The traditional media have not had a great election so far. Good article, I think.
How the media blew 2024′s election
https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/media-elections-dnc-kamala-harris-military-20240827.html .. I’ll start with the weekend’s lowlight: a news story that worked up the media food chain from the muck of smaller right-wing outlets, then got boosted on X/Twitter by Alex Thompson, a widely read national political correspondent for Axios, before the New York Post hyped it in your local Wawa and eventually the New York Times felt compelled to address it. You see, an idea that has animated the right for the last couple of weeks is the fantasy that Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz is a phony. Sunday’s purported news slammed Walz for a 2006 episode when his then-congressional campaign claimed he’d won a youth award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce when really it was — get this! — the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce!
Never mind that the 2006 Walz campaign had corrected this tiny mistake (picture Barack Obama doing the hand thing, but even smaller), probably the work of a junior staffer, the second they learned about it…
.. It would require another column — maybe a book — to explain why this is happening. I see it as less the public’s main complaint (corporate control of the media) and more about our profession’s weird value structure, where it’s more important to be savvy, cynical, and not be portrayed as naive shills for liberalism than to care about saving democracy from authoritarian rule, on top of maybe a new and not always healthy brand of careerism from younger journalists.
The Chicago-based media critic Mark Jacob, a retired veteran editor of that city’s Tribune and Sun Times, nailed it Monday with a piece headlined “Mainstream media on a path to irrelevance.” Jacob has harsh words for how reporters have covered the race, writing that “too many political journalists are marinating in the Washington cocktail culture, writing for each other and for their sources — in service to the political industry, not the public.” But he also notes that traditional media can’t figure out how to compete for young eyeballs against sites like edgy and fast-paced TikTok. Jacob pointed out that public faith in mass media has plunged from 72% in 1976, after Watergate, to just 32% today.
You know who gets the new landscape better than anyone else? Kamala Harris…
Picked up one of those right wing radio stations while driving across Ohio earlier; relentless non-stop anti-Kamala bile being churned out, hour after hour. Hopefully they don’t have too many swing voters as listeners?
Not many swing voters left in Ohio. Texas is a more likely state for the Democrats to win, as you can see in the polling, and in the Cook PVI, where Ohio is R+6 and Texas is R+5.
"Pollsters overestimated Labour’s support by largest margin in 50 years Vote share for Starmer’s party was lower than expected, while gap with Tories was much narrower than forecast
Newsnight reports that the government is considering banning smoking in pub gardens. And a pollster on the programme said that it would probably be popular with most voters, who are surprisingly authoritarian, (as we saw during the covid 19 lockdowns).
Yeah, Covid turned us into a nation of snitchers and curtain twitchers so there are no negatives for Puritanical Starmer in this policy but doesn't make it right.
We need an anti-authoritarian fightback in this country, but I can't think which party or politicians are going to lead it. Very depressing situation.
You would think the Lib-Dems (like the name's on the tin? ) but Brexit showed their worse for being anti-democratic than anyone...
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
This is what they've been longing to get into power for 14 years to do? What an absolute shower.
This is in line with the general theme of 'continuity desperation'. Make up laws you think they will be popular but then just roll them out with no idea who will enforce them or any assessment of the impact. This one might actually not be a good idea, IE people will stop going to pubs, not sure if there will be an exemption for shisha tents. But even if it is a good idea, it can't be implemented/enforced without resources, of which there are none.
They just hate anyone having a business, having freedom, having a mind and the ability to think, having a life.
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Well, people in the pub checking LiveScores for one. People texting you for two. They utterly ruin the experience.
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Cheering in the distance during a football match (be that on X/Twitter or PB) for a start.
120 seconds is ridiculous.
If they can encode it and transmit it from a mast, they can encode it and transmit a live stream on the internet.
There's no need for it to be more than a few seconds to allow for necessary unplugging or a small buffer (which should really be on the receiver side anyway).
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
This is what they've been longing to get into power for 14 years to do? What an absolute shower.
This is in line with the general theme of 'continuity desperation'. Make up laws you think they will be popular but then just roll them out with no idea who will enforce them or any assessment of the impact. This one might actually not be a good idea, IE people will stop going to pubs, not sure if there will be an exemption for shisha tents. But even if it is a good idea, it can't be implemented/enforced without resources, of which there are none.
Who enforced the smoking ban inside pubs? No officials, just it became the law and happened. The same will happen with this, if it becomes law. The sadness is Starmer lacks the guts to just ban smoking and get on with it. So you get this ratchet type legislation. And yet another law in the first two months NOT in the manifesto.
"David Cameron’s former adviser Steve Hilton considers run for governor of California ‘Blue-sky thinker’ and former Fox News host moved to the US state after his time in Downing Street"
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Cheering in the distance during a football match (be that on X/Twitter or PB) for a start.
120 seconds is ridiculous.
If they can encode it and transmit it from a mast, they can encode it and transmit a live stream on the internet.
There's no need for it to be more than a few seconds to allow for necessary unplugging or a small buffer (which should really be on the receiver side anyway).
The iPlayer delay is ~35 seconds iirc and the BBC has costed out that reducing it to under 10 seconds would cost close to £2bn in new equipment and processing power that they don't want to spend. I think it's a fair decision, let Amazon and Netflix spend that kind of money and then once it becomes ubiquitous the BBC can implement it for a tenth of the cost.
Newsnight reports that the government is considering banning smoking in pub gardens. And a pollster on the programme said that it would probably be popular with most voters, who are surprisingly authoritarian, (as we saw during the covid 19 lockdowns).
Yeah, Covid turned us into a nation of snitchers and curtain twitchers so there are no negatives for Puritanical Starmer in this policy but doesn't make it right.
We need an anti-authoritarian fightback in this country, but I can't think which party or politicians are going to lead it. Very depressing situation.
Thatcher and Blair turned us into one of the most centralised states in the world, killing off meaningful local government. Despite some promising words I expect Starmer will find all that power too attractive to give up.
"Pollsters overestimated Labour’s support by largest margin in 50 years Vote share for Starmer’s party was lower than expected, while gap with Tories was much narrower than forecast
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
What a joke. I don't smoke but this is excessive. Kids parks I can just about understand but everything else is ridiculous. Banning smoking around hospitals is going to result in a reduction of operating hours because doctors (of which at least half smoke in my experience) will have to walk all over the place to have a fag and that will eat into patient hours. Pub gardens are completely idiotic to ban smoking in, it's outdoors in a generally over 18s location.
I think Labour are speed running unpopularity. I don't think they've thought this through at all. The Tories didn't recover when they became very unpopular and I don't think Labour realise there is a point at which there is no return, time won't solve it for them.
Banned in our hospital and grounds by Wales Labour
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Cheering in the distance during a football match (be that on X/Twitter or PB) for a start.
120 seconds is ridiculous.
If they can encode it and transmit it from a mast, they can encode it and transmit a live stream on the internet.
There's no need for it to be more than a few seconds to allow for necessary unplugging or a small buffer (which should really be on the receiver side anyway).
The BBC claim to have reduced the latency to 60 seconds in 2023, and that they are working on reducing that further.
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Well, people in the pub checking LiveScores for one. People texting you for two. They utterly ruin the experience.
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Cheering in the distance during a football match (be that on X/Twitter or PB) for a start.
120 seconds is ridiculous.
If they can encode it and transmit it from a mast, they can encode it and transmit a live stream on the internet.
There's no need for it to be more than a few seconds to allow for necessary unplugging or a small buffer (which should really be on the receiver side anyway).
The iPlayer delay is ~35 seconds iirc and the BBC has costed out that reducing it to under 10 seconds would cost close to £2bn in new equipment and processing power that they don't want to spend. I think it's a fair decision, let Amazon and Netflix spend that kind of money and then once it becomes ubiquitous the BBC can implement it for a tenth of the cost.
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Cheering in the distance during a football match (be that on X/Twitter or PB) for a start.
120 seconds is ridiculous.
If they can encode it and transmit it from a mast, they can encode it and transmit a live stream on the internet.
There's no need for it to be more than a few seconds to allow for necessary unplugging or a small buffer (which should really be on the receiver side anyway).
The BBC claim to have reduced the latency to 60 seconds in 2023, and that they are working on reducing that further.
It was hopeless during the Euros. Miles behind proper telly such that it ruined the experience watching it on iPlayer in the pub with mates as we could hear people in the house next door cheering before the goals were seen on the telly. Lousy technology.
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Well, people in the pub checking LiveScores for one. People texting you for two. They utterly ruin the experience.
Just watch it on a proper telly!
I do. That’s my point - but when you are on holiday and the pub in which you are staying only has iPlayer what do you do?
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Well, people in the pub checking LiveScores for one. People texting you for two. They utterly ruin the experience.
Just watch it on a proper telly!
I do. That’s my point - but when you are on holiday and the pub in which you are staying only has iPlayer what do you do?
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Cheering in the distance during a football match (be that on X/Twitter or PB) for a start.
120 seconds is ridiculous.
If they can encode it and transmit it from a mast, they can encode it and transmit a live stream on the internet.
There's no need for it to be more than a few seconds to allow for necessary unplugging or a small buffer (which should really be on the receiver side anyway).
The iPlayer delay is ~35 seconds iirc and the BBC has costed out that reducing it to under 10 seconds would cost close to £2bn in new equipment and processing power that they don't want to spend. I think it's a fair decision, let Amazon and Netflix spend that kind of money and then once it becomes ubiquitous the BBC can implement it for a tenth of the cost.
£2bn sounds like a big number but maybe I'm just not understanding the difficulties, which is quite likely.
Tbf, that was the cost a few years ago. It's probably gone down a lot since then. The method is basically saying we'll send smaller chunks of data and then we'll use really powerful hardware to reassemble it into a stream that is sent to iPlayer servers. It's the powerful hardware that costs money, don't forget that the BBC gets a fully uncompressed data stream from broadcast partners, they aren't dealing with a 40Mbit 4k stream like Netflix, they're getting 200x the data being sent which they need to compress down in real time and then send out to iPlayer servers in under 10 (5 ideally) seconds and then apply that to all of their existing broadcast vans. Sky has invested billions into this process over the years so that Sky 4k football on satellite only has a few second delay vs the stadium.
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Well, people in the pub checking LiveScores for one. People texting you for two. They utterly ruin the experience.
Just watch it on a proper telly!
I do. That’s my point - but when you are on holiday and the pub in which you are staying only has iPlayer what do you do?
What would you do if the pub only accepted cash?
I wouldn’t have been able to book it in the first place. You need a card to reserve a room. Doh!
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Cheering in the distance during a football match (be that on X/Twitter or PB) for a start.
120 seconds is ridiculous.
If they can encode it and transmit it from a mast, they can encode it and transmit a live stream on the internet.
There's no need for it to be more than a few seconds to allow for necessary unplugging or a small buffer (which should really be on the receiver side anyway).
The iPlayer delay is ~35 seconds iirc and the BBC has costed out that reducing it to under 10 seconds would cost close to £2bn in new equipment and processing power that they don't want to spend. I think it's a fair decision, let Amazon and Netflix spend that kind of money and then once it becomes ubiquitous the BBC can implement it for a tenth of the cost.
£2bn sounds like a big number but maybe I'm just not understanding the difficulties, which is quite likely.
Tbf, that was the cost a few years ago. It's probably gone down a lot since then. The method is basically saying we'll send smaller chunks of data and then we'll use really powerful hardware to reassemble it into a stream that is sent to iPlayer servers. It's the powerful hardware that costs money, don't forget that the BBC gets a fully uncompressed data stream from broadcast partners, they aren't dealing with a 40Mbit 4k stream like Netflix, they're getting 200x the data being sent which they need to compress down in real time and then send out to iPlayer servers in under 10 (5 ideally) seconds and then apply that to all of their existing broadcast vans. Sky has invested billions into this process over the years so that Sky 4k football on satellite only has a few second delay vs the stadium.
Sky Sports on satellite/cable is excellent yes. But it too is far behind when you watch it on a device. All UK sports streaming is hopelessly laggy. Hence why I have cable and won’t switch to internet telly.
The public probably think both should be in prison, which I don't think is what Matt thinks. Obviously depends on what the "dumb" thing was that written on Facebook. And the context. Which is deliberately withheld. Maybe he's expanded on it more, in subsequent posts? I can't be arsed to sign back in to twitter to find out.
What I'm wondering is whether he gives Starmer/Cooper/The government credit when boat crossings drop right off?
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
On Vanilla it has always been that way. I expect one of the admins either pressed the wrong button or was overcome by a drive for consistency between the two interfaces.
"Pollsters overestimated Labour’s support by largest margin in 50 years Vote share for Starmer’s party was lower than expected, while gap with Tories was much narrower than forecast
The Telegraph is a messenger that makes up messages, and rewrites others not to reflect the reality of what the Telegraph claims it is reporting.
In the case of the Telegraph, amongst others, questioning the messenger is simply a necessary precaution. They made a decision to smear shit all over their own brand, and we need to have a smell first before accepting anything.
In this case I'm not sure what the article is for, as it doesn't seem to be saying anything beyond the obvious( cf OGHs rule of thumb'the most correct Labour will be the lowest poll'), whilst ignoring the effect of tactical voting on the top line voting shares.
A company as badly run as that with so many questions over where the money has gone should not be asking for hiked bills in a monopoly they have mismanaged to survive.
Not, at least, until they have explained how debts ballooned while they were paying dividends claiming large profits - and recovered that money....
Indeed and wipe out the shareholders and not just at Thames but apparently virtually all of them who say the same
That’s the risk of being a shareholder.
The Universities pension fund owns 20% of Thames Water. Could be awkward. Still, never mind.
They said last January that their stake was down by 60% in value since 2022, so it's already mainly gone.
The USS, the largest private pension fund in the UK, holds a 20% stake in Thames Water’s ultimate parent company, Kemble Water, mostly through its subsidiary Church Water Investment.
A company as badly run as that with so many questions over where the money has gone should not be asking for hiked bills in a monopoly they have mismanaged to survive.
Not, at least, until they have explained how debts ballooned while they were paying dividends claiming large profits - and recovered that money....
Yep let the shareholders lose their arses. If they couldn’t afford to pay dividends, they shouldn’t have paid them.
There needs to be a huge public campaign for the Government to let the company go bust.
Isnt this about the government imposing greater regulatory burden on the water companies but not allowing them to raise the funds to do the work? This is a consequence of denouncing the company that is responsible for the cleanest river going through a capital city in the world as if they were dumping untreated sewage. It's hard to be sympathetic to Thames Water, but they are not at fault here.
Thames Water are to the extent that they allowed their owners to attach £15bn of debt against the company that wasn’t spent on the improvements that £15bn spent on improvements would have delivered
And I expect if the money had been spent on improvements bills would not need to increase by anything like as much which is why I say the consequence of their request is that the company should be allowed to go bankrupt and the shareholders, bond holders and other people who have lent them money wiped out
Thames Water aren't going to get any more money until their equity takes a bath, regardless of the merits of their argument.
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
What a joke. I don't smoke but this is excessive. Kids parks I can just about understand but everything else is ridiculous. Banning smoking around hospitals is going to result in a reduction of operating hours because doctors (of which at least half smoke in my experience) will have to walk all over the place to have a fag and that will eat into patient hours. Pub gardens are completely idiotic to ban smoking in, it's outdoors in a generally over 18s location.
I think Labour are speed running unpopularity. I don't think they've thought this through at all. The Tories didn't recover when they became very unpopular and I don't think Labour realise there is a point at which there is no return, time won't solve it for them.
They seem to be under the impression it doesn't matter what they do in their first year provided they roll out some goodies and results in the year leading up to the next GE.
A company as badly run as that with so many questions over where the money has gone should not be asking for hiked bills in a monopoly they have mismanaged to survive.
Not, at least, until they have explained how debts ballooned while they were paying dividends claiming large profits - and recovered that money....
Yep let the shareholders lose their arses. If they couldn’t afford to pay dividends, they shouldn’t have paid them.
There needs to be a huge public campaign for the Government to let the company go bust.
Isnt this about the government imposing greater regulatory burden on the water companies but not allowing them to raise the funds to do the work? This is a consequence of denouncing the company that is responsible for the cleanest river going through a capital city in the world as if they were dumping untreated sewage. It's hard to be sympathetic to Thames Water, but they are not at fault here.
Thames Water are to the extent that they allowed their owners to attach £15bn of debt against the company that wasn’t spent on the improvements that £15bn spent on improvements would have delivered
And I expect if the money had been spent on improvements bills would not need to increase by anything like as much which is why I say the consequence of their request is that the company should be allowed to go bankrupt and the shareholders, bond holders and other people who have lent them money wiped out
Thames Water aren't going to get any more money until their equity takes a bath, regardless of the merits of their argument.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
Quicker too because it cuts out staff's walk to the till and search for change that doubled the time taken for traditional payment.
Not really. Generally payment is made to a staff member standing behìnd a till. Not much in it whether they deal in cash or electronic payment. Making change takes just as long, on average, as faffing about with electronic payment.
Cash is slower than contactless - when it works.
Probably not much difference in the average when you factor in all the times people have to insert their card and use their PIN, or a card is refused and they have to find another.
Tesco seem to be saving time by getting people to order and pay using self-service machines. In theory those machines could also accept cash I suppose.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
Well cashless has worked on London bus network for years. It’s a non-issue. People very rapidly get used to it and wonder why they ever bothered lugging around stupid slips of plastic and daft scraps of metal. It’s silly.
Ah, so you speak for 'the people' now, and know what they think.
As I've pointed out before, and you routinely ignore, cash is, at worst, a really useful backup. And one I get to use surprisingly often.
Anabob obviously doesn't have, or even know, any children.
As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.
There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy. https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191
Anyone who’s applying for a mortgage should be paying bookies and offies with cash, especially if they spend more than about a tenner a week with either.
A company as badly run as that with so many questions over where the money has gone should not be asking for hiked bills in a monopoly they have mismanaged to survive.
Not, at least, until they have explained how debts ballooned while they were paying dividends claiming large profits - and recovered that money....
Yep let the shareholders lose their arses. If they couldn’t afford to pay dividends, they shouldn’t have paid them.
There needs to be a huge public campaign for the Government to let the company go bust.
Isnt this about the government imposing greater regulatory burden on the water companies but not allowing them to raise the funds to do the work? This is a consequence of denouncing the company that is responsible for the cleanest river going through a capital city in the world as if they were dumping untreated sewage. It's hard to be sympathetic to Thames Water, but they are not at fault here.
Thames Water are to the extent that they allowed their owners to attach £15bn of debt against the company that wasn’t spent on the improvements that £15bn spent on improvements would have delivered
And I expect if the money had been spent on improvements bills would not need to increase by anything like as much which is why I say the consequence of their request is that the company should be allowed to go bankrupt and the shareholders, bond holders and other people who have lent them money wiped out
Thames Water aren't going to get any more money until their equity takes a bath, regardless of the merits of their argument.
I think it goes into administration.
Good.
Let the shareholders lose. The Universities Superannuation Scheme has already said it values its Thames Water holdings as Zero. They own 20% of the business.
A company as badly run as that with so many questions over where the money has gone should not be asking for hiked bills in a monopoly they have mismanaged to survive.
Not, at least, until they have explained how debts ballooned while they were paying dividends claiming large profits - and recovered that money....
Indeed and wipe out the shareholders and not just at Thames but apparently virtually all of them who say the same
That’s the risk of being a shareholder.
The Universities pension fund owns 20% of Thames Water. Could be awkward. Still, never mind.
They said last January that their stake was down by 60% in value since 2022, so it's already mainly gone.
The USS, the largest private pension fund in the UK, holds a 20% stake in Thames Water’s ultimate parent company, Kemble Water, mostly through its subsidiary Church Water Investment.
Latest Fox News polls in the sunbelt (by Interactive Polls): all good news for Harris
Georgia: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 6% in previous poll when Biden) Arizona: Harris 50% Trump 49% (Harris by 1% - was Trump leading by 5%) Nevada: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 5%) North Carolina: Harris 49% Trump 50% Trump by 1% - (was Trump leading by 5%)
Latest Fox News polls in the sunbelt (by Interactive Polls): all good news for Harris
Georgia: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 6% in previous poll when Biden) Arizona: Harris 50% Trump 49% (Harris by 1% - was Trump leading by 5%) Nevada: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 5%) North Carolina: Harris 49% Trump 50% Trump by 1% - (was Trump leading by 5%)
It’s going to come down to turnout, isn’t it?
Bad news for Trump in any state where abortion is on the ballot, or there’s a significant non-white population.
No wonder he sounds panicky - but in doing so he’s demotivating his voters even more.
Latest Fox News polls in the sunbelt (by Interactive Polls): all good news for Harris
Georgia: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 6% in previous poll when Biden) Arizona: Harris 50% Trump 49% (Harris by 1% - was Trump leading by 5%) Nevada: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 5%) North Carolina: Harris 49% Trump 50% Trump by 1% - (was Trump leading by 5%)
It’s going to come down to turnout, isn’t it?
Bad news for Trump in any state where abortion is on the ballot, or there’s a significant non-white population.
No wonder he sounds panicky - but in doing so he’s demotivating his voters even more.
There's scope for Harris to win a bunch more voters - the down-ballot races for Senators are in double-digit leads for the Democrats, especially in North Carolina where the Republican candidate is a medieval loon.
In his previous role Lord Hendy forced a supplier to sack a worker for highlighting safety concerns at Euston. The same concerns that the Office of Rail and Road had made in September last year...
Latest Fox News polls in the sunbelt (by Interactive Polls): all good news for Harris
Georgia: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 6% in previous poll when Biden) Arizona: Harris 50% Trump 49% (Harris by 1% - was Trump leading by 5%) Nevada: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 5%) North Carolina: Harris 49% Trump 50% Trump by 1% - (was Trump leading by 5%)
It’s going to come down to turnout, isn’t it?
Bad news for Trump in any state where abortion is on the ballot, or there’s a significant non-white population.
No wonder he sounds panicky - but in doing so he’s demotivating his voters even more.
There's scope for Harris to win a bunch more voters - the down-ballot races for Senators are in double-digit leads for the Democrats, especially in North Carolina where the Republican candidate is a medieval loon.
That’s the gubernatorial election, not the Senate election. NC doesn’t have a Senate race this year.
The one to watch from that point of view might be Ohio, where Sherrod Brown is on course to be re-elected quite comfortably but polls still give the Presidential vote to Trump.
Or Montana, although it’s really hard to see Harris winning that even if Tester hangs on.
Latest Fox News polls in the sunbelt (by Interactive Polls): all good news for Harris
Georgia: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 6% in previous poll when Biden) Arizona: Harris 50% Trump 49% (Harris by 1% - was Trump leading by 5%) Nevada: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 5%) North Carolina: Harris 49% Trump 50% Trump by 1% - (was Trump leading by 5%)
It’s going to come down to turnout, isn’t it?
Bad news for Trump in any state where abortion is on the ballot, or there’s a significant non-white population.
No wonder he sounds panicky - but in doing so he’s demotivating his voters even more.
There's scope for Harris to win a bunch more voters - the down-ballot races for Senators are in double-digit leads for the Democrats, especially in North Carolina where the Republican candidate is a medieval loon.
That’s the gubernatorial election, not the Senate election. NC doesn’t have a Senate race this year.
The one to watch from that point of view might be Ohio, where Sherrod Brown is on course to be re-elected quite comfortably but polls still give the Presidential vote to Trump.
Or Montana, although it’s really hard to see Harris winning that even if Tester hangs on.
The serious bellwether state is going to be Pennsylvania. Pretty much all roads to 270 for both candidates run through that state.
One Nate Silver prediction overnight is a 200/1 shot on a 269/269 tie!
Latest Fox News polls in the sunbelt (by Interactive Polls): all good news for Harris
Georgia: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 6% in previous poll when Biden) Arizona: Harris 50% Trump 49% (Harris by 1% - was Trump leading by 5%) Nevada: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 5%) North Carolina: Harris 49% Trump 50% Trump by 1% - (was Trump leading by 5%)
It’s going to come down to turnout, isn’t it?
Bad news for Trump in any state where abortion is on the ballot, or there’s a significant non-white population.
No wonder he sounds panicky - but in doing so he’s demotivating his voters even more.
There's scope for Harris to win a bunch more voters - the down-ballot races for Senators are in double-digit leads for the Democrats, especially in North Carolina where the Republican candidate is a medieval loon.
That’s the gubernatorial election, not the Senate election. NC doesn’t have a Senate race this year.
The one to watch from that point of view might be Ohio, where Sherrod Brown is on course to be re-elected quite comfortably but polls still give the Presidential vote to Trump.
Or Montana, although it’s really hard to see Harris winning that even if Tester hangs on.
Apologies, yes the Governor race in NC. The voters seem decided down ballot - Trumps"celebrity brand" still keeping him in the race in these states on split-ticket voting. If that changes, by people getting comfortable with Harris too, then all these states are comfortably lost to him.
Lot of love-bombing from Harris-Walz in Georgia for a two-day road trip there. Then they have a joint interview with CNN tonight - the first time Harris has taken a series of televised questions since becoming the candidate.
As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.
There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy. https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191
As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.
There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy. https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191
There’s a serious amount of election-related lawfare and legislating going on already, both parties must be spending tens of millions on lawyers.
One thing that’s totally alien to anyone not from the US, is the amount of election-related micromanagement that can be done by state and local elected officials. For all their faults, the Electoral Commission in the UK comes across to the vast majority as impartial - although Darren Grimes will vehemently disagree.
Latest Fox News polls in the sunbelt (by Interactive Polls): all good news for Harris
Georgia: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 6% in previous poll when Biden) Arizona: Harris 50% Trump 49% (Harris by 1% - was Trump leading by 5%) Nevada: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 5%) North Carolina: Harris 49% Trump 50% Trump by 1% - (was Trump leading by 5%)
It’s going to come down to turnout, isn’t it?
Bad news for Trump in any state where abortion is on the ballot, or there’s a significant non-white population.
No wonder he sounds panicky - but in doing so he’s demotivating his voters even more.
There's scope for Harris to win a bunch more voters - the down-ballot races for Senators are in double-digit leads for the Democrats, especially in North Carolina where the Republican candidate is a medieval loon.
That’s the gubernatorial election, not the Senate election. NC doesn’t have a Senate race this year.
The one to watch from that point of view might be Ohio, where Sherrod Brown is on course to be re-elected quite comfortably but polls still give the Presidential vote to Trump.
Or Montana, although it’s really hard to see Harris winning that even if Tester hangs on.
The serious bellwether state is going to be Pennsylvania. Pretty much all roads to 270 for both candidates run through that state.
One Nate Silver prediction overnight is a 200/1 shot on a 269/269 tie!
Fits with the 4 in a thousand shot on the 538 model (has Harris currently 58% chance of winning)
Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.
I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.
There isn't a lot of difference in the principle Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.
The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.
The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day *:
(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)
I'd love to debate @darkage flat - very interesting. I'm interested to know what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.
If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has usually not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
Well cashless has worked on London bus network for years. It’s a non-issue. People very rapidly get used to it and wonder why they ever bothered lugging around stupid slips of plastic and daft scraps of metal. It’s silly.
Ah, so you speak for 'the people' now, and know what they think.
As I've pointed out before, and you routinely ignore, cash is, at worst, a really useful backup. And one I get to use surprisingly often.
Anabob obviously doesn't have, or even know, any children.
Yes, I do. They prefer BACS so they can see and manage their savings. In fact when they are given cash they want to convert it into electronic money. My relatives are pretty smart on using BACS now.
"Pollsters overestimated Labour’s support by largest margin in 50 years Vote share for Starmer’s party was lower than expected, while gap with Tories was much narrower than forecast
Comments
120 seconds is ridiculous.
If they can encode it and transmit it from a mast, they can encode it and transmit a live stream on the internet.
There's no need for it to be more than a few seconds to allow for necessary unplugging or a small buffer (which should really be on the receiver side anyway).
The sadness is Starmer lacks the guts to just ban smoking and get on with it. So you get this ratchet type legislation.
And yet another law in the first two months NOT in the manifesto.
"David Cameron’s former adviser Steve Hilton considers run for governor of California
‘Blue-sky thinker’ and former Fox News host moved to the US state after his time in Downing Street"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/08/27/steve-hilton-david-cameron-governor-california-fox-news/
I actually support it
https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/articles/2023/bbc-iplayer-update-programme-availability-live-video
Obviously still not rolled out yet...
£2bn sounds like a big number but maybe I'm just not understanding the difficulties, which is quite likely.
"Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ
Lob stuff at Nigel Farage. Don't go to jail.
Write something dumb on Facebook. Go to jail."
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1828870499491033483
What on Earth do you see in Goodwin?
hopelessly laggy. Hence why I have cable and won’t switch to internet telly.
What I'm wondering is whether he gives Starmer/Cooper/The government credit when boat crossings drop right off?
I'd go;
10/1 yes
1/10 no
I've deactivated and deleted my dormant account.
Modern British politics consists in not building anything, banning stuff, telling people off, and calling anyone you disagree with evil/a racist/unworthy of holding an opinion.
@AaronBastani 10:31 PM · Jun 12, 2023
1. A total **** up from @TheScreamingEagles ... But I think not... As @rcs1000 would have sorted it by now.
2. A total **** up from Vanilla. This is what I'm thinking... Which means we've just got to hang in there and hold tight until Vanilla sort it out.
Shame as I'd love nothing better than to blame Eagles for this 😂
Unfortunately you also put the Tories in.
In the case of the Telegraph, amongst others, questioning the messenger is simply a necessary precaution. They made a decision to smear shit all over their own brand, and we need to have a smell first before accepting anything.
In this case I'm not sure what the article is for, as it doesn't seem to be saying anything beyond the obvious( cf OGHs rule of thumb'the most correct Labour will be the lowest poll'), whilst ignoring the effect of tactical voting on the top line voting shares.
The USS, the largest private pension fund in the UK, holds a 20% stake in Thames Water’s ultimate parent company, Kemble Water, mostly through its subsidiary Church Water Investment.
The investment vehicle said the value of its stake in Kemble had fallen to £364m last year from £956m in 2022. This could imply that the value of Britain’s biggest water company has plummeted from almost £5bn in 2022 to £1.9bn last year.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/02/thames-waters-second-largest-investor-slashes-value-of-its-stake
I think it goes into administration.
I think that's naive.
Probably not much difference in the average when you factor in all the times people have to insert their card and use their PIN, or a card is refused and they have to find another.
Tesco seem to be saving time by getting people to order and pay using self-service machines. In theory those machines could also accept cash I suppose.
There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191
Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"
Anyone who’s applying for a mortgage should be paying bookies and offies with cash, especially if they spend more than about a tenner a week with either.
Let the shareholders lose. The Universities Superannuation Scheme has already said it values its Thames Water holdings as Zero. They own 20% of the business.
Georgia: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 6% in previous poll when Biden)
Arizona: Harris 50% Trump 49% (Harris by 1% - was Trump leading by 5%)
Nevada: Harris 50% Trump 48% (Harris by 2% - was Trump leading by 5%)
North Carolina: Harris 49% Trump 50% Trump by 1% - (was Trump leading by 5%)
Bad news for Trump in any state where abortion is on the ballot, or there’s a significant non-white population.
No wonder he sounds panicky - but in doing so he’s demotivating his voters even more.
https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-rail-minister-peter-hendy-fired-gareth-dennis-engineer-safety-concerns-trains-london-euston-station/
In his previous role Lord Hendy forced a supplier to sack a worker for highlighting safety concerns at Euston. The same concerns that the Office of Rail and Road had made in September last year...
The one to watch from that point of view might be Ohio, where Sherrod Brown is on course to be re-elected quite comfortably but polls still give the Presidential vote to Trump.
Or Montana, although it’s really hard to see Harris winning that even if Tester hangs on.
One Nate Silver prediction overnight is a 200/1 shot on a 269/269 tie!
Republican initiative mainly affecting student voters.
(It's a bit more complex than that .... of course.)
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/27/politics/supreme-court-election-purcell-principle/index.html
Lot of love-bombing from Harris-Walz in Georgia for a two-day road trip there. Then they have a joint interview with CNN tonight - the first time Harris has taken a series of televised questions since becoming the candidate.
NEW THREAD
what??
try pronouncing 'Belvoir Castle' in Leicestershire 'with the French accent'
One thing that’s totally alien to anyone not from the US, is the amount of election-related micromanagement that can be done by state and local elected officials. For all their faults, the Electoral Commission in the UK comes across to the vast majority as impartial - although Darren Grimes will vehemently disagree.
The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.
The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day *:
(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)
I'd love to debate @darkage flat - very interesting. I'm interested to know what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.
If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has usually not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.
* Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/651422e03d371800146d0c9e/Energy_Consumption_in_the_UK_2023.pdf