have the different types of Victorian, and normal urban terraces.
And since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, not an objective quality, that's how it always has been and always will be.
Or the Guggenheim Museum? The Empire State Building? The Sagadra Familia, Barcelona? The Louvre Pyramid? The Golden Gate Bridge?
Just a little too young to have been to the Hacienda before it shut.
Incidentally, I have just had a couple of quid at 500 for Vance as Republican nominee.
There might be other snipers out there.
Let's try and save our own planet before heading off to screw up the one next door.
Music might be an analogy. There are loads of different styles of music, moving in and out of fashion. But if it's not in tonic keys, most people are pretty repulsed by it.
There are architectural fashions, but there do seem to be deep subconcious preferences as well. There's a bit about them here;
https://www.createstreets.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Ann-Sussman-Building-Places-Nobody-Wants-to-Be.pdf
Nutshell seems to be that our minds need something to latch onto, and a lot of the big, blocky buildings of recent decades are too plain and too flat to do this.
What a glorious accident bringing a new word to the English Language.
If Carlsberg did typo's....
He seems to be mispronouncing and slurring quite a few words.
eg 14:31:55 and 14:40:42 here.
https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/9ea4a222-bacd-4639-8953-03f8a16a1bee
It could be me not being familiar with his style.
If Trump does pop his clogs before Nov 5, is it Vance on the ballot for POTUS?
Answer is, NO as J.D. Vance would NOT automatically become the new GOP nominee for President.
Instead, the Republican National Committee (two members from each state, one male & one female) would chose new POTUS nominee. IF they picked Vance (likely) then they'd also need to select a new nominee for VP.
This is complicated by state laws regarding qualifying for each state's general election ballot, however think that as practical matter they would acknowledge Rep Nat Comm's decision.
Another complication might be result of timing, that is IF a vacancy occurred AFTER ballots were printed. In that case, Trump would still be on ballots, with either the Electoral College OR state legislatures (!) or US House (!) sorting it out.
BTW, same applies IF there is a post-convention vacancy in the Democratic ticket.
Here endeth the British idiom lesson for today.
If he's in a Federal lockup, the expectation I think is that he would pardon himself.
If in a State Prison, he can't do that - so it's imo either cut a deal (eg judge suspends sentence for a period) or run it from prison, or find a way for his corrupt SCOTUS to intervene.
(Sits back and awaits replies from PB pedants.)
Question is moot, as Trump is NOT gonna be in a federal prison, state lockup, county jail or city pokey anytime soon, certainly NOT before the First Tuesday after the First Monday in November.
1 - Prosecutor Jack Smith has put in his Appeal to the 11th Circuit to reverse Judge Cannon's decision to dismiss the Trump Florida case.
2 - Chump's lawyers have put in a motion asking the New York Court to dismiss the entire Stormy Daniels / Election Manipulation case where he was something convicted. Some spin on the recent SCOTUS Presidential Immunity decision.
Judge Merchan on September 24th is - in remote theory - the one to watch.
1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riPlvCtv0as
2 https://apnews.com/article/trump-immunity-hush-money-new-york-conviction-b67bafcb92b287933c6e6d54fc122117
And then when I disappear for a day or two you start endlessly chatting angrily about me or discussing my absence in vituperative terms like I’ve just dumped you
I mean. It’s gratifying. But also cringe
(Fortunately, he was talked out of making large changes in PEPFAR, as he was considering early in his first term. As I recall, Bishop Tutu helped persuade Obama to leave the program alone.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND-SVKrvCxs
Which reminds me, among the many notable GOP no-shows in Milwaukee this week are all the Bushes and all the Cheneys.
Now consigned to the Dust Bin of History, due to backlash among REPUBLICAN base voters, against the Cheney-Bush Administration's Iraq War warmongering.
Funny old world!
'TROON, Scotland — For decades American golfers and golf freaks would come over here and pay a nodding homage to the British Open rough, which to the American eye counted as golf-course exotica. Ample rain in 2024 figured to dole that rough a starring role in this 152nd Open which tees off Thursday, especially the savage gorse with its knack for eating both your ball and your skin (during retrieval of ball). Yet it doesn’t go exactly like that anymore, for a reason only a grinch could find objectionable.
“We are all now starting to recognize,” Bob Taylor said by telephone from England, “that golf courses are more than just the golf course. They’re actually nature preserves.”'
Taylor is an ecologist, so his opinion deserves some respect.
(I've like golf courses for decades, since they are excellent places to cross country ski, when the weather is right. At least once, I was able to ski on one while another man was golfing. It was early spring, so there were long stretches of snow in the shadier parts of the course, while the fairways were open.)
The timeline was briefed as follows:
5:10 Crooks was first identified as a person of interest
5:30 Crooks was spotted with a rangefinder
5:52 Crooks was spotted on the roof by Secret Service
6:02 Trump takes the stage
6:12 Crooks fires first shots
https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-assassination-attempt-investigation-continues-new-details/story?id=112020474
So time is running out. Yes they could change the process, but really to be blunt it’s decision time this coming week, surely.
HOWEVER also note that "pledged" delegates have jumped their traces in the past, and might well do so in not-so-distant future. Virtually or otherwise.
The KEY point is that the less time before Decision Day, the better the chances of Biden surviving his current crisis. Thus his & his campaign's strategy of running out the clock.
https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/the-council/elections-voting-and-registration/elections-and-referendums/general-election-2024/
https://x.com/wandsworth/status/1813602807070495198
In USA election authorities also strive to count ballots quickly BUT also have time after Election Night to canvass the returns for errors and omissions, such as what reportedly happened in Putney.
ADDENDUM - AND you are correct, strange drop in turnout, or in "ballot falloff" in US elections (voters who cast ballots but who skip voting on some candidate or measures) should be investigated . . . preferably BEFORE results are certified.
Have personally been involved in two elections, where it turned out unusual falloff patterns were due to perfectly legitimate votes NOT being tabulated; as in case of Putney the ultimate result was unchanged because the uncounted votes occurred randomly.
Boris would be proud.