Bret Stephens, a conservative who reluctantly supported Harris, gives his verdict on where Dems need to go:
"The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency."
"Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change."
The most common factor, however, was the economy - specifically, inflation. "Out here, you pay $5 for a dozen eggs. It used to be $1, or even 99 cents," Mr Negron added
I would be surprised if a dozen eggs was 99c in 2020, but telling people stock market is at all time high and GDP is growing is a tricky sell when people are seeing massive food inflation.
I've seen multiple stories about people in the US eating out less often because they can't afford to do so.
And this is the US where eating out is for many people something they used to do x times a week...
Yes. I have mentioned this. US culture is you grab food on the go for several meals of the day and eat out a lot more than here.
Mrs U was in the US last month and came back going WTF at cost of eating out, even cheapo chains. Where as it used to be too cheap if anything. And the tipping on top. 20% minimum.
Taking your kids to McDonalds and it costing $50...that is proper shock.
Worth remember, what did Trump as a stunt, he read out the Cheesecake Factory Menu and the price increases. For those that don't know, The Cheesecake Factory is what lower and middle class Americans think as the place to go for a nice special occasion meal. Everybody knows that chain and it is very popular.
One of my American friends was saying that fast food has become so expensive in LA that it's now better to get a takeaway from casual dining restaurants because the price difference is so small now.
She's moving to London in March and staying with us for a few weeks while she gets her own place sorted out but she was saying one of the things she's looking forwards to most is not having to pay 25-30% tips.
I need to go to the US for an extended period next year, currently looking at accommodation options and feeling ill just looking at those costs...let alone the constant tipping that is totally out of control now (despite minimum wage levels rises significantly in lots of states).
The most irritating aren't so much the restaurant servers, where you're expecting it, but the shops and ticket counters and other such purchases where you get offered a tip choice, which is increasingly common.
A shop. So you buy a pair of shoes or some groceries and they expect a tip ? What about self service. Do you tip then ?
You've been over in the US recently. Is it getting worse ?
More common, for sure.
I bought a bar of Cadbury's and some pet treats in an 'English shop' in old Colorado Springs, just because I was passing, and the total space was left blank for a tip. I told her that no genuine English shop would expect a tip just for selling stuff, and it was bad enough that the tax is extra.
In a West Virginia golf resort hotel, the breakfast was entirely self-service; get your own food, get your own coffee - the only thing the female server hanging about brought me was the bill, yet there was still a tip expectation of 20%.
The interesting thing is that Americans themselves are starting to complain about the spread of the tipping culture from restaurants - where they expect it and think it's reasonable (partly because a very high proportion of them were servers for a while when young or as side jobs when a student) to over-the-counter transactions and the like.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
Bryson Dechambeau, the well-known golf player, was part of Trump's victory do.
May he get the yips and never win another tournament.
Nice to see you've changed that avatar.
Where are the beans ??!!
They'll be back but I'm not exactly full of them atm.
Well done you for showing up after the election result. Not everyone, after making such a monumental tool of themselves, would have returned so soon after the event.
On abortion, are there not lots of people who find boths extremes repellent? OTOH we have people saying 'Never', OTOH we have people basically speaking enthusiastically about what a great right it is to terminate unborn life because you want to in a context in which there are huge numbers of them, mostly entirely healthy.
While articulating a middle way between these two feels both intrusive into private lives and individual suffering, and also hard to pitch rightly, I wonder whether quite a lot of people are put off by the extremes on both sides, and have a very strong instinct that it should be both allowable but also much less routine or common.
One of these extremes only appears to exist as a fantasy. I've not seen the people enthusiastically calling for late abortions on a whim. I say that as someone steeped in the pro-choice movement (both parents + 1 godparent worked on the 1968 Abortion Act in the UK and the campaign leading up to it).
The reality of late abortion is that it is something women only do in extreme and rare situations. I am very happy to leave those difficult decisions up to the women involved and their healthcare teams. That's basically the approach that works in the UK. Late abortions are very rare; women aren't dying because healthcare staff are scared of being jailed (as now happens regularly in the US).
Govern et al. (2024; https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q1729 ) in the BMJ summarise the current US situation, although teasing out the effect of COVID-19 and changes in the law are complicated.
Without commenting on the rights and wrongs of the abortion law for that first case, that article jumps to a lot of conclusions about what was not an abortion but possibly poorer care following an abortion taken in a nine week pregnancy with a pill. Not really what is claimed.
I'm genuinely surprised that medics don't give life-saving help and to hell with the risk of a jury convicting them.
It probably ends up being down to them having no insurance though...
It’s not all about immediate crisis situations. It can be about someone has a problem, but isn’t imminently at risk, so you put off doing something because of the legal environment. But those delays increase the risks.
But women with sepsis being sent home because a doctor won't do a D&C because it might look like they have performed an abortion is just hideously wrong on so many levels. How does it sit wth the hippocratic oath?
"Avoid causing harm: Do not intentionally harm patients, and do not give them lethal drugs or abortifacients."
Is sending someone home to die in breach of the oath? Especially when they cannot administer anything that would cause an abortion?
My youngest (now an ADULT) is upstairs crying because the hairdresser has cut an inch or so too much off her hair.. I mean. For Christ's sake. Nothing I say will help.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
The most common factor, however, was the economy - specifically, inflation. "Out here, you pay $5 for a dozen eggs. It used to be $1, or even 99 cents," Mr Negron added
I would be surprised if a dozen eggs was 99c in 2020, but telling people stock market is at all time high and GDP is growing is a tricky sell when people are seeing massive food inflation.
I've seen multiple stories about people in the US eating out less often because they can't afford to do so.
And this is the US where eating out is for many people something they used to do x times a week...
Yes. I have mentioned this. US culture is you grab food on the go for several meals of the day and eat out a lot more than here.
Mrs U was in the US last month and came back going WTF at cost of eating out, even cheapo chains. Where as it used to be too cheap if anything. And the tipping on top. 20% minimum.
Taking your kids to McDonalds and it costing $50...that is proper shock.
Worth remember, what did Trump as a stunt, he read out the Cheesecake Factory Menu and the price increases. For those that don't know, The Cheesecake Factory is what lower and middle class Americans think as the place to go for a nice special occasion meal. Everybody knows that chain and it is very popular.
One of my American friends was saying that fast food has become so expensive in LA that it's now better to get a takeaway from casual dining restaurants because the price difference is so small now.
She's moving to London in March and staying with us for a few weeks while she gets her own place sorted out but she was saying one of the things she's looking forwards to most is not having to pay 25-30% tips.
I need to go to the US for an extended period next year, currently looking at accommodation options and feeling ill just looking at those costs...let alone the constant tipping that is totally out of control now (despite minimum wage levels rises significantly in lots of states).
The most irritating aren't so much the restaurant servers, where you're expecting it, but the shops and ticket counters and other such purchases where you get offered a tip choice, which is increasingly common.
A shop. So you buy a pair of shoes or some groceries and they expect a tip ? What about self service. Do you tip then ?
You've been over in the US recently. Is it getting worse ?
More common, for sure.
I bought a bar of Cadbury's and some pet treats in an 'English shop' in old Colorado Springs, just because I was passing, and the total space was left blank for a tip. I told her that no genuine English shop would expect a tip just for selling stuff, and it was bad enough that the tax is extra.
In a West Virginia golf resort hotel, the breakfast was entirely self-service; get your own food, get your own coffee - the only thing the female server hanging about brought me was the bill, yet there was still a tip expectation of 20%.
The interesting thing is that Americans themselves are starting to complain about the spread of the tipping culture from restaurants - where they expect it and think it's reasonable (partly because a very high proportion of them were servers for a while when young or as side jobs when a student) to over-the-counter transactions and the like.
In the end - and quite soon - it will destroy their international tourism industry. Which is probably a decent sized single digit chunk of US GDP
Whatever happens, if Starmer does not do something on the economy for working class people, he will be out on his ear.
He’s made some good steps like raising the minimum wage and giving public sector workers a decent pay rise for the first time in years.
Labours secret weapon in this space is the trade unions. Much derided by their opponents, they’re brilliant at keeping Labour grounded and connected.
Plus lower immigration, a ban on no-fault evictions, and the workers' rights bill which has some major reforms (and makes the gig economy much better). Together, they make life significantly better for people at the bottom end of the income distribution.
This stuff is tangible and easy to point at during a political campaign. Labour have really hit the ground running in this respect.
Ahahahahahaha
My 'at the bottom end of the income distribution' friends spent most of our conversation on Tuesday evening bemoaning all the local hotels which had been given over to asylum seekers. In a thoughtful and nuanced and sympathetic way. But also in a way expeessingsome drustration that there were just so many and thag tbis can't be a good use of public omney.
Here is a piercing and very relevant question from a Reform MP, on this exact point
“I questioned the Labour Minister in the House on whether assaulting British family farms for £520 million a year is the right thing to do when £3 billion last year was spent on hotels for illegal migrants.
Absolute madness. And this insane bill is only going to get worse. Labour hasn’t got a clue
I'd say that's neither piercing nor relevant - it's a standard bit of Reform UK attention seeking designed to stir up the lobotomised mouth breathers who suffer from perma-outrage. I get it on Lee Anderson's social media channels all the time.
The £3 billion was the bill incurred by the Conservatives in 2022/3 who chose not to operate the system effectively for whatever reason, and ransacked the ODA budget to pay for their warehousing of immigrants. Nothing whatsoever to do with the new Government, who have not been in power long enough to make any difference beyond a few leading indicators.
It's a parallel to the current Conservative technique of trying to blame the new Labour Government for the things they did not do, or did do, themselves.
Rupert Lowe MP is relying on his supporters being thick. Or, possibly, he's thick himself.
I listened to that whole Q&A session and Angela Eagle was quite impressive.
Quite a few on here have been raising questions about the adequacy of Kamala for a few years, suggesting that she was unpopular, perceived as unattractively left wing, not desperately effective; showing polling evidence (HYUFD of course) that she'd fail to beat Trump. Some posters confused this with enthusiasm for Trump; but in most cases it was nothing of the sort; just frustration that the Dems had a senile old duffer backed up by someone unlikely to win an election, and had boxed themselves into an election-losing position against a desperately unattractive republican alternative. The whole episode has panned out as many on here thought it would.
I'm heading over to NY shortly so I am hearing that I should be prepared for a tippeganza.
If you’re used to posh bits of NYC you likely won’t notice a difference
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
It's noticeable however that both accommodation and eating out are significantly more expensive on the east coast than in the mid west (except for obviously pricey places like some of the Colorado resorts).
The other thing that seems to work in the US but not in Europe is checking the hotel prices during my trip - cancelling and re-booking the room a week or two beforehand can often be significantly cheaper than it was when booked well ahead. In Europe prices tend to move the other way, or places are full.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
The most common factor, however, was the economy - specifically, inflation. "Out here, you pay $5 for a dozen eggs. It used to be $1, or even 99 cents," Mr Negron added
I would be surprised if a dozen eggs was 99c in 2020, but telling people stock market is at all time high and GDP is growing is a tricky sell when people are seeing massive food inflation.
I've seen multiple stories about people in the US eating out less often because they can't afford to do so.
And this is the US where eating out is for many people something they used to do x times a week...
Yes. I have mentioned this. US culture is you grab food on the go for several meals of the day and eat out a lot more than here.
Mrs U was in the US last month and came back going WTF at cost of eating out, even cheapo chains. Where as it used to be too cheap if anything. And the tipping on top. 20% minimum.
Taking your kids to McDonalds and it costing $50...that is proper shock.
Worth remember, what did Trump as a stunt, he read out the Cheesecake Factory Menu and the price increases. For those that don't know, The Cheesecake Factory is what lower and middle class Americans think as the place to go for a nice special occasion meal. Everybody knows that chain and it is very popular.
One of my American friends was saying that fast food has become so expensive in LA that it's now better to get a takeaway from casual dining restaurants because the price difference is so small now.
She's moving to London in March and staying with us for a few weeks while she gets her own place sorted out but she was saying one of the things she's looking forwards to most is not having to pay 25-30% tips.
I need to go to the US for an extended period next year, currently looking at accommodation options and feeling ill just looking at those costs...let alone the constant tipping that is totally out of control now (despite minimum wage levels rises significantly in lots of states).
The most irritating aren't so much the restaurant servers, where you're expecting it, but the shops and ticket counters and other such purchases where you get offered a tip choice, which is increasingly common.
Tipping on self service checkout machines....
That is crazy. I bet people happily tip on these as well.
The most common factor, however, was the economy - specifically, inflation. "Out here, you pay $5 for a dozen eggs. It used to be $1, or even 99 cents," Mr Negron added
I would be surprised if a dozen eggs was 99c in 2020, but telling people stock market is at all time high and GDP is growing is a tricky sell when people are seeing massive food inflation.
I've seen multiple stories about people in the US eating out less often because they can't afford to do so.
And this is the US where eating out is for many people something they used to do x times a week...
Yes. I have mentioned this. US culture is you grab food on the go for several meals of the day and eat out a lot more than here.
Mrs U was in the US last month and came back going WTF at cost of eating out, even cheapo chains. Where as it used to be too cheap if anything. And the tipping on top. 20% minimum.
Taking your kids to McDonalds and it costing $50...that is proper shock.
Worth remember, what did Trump as a stunt, he read out the Cheesecake Factory Menu and the price increases. For those that don't know, The Cheesecake Factory is what lower and middle class Americans think as the place to go for a nice special occasion meal. Everybody knows that chain and it is very popular.
One of my American friends was saying that fast food has become so expensive in LA that it's now better to get a takeaway from casual dining restaurants because the price difference is so small now.
She's moving to London in March and staying with us for a few weeks while she gets her own place sorted out but she was saying one of the things she's looking forwards to most is not having to pay 25-30% tips.
I need to go to the US for an extended period next year, currently looking at accommodation options and feeling ill just looking at those costs...let alone the constant tipping that is totally out of control now (despite minimum wage levels rises significantly in lots of states).
The most irritating aren't so much the restaurant servers, where you're expecting it, but the shops and ticket counters and other such purchases where you get offered a tip choice, which is increasingly common.
Tipping on self service checkout machines....
Which is a real thing. And I’ve heard Americans defend it - “well someone had to get the produce from the warehouse to the store so you can self checkout”
THEN PAY THEM A FUCKING DECENT WAGE
The thing is in quite a few states now the minimum wage is actually pretty high, they have basically doubled it in many West coast states.
I saw a couple of youtube videos on this. Again be careful what you wish for.
$20 an hour for a fast food worker is not bad, especially if they then get tips.
Bret Stephens, a conservative who reluctantly supported Harris, gives his verdict on where Dems need to go:
"The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency."
"Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change."
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
Oasis face value tickets for Chicago and New Jersey were far cheaper (£64 plus fees) than the UK.
Oasis tickets on Stubhub for Chicago are £160
So, no, I don't think they would be saying "wow thats cheap".
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
It's noticeable however that both accommodation and eating out are significantly more expensive on the east coast than in the mid west (except for obviously pricey places like some of the Colorado resorts).
The other thing that seems to work in the US but not in Europe is checking the hotel prices during my trip - cancelling and re-booking the room a week or two beforehand can often be significantly cheaper than it was when booked well ahead.
Well in the past two years I’ve done long Deep South trips, Midwest to DC and back trips, and a bit of the west coast - and it felt onerous everywhere
It’s sad - for travellers - because America is a great country and Americans are great people but as a pro I cannot recommend America as a destination. Not at the moment. Unless you’re loaded it’s not worth the heavy costs
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
Oasis face value tickets for Chicago and New Jersey were far cheaper (£64 plus fees) than the UK.
Oasis tickets on Stubhub for Chicago are £160
So, no, I don't think they would be saying "wow thats cheap".
But Oasis aren't a big deal in the US. Look up a legendary US artist equivalent to Oasis in the UK and see the cost and particularly the increase. And of course because of LiveNation monopoly, really hard to ever get the tickets at face value.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
Deport 10m immigrants, and that will also be large parts of the agricultural sector. At which point Trump's "I will abolish inflation" will be recognised alongside Brown's 'abolishing' of boom and bust.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
Bryson Dechambeau, the well-known golf player, was part of Trump's victory do.
May he get the yips and never win another tournament.
Nice to see you've changed that avatar.
Where are the beans ??!!
They'll be back but I'm not exactly full of them atm.
Well done you for showing up after the election result. Not everyone, after making such a monumental tool of themselves, would have returned so soon after the event.
Well done for welcoming him back with your customary grace.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Employ your own butler. Then you can deduct the amount you’ve paid him in tips from his wages.
Can someone please confirm that a swing of approx 1% in just three key states would have won Harris the election and the three states were Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Just checking for a friend who doesn't believe me.
Yes, I make PA the tipping point state which Trump is 1.9% ahead with 98% counted according to AP
When you looks the results "Trump PV, Harris EC" was by no means the worst long odds bet in the world.
I'm heading over to NY shortly so I am hearing that I should be prepared for a tippeganza.
If you’re used to posh bits of NYC you likely won’t notice a difference
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
Wow seems bonkers although this time round I won't indeed be buying beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee but thanks for the heads up.
And speaking of the square states I will always remember fondly when as a starter in Kentucky one time I ordered "Potato skins" and was brought sixteen full halves of potato (so eight potatoes in all), not hollowed out but deep fried and then slathered in all the stuff you would expect, sour cream, bacon, whatnot.
On abortion, are there not lots of people who find boths extremes repellent? OTOH we have people saying 'Never', OTOH we have people basically speaking enthusiastically about what a great right it is to terminate unborn life because you want to in a context in which there are huge numbers of them, mostly entirely healthy.
While articulating a middle way between these two feels both intrusive into private lives and individual suffering, and also hard to pitch rightly, I wonder whether quite a lot of people are put off by the extremes on both sides, and have a very strong instinct that it should be both allowable but also much less routine or common.
One of these extremes only appears to exist as a fantasy. I've not seen the people enthusiastically calling for late abortions on a whim. I say that as someone steeped in the pro-choice movement (both parents + 1 godparent worked on the 1968 Abortion Act in the UK and the campaign leading up to it).
The reality of late abortion is that it is something women only do in extreme and rare situations. I am very happy to leave those difficult decisions up to the women involved and their healthcare teams. That's basically the approach that works in the UK. Late abortions are very rare; women aren't dying because healthcare staff are scared of being jailed (as now happens regularly in the US).
Govern et al. (2024; https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q1729 ) in the BMJ summarise the current US situation, although teasing out the effect of COVID-19 and changes in the law are complicated.
Without commenting on the rights and wrongs of the abortion law for that first case, that article jumps to a lot of conclusions about what was not an abortion but possibly poorer care following an abortion taken in a nine week pregnancy with a pill. Not really what is claimed.
I'm genuinely surprised that medics don't give life-saving help and to hell with the risk of a jury convicting them.
It probably ends up being down to them having no insurance though...
It’s not all about immediate crisis situations. It can be about someone has a problem, but isn’t imminently at risk, so you put off doing something because of the legal environment. But those delays increase the risks.
But women with sepsis being sent home because a doctor won't do a D&C because it might look like they have performed an abortion is just hideously wrong on so many levels. How does it sit wth the hippocratic oath?
"Avoid causing harm: Do not intentionally harm patients, and do not give them lethal drugs or abortifacients."
Is sending someone home to die in breach of the oath? Especially when they cannot administer anything that would cause an abortion?
It is questions like that which have led to maternity clinics simply shuttering in red states which have passed the more draconian abortion bans.
It's just not worth it for OBGYNs to risk their licenses on a regular basis (however they might decide) - so they move states.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper ticket.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
The most common factor, however, was the economy - specifically, inflation. "Out here, you pay $5 for a dozen eggs. It used to be $1, or even 99 cents," Mr Negron added
I would be surprised if a dozen eggs was 99c in 2020, but telling people stock market is at all time high and GDP is growing is a tricky sell when people are seeing massive food inflation.
I've seen multiple stories about people in the US eating out less often because they can't afford to do so.
And this is the US where eating out is for many people something they used to do x times a week...
Yes. I have mentioned this. US culture is you grab food on the go for several meals of the day and eat out a lot more than here.
Mrs U was in the US last month and came back going WTF at cost of eating out, even cheapo chains. Where as it used to be too cheap if anything. And the tipping on top. 20% minimum.
Taking your kids to McDonalds and it costing $50...that is proper shock.
Worth remember, what did Trump as a stunt, he read out the Cheesecake Factory Menu and the price increases. For those that don't know, The Cheesecake Factory is what lower and middle class Americans think as the place to go for a nice special occasion meal. Everybody knows that chain and it is very popular.
One of my American friends was saying that fast food has become so expensive in LA that it's now better to get a takeaway from casual dining restaurants because the price difference is so small now.
She's moving to London in March and staying with us for a few weeks while she gets her own place sorted out but she was saying one of the things she's looking forwards to most is not having to pay 25-30% tips.
I need to go to the US for an extended period next year, currently looking at accommodation options and feeling ill just looking at those costs...let alone the constant tipping that is totally out of control now (despite minimum wage levels rises significantly in lots of states).
The most irritating aren't so much the restaurant servers, where you're expecting it, but the shops and ticket counters and other such purchases where you get offered a tip choice, which is increasingly common.
A shop. So you buy a pair of shoes or some groceries and they expect a tip ? What about self service. Do you tip then ?
You've been over in the US recently. Is it getting worse ?
More common, for sure.
I bought a bar of Cadbury's and some pet treats in an 'English shop' in old Colorado Springs, just because I was passing, and the total space was left blank for a tip. I told her that no genuine English shop would expect a tip just for selling stuff, and it was bad enough that the tax is extra.
In a West Virginia golf resort hotel, the breakfast was entirely self-service; get your own food, get your own coffee - the only thing the female server hanging about brought me was the bill, yet there was still a tip expectation of 20%.
The interesting thing is that Americans themselves are starting to complain about the spread of the tipping culture from restaurants - where they expect it and think it's reasonable (partly because a very high proportion of them were servers for a while when young or as side jobs when a student) to over-the-counter transactions and the like.
In the end - and quite soon - it will destroy their international tourism industry. Which is probably a decent sized single digit chunk of US GDP
In 2019, international tourism was 0.95% of US GDP. Domestic tourism is about an order of magnitude greater.
This shouldn't be surprising. The population of the US is large, the country is large, creating lots of tourism opportunities for it's own population, and it's a long way from most other rich countries that are sources of tourists.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
World of difference between Ney York, LA and all the space in between.
Most of the Motel 6's along Route 66 are between $60 and $100 in May next year
I'm heading over to NY shortly so I am hearing that I should be prepared for a tippeganza.
If you’re used to posh bits of NYC you likely won’t notice a difference
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
Is it fair to term this the Ryanairisation of the US restaurant trade?
You want a knife and fork - that'll be two dollars? Salt and pepper - one dollar? Here's a list ...
I'm heading over to NY shortly so I am hearing that I should be prepared for a tippeganza.
If you’re used to posh bits of NYC you likely won’t notice a difference
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
Wow seems bonkers although this time round I won't indeed be buying beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee but thanks for the heads up.
And speaking of the square states I will always remember fondly when as a starter in Kentucky one time I ordered "Potato skins" and was brought sixteen full halves of potato (so eight potatoes in all), not hollowed out but deep fried and then slathered in all the stuff you would expect, sour cream, bacon, whatnot.
As a starter. I then had the burger.
Bliss.
I do love the flyover states. Lost roads in Alabama or Arkansas or Mississippi
You can get lost in America - in your own car - like nowhere else on earth
Bret Stephens, a conservative who reluctantly supported Harris, gives his verdict on where Dems need to go:
"The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency."
"Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change."
I'm heading over to NY shortly so I am hearing that I should be prepared for a tippeganza.
If you’re used to posh bits of NYC you likely won’t notice a difference
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
Wow seems bonkers although this time round I won't indeed be buying beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee but thanks for the heads up.
And speaking of the square states I will always remember fondly when as a starter in Kentucky one time I ordered "Potato skins" and was brought sixteen full halves of potato (so eight potatoes in all), not hollowed out but deep fried and then slathered in all the stuff you would expect, sour cream, bacon, whatnot.
As a starter. I then had the burger.
Bliss.
I do love the flyover states. Lost roads in Alabama or Arkansas or Mississippi
You can get lost in America - in your own car - like nowhere else on earth
I'm heading over to NY shortly so I am hearing that I should be prepared for a tippeganza.
If you’re used to posh bits of NYC you likely won’t notice a difference
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
Is it fair to term this the Ryanairisation of the US restaurant trade?
You want a knife and fork - that'll be two dollars? Salt and pepper - one dollar? Here's a list ...
It is the Ryanairisation of everything. Remember of course the US invented this model before RyanAir.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper premium.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
Alton Towers walk up including their top priced fast track (Platinum) is over £200 per person...for a single day.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper ticket.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
If I have it right Football Season tickets for the Premiership and League One vary between about £500 and £3000.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper premium.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
Alton Towers walk up including their top priced fast track (Platinum) is over £200 per person...for a single day.
Which is expensive, but half the price. And if you go to Florida on your holidays, you want to do all the parks, Disney, Universal, etc. And yes you can buy multi-day passes that are cheaper on a per day basis. But its not just the entry, every single thing you touch is insane pricing, plus tip...20% on every f##king thing you do on top of the sticker price.
The point is loads of working class Brits used to go to Florida for what was really quite affordable holiday. In fact lots bought holiday homes because it was actually pretty cost effective place to go for sunshine and loads of demand from other Brits to rent out your property.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper ticket.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
If I have it right Football Season tickets for the Premiership and League One vary between about £500 and £3000.
I'm heading over to NY shortly so I am hearing that I should be prepared for a tippeganza.
If you’re used to posh bits of NYC you likely won’t notice a difference
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
Is it fair to term this the Ryanairisation of the US restaurant trade?
You want a knife and fork - that'll be two dollars? Salt and pepper - one dollar? Here's a list ...
It is the Ryanairisation of everything. Remember of course the US invented this model before RyanAir.
OK. The Southwestisation of everything, if I remember by Low Cost Airline history correctly.
Were any Usonian ones actually before Laker Airlines ?
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper ticket.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
If I have it right Football Season tickets for the Premiership and League One vary between about £500 and £3000.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper ticket.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
If I have it right Football Season tickets for the Premiership and League One vary between about £500 and £3000.
TBF Accrington Stanley are a bit less than that.
I assume those prices do not include the pies.
Accrington Stanley? Who are they?
I have a vague feeling of being ambushed here, so I'm holding my peace.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper premium.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
Alton Towers walk up including their top priced fast track (Platinum) is over £200 per person...for a single day.
Which is expensive, but half the price. And if you go to Florida on your holidays, you want to do all the parks, Disney, Universal, etc. And yes you can buy multi-day passes that are cheaper on a per day basis.
The point is loads of working class Brits used to go to Florida for what was really quite affordable holiday. It ain't cheap now.
I thoroughly recommend reading his book 'Goliath' (which is only published in the US sadly, but is probably available on Amazon in the UK). His thesis, which I find compelling, is that one of the actual threats to democracy isn't (surprisingly) 'trans people or illegals', but monopolistic businesses who put their own dictators into power to prevent anti-trust policies or regulation that promotes competition (and thus keeps costs down).
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
It's noticeable however that both accommodation and eating out are significantly more expensive on the east coast than in the mid west (except for obviously pricey places like some of the Colorado resorts).
The other thing that seems to work in the US but not in Europe is checking the hotel prices during my trip - cancelling and re-booking the room a week or two beforehand can often be significantly cheaper than it was when booked well ahead. In Europe prices tend to move the other way, or places are full.
Worth noting that booking.com makes this semi-automatic. Book a refundable room, then re-book a non refundable room a couple of days before arriving, and you will be prompted to automatically cancel the first one.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper premium.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
Alton Towers walk up including their top priced fast track (Platinum) is over £200 per person...for a single day.
Which is expensive, but half the price. And if you go to Florida on your holidays, you want to do all the parks, Disney, Universal, etc. And yes you can buy multi-day passes that are cheaper on a per day basis.
The point is loads of working class Brits used to go to Florida for what was really quite affordable holiday. It ain't cheap now.
I thoroughly recommend reading his book 'Goliath' (which is only published in the US sadly, but is probably available on Amazon in the UK). His thesis, which I find compelling, is that one of the actual threats to democracy isn't (surprisingly) 'trans people or illegals', but monopolistic businesses who put their own dictators into power to prevent anti-trust policies or regulation that promotes competition (and thus keeps costs down).
The problems in the US are largely the result of unfettered capitalism, but they've just voted for even less fettered capitalism.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper ticket.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
If I have it right Football Season tickets for the Premiership and League One vary between about £500 and £3000.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
Oasis face value tickets for Chicago and New Jersey were far cheaper (£64 plus fees) than the UK.
Oasis tickets on Stubhub for Chicago are £160
So, no, I don't think they would be saying "wow thats cheap".
But Oasis aren't a big deal in the US. Look up a legendary US artist equivalent to Oasis in the UK and see the cost and particularly the increase. And of course because of LiveNation monopoly, really hard to ever get the tickets at face value.
Taylor Swift face value tickets in USA were cheaper...it's a fair point to say Live Nation restricts them though.
Billy Joel ?
Las Vegas started at about £50
Anfield next summer were generally £175 although a handful of obstructed views at about £90
Springsteen ?
Cheaper in Pittsburgh, Syracuse or Albany this year than tickets in Liverpool or Manchester next year.
Probably the only difference is the USA has a far bigger pool of people prepared to pay "dynamic" prices.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper premium.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
Alton Towers walk up including their top priced fast track (Platinum) is over £200 per person...for a single day.
Which is expensive, but half the price. And if you go to Florida on your holidays, you want to do all the parks, Disney, Universal, etc. And yes you can buy multi-day passes that are cheaper on a per day basis.
The point is loads of working class Brits used to go to Florida for what was really quite affordable holiday. It ain't cheap now.
I thoroughly recommend reading his book 'Goliath' (which is only published in the US sadly, but is probably available on Amazon in the UK). His thesis, which I find compelling, is that one of the actual threats to democracy isn't (surprisingly) 'trans people or illegals', but monopolistic businesses who put their own dictators into power to prevent anti-trust policies or regulation that promotes competition (and thus keeps costs down).
There was a report a couple of years ago where a journalist sat in on loads of the earnings calls. And the analysts were asking are you worried about the effect on inflation on your business. The response was basically, no, its actually very helpful, inflation has been so low for so long, that any movement in price is noticed by consumers and every company is afraid to be the first mover. When pricing are rising rapidly, consumers don't notice the exact amounts, they aren't keeping track if it 4.5% or 5.6% increase.
With this articles, they provided charts and it showed that many of these companies where basically making up for all the "lost" inflation they didn't add onto costs during 2010s and then some more on top.
The duo/monopoly aspect obviously allowed even more of this and this is particularly problematic in the US. Capitalism requires fair markets.
Bret Stephens, a conservative who reluctantly supported Harris, gives his verdict on where Dems need to go:
"The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency."
"Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change."
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
Oasis face value tickets for Chicago and New Jersey were far cheaper (£64 plus fees) than the UK.
Oasis tickets on Stubhub for Chicago are £160
So, no, I don't think they would be saying "wow thats cheap".
But Oasis aren't a big deal in the US. Look up a legendary US artist equivalent to Oasis in the UK and see the cost and particularly the increase. And of course because of LiveNation monopoly, really hard to ever get the tickets at face value.
Taylor Swift face value tickets in USA were cheaper...it's a fair point to say Live Nation restricts them though.
Billy Joel ?
Las Vegas started at about £50
Anfield next summer were generally £175 although a handful of obstructed views at about £90
Springsteen ?
Cheaper in Pittsburgh, Syracuse or Albany this year than tickets in Liverpool or Manchester next year.
Probably the only difference is the USA has a far bigger pool of people prepared to pay "dynamic" prices.
But nobody gets the face value because of dynamic pricing and the way LiveNation is very naughty about restricting primary supply going straight to secondary market.
I'm heading over to NY shortly so I am hearing that I should be prepared for a tippeganza.
If you’re used to posh bits of NYC you likely won’t notice a difference
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
Wow seems bonkers although this time round I won't indeed be buying beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee but thanks for the heads up.
And speaking of the square states I will always remember fondly when as a starter in Kentucky one time I ordered "Potato skins" and was brought sixteen full halves of potato (so eight potatoes in all), not hollowed out but deep fried and then slathered in all the stuff you would expect, sour cream, bacon, whatnot.
As a starter. I then had the burger.
Bliss.
I do love the flyover states. Lost roads in Alabama or Arkansas or Mississippi
You can get lost in America - in your own car - like nowhere else on earth
For me what is so interesting is the road trip from Lexington to Cumberland Gap. In Lexington it is all white picket fences, immaculately manicured paddocks and "horse farms" as they call them ie tons of money. As you head south you see people selling their socks on the porch, literally dirt poor.
On abortion, are there not lots of people who find boths extremes repellent? OTOH we have people saying 'Never', OTOH we have people basically speaking enthusiastically about what a great right it is to terminate unborn life because you want to in a context in which there are huge numbers of them, mostly entirely healthy.
While articulating a middle way between these two feels both intrusive into private lives and individual suffering, and also hard to pitch rightly, I wonder whether quite a lot of people are put off by the extremes on both sides, and have a very strong instinct that it should be both allowable but also much less routine or common.
One of these extremes only appears to exist as a fantasy. I've not seen the people enthusiastically calling for late abortions on a whim. I say that as someone steeped in the pro-choice movement (both parents + 1 godparent worked on the 1968 Abortion Act in the UK and the campaign leading up to it).
The reality of late abortion is that it is something women only do in extreme and rare situations. I am very happy to leave those difficult decisions up to the women involved and their healthcare teams. That's basically the approach that works in the UK. Late abortions are very rare; women aren't dying because healthcare staff are scared of being jailed (as now happens regularly in the US).
Govern et al. (2024; https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q1729 ) in the BMJ summarise the current US situation, although teasing out the effect of COVID-19 and changes in the law are complicated.
Without commenting on the rights and wrongs of the abortion law for that first case, that article jumps to a lot of conclusions about what was not an abortion but possibly poorer care following an abortion taken in a nine week pregnancy with a pill. Not really what is claimed.
I'm genuinely surprised that medics don't give life-saving help and to hell with the risk of a jury convicting them.
It probably ends up being down to them having no insurance though...
It’s not all about immediate crisis situations. It can be about someone has a problem, but isn’t imminently at risk, so you put off doing something because of the legal environment. But those delays increase the risks.
But women with sepsis being sent home because a doctor won't do a D&C because it might look like they have performed an abortion is just hideously wrong on so many levels. How does it sit wth the hippocratic oath?
"Avoid causing harm: Do not intentionally harm patients, and do not give them lethal drugs or abortifacients."
Is sending someone home to die in breach of the oath? Especially when they cannot administer anything that would cause an abortion?
Bret Stephens, a conservative who reluctantly supported Harris, gives his verdict on where Dems need to go:
"The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency."
"Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change."
Bryson Dechambeau, the well-known golf player, was part of Trump's victory do.
May he get the yips and never win another tournament.
Nice to see you've changed that avatar.
Where are the beans ??!!
They'll be back but I'm not exactly full of them atm.
Well done you for showing up after the election result. Not everyone, after making such a monumental tool of themselves, would have returned so soon after the event.
A few hours kip works wonders.
To be fair it's 72,701,692 (and counting) people over the pond who've made tools of themselves. Except, no, that is not fair. It's victim blaming. Donald Trump is a conman extraordinaire.
In any case it's their prerogative, isn't it. It was a free and fair election and this is who they want as their president. Just as individuals have the right to make bad choices so do countries.
Interesting how he doesn't seem to have mentioned that in the interview he did *before* the election.
Like I said before, prediction market behaviour is hard to read because to an external observer a rich moron looks the same as someone with inside information, and if you've got inside information it's in your interests to try to look like a rich moron.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper ticket.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
If I have it right Football Season tickets for the Premiership and League One vary between about £500 and £3000.
I'm heading over to NY shortly so I am hearing that I should be prepared for a tippeganza.
If you’re used to posh bits of NYC you likely won’t notice a difference
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
Wow seems bonkers although this time round I won't indeed be buying beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee but thanks for the heads up.
And speaking of the square states I will always remember fondly when as a starter in Kentucky one time I ordered "Potato skins" and was brought sixteen full halves of potato (so eight potatoes in all), not hollowed out but deep fried and then slathered in all the stuff you would expect, sour cream, bacon, whatnot.
As a starter. I then had the burger.
Bliss.
I do love the flyover states. Lost roads in Alabama or Arkansas or Mississippi
You can get lost in America - in your own car - like nowhere else on earth
For me what is so interesting is the road trip from Lexington to Cumberland Gap. In Lexington it is all white picket fences, immaculately manicured paddocks and "horse farms" as they call them ie tons of money. As you head south you see people selling their socks on the porch, literally dirt poor.
Tennessee is a surprisingly wonderful place (despite the usual American woes)
Glorious untouched countryside. Much of it overlooked by travellers
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper premium.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
Alton Towers walk up including their top priced fast track (Platinum) is over £200 per person...for a single day.
Which is expensive, but half the price. And if you go to Florida on your holidays, you want to do all the parks, Disney, Universal, etc. And yes you can buy multi-day passes that are cheaper on a per day basis. But its not just the entry, every single thing you touch is insane pricing, plus tip...20% on every f##king thing you do on top of the sticker price.
The point is loads of working class Brits used to go to Florida for what was really quite affordable holiday. In fact lots bought holiday homes because it was actually pretty cost effective place to go for sunshine and loads of demand from other Brits to rent out your property.
No one NEEDS fast track.
They weren't even a thing when I was a kid.
Disney world is about £500 for 7 days (any days out of 14).
No one does a park every day.
Take your own F&B - just not in glass
2 weeks B&B in Benidorn for a family of 4 in the school hols is £5k minimum
Bret Stephens, a conservative who reluctantly supported Harris, gives his verdict on where Dems need to go:
"The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency."
"Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change."
Bryson Dechambeau, the well-known golf player, was part of Trump's victory do.
May he get the yips and never win another tournament.
Nice to see you've changed that avatar.
Where are the beans ??!!
They'll be back but I'm not exactly full of them atm.
Well done you for showing up after the election result. Not everyone, after making such a monumental tool of themselves, would have returned so soon after the event.
A few hours kip works wonders.
To be fair it's 72,701,692 (and counting) people over the pond who've made tools of themselves. Except, no, that is not fair. It's victim blaming. Donald Trump is a conman extraordinaire.
In any case it's their prerogative, isn't it. It was a free and fair election and this is who they want as their president. Just as individuals have the right to make bad choices so do countries.
Well that's as maybe but on this site we are supposed to bring dispassionate and incisive analysis to these kind of situations so I'm ever so slightly disappointed to see that you are trying to blame others for your failure in this regard.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper ticket.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
If I have it right Football Season tickets for the Premiership and League One vary between about £500 and £3000.
TBF Accrington Stanley are a bit less than that.
I assume those prices do not include the pies.
Accrington Stanley? Who are they?
I have a vague feeling of being ambushed here, so I'm holding my peace.
I'm heading over to NY shortly so I am hearing that I should be prepared for a tippeganza.
If you’re used to posh bits of NYC you likely won’t notice a difference
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
Wow seems bonkers although this time round I won't indeed be buying beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee but thanks for the heads up.
And speaking of the square states I will always remember fondly when as a starter in Kentucky one time I ordered "Potato skins" and was brought sixteen full halves of potato (so eight potatoes in all), not hollowed out but deep fried and then slathered in all the stuff you would expect, sour cream, bacon, whatnot.
As a starter. I then had the burger.
Bliss.
I do love the flyover states. Lost roads in Alabama or Arkansas or Mississippi
You can get lost in America - in your own car - like nowhere else on earth
For me what is so interesting is the road trip from Lexington to Cumberland Gap. In Lexington it is all white picket fences, immaculately manicured paddocks and "horse farms" as they call them ie tons of money. As you head south you see people selling their socks on the porch, literally dirt poor.
Tennessee is a surprisingly wonderful place (despite the usual American woes)
Glorious untouched countryside. Much of it overlooked by travellers
Reminds me of Aveyron in France
When I went *** ******* in Kentucky it was easy to think of what pre-industrial rural Britain would have been like. Grass for as far as you can see, untouched as you say, and seemingly without end.
Retained EU legislation which the tories kept after Brexit.
Actually, it doesn't appear that it was. Also, note the contribution to delay as well as the cost.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/07/cost-of-shed-to-protect-bat-colony-near-hs2-has-topped-100m-chair-says ...He said the “bat shed” was his favourite example of the problems caused. Thompson said the Bechstein’s bat was not protected elsewhere and “generally pretty available in most of northern Europe, western Europe. But nevertheless, under the Wildlife Act, 1981, it’s deemed to be a protected species in the UK, this bat, even though there’s lots of them.”
Thomson added: “No evidence, by the way, that high speed trains interfere with bats, but leave it on one side.”
HS2 had to obtain a licence from Natural England, which approved the bat mitigation structure, before asking planning permission from Buckinghamshire county council, he said.
“So when we go to [the] council and say: ‘Would you like to give us planning permission for this blot on the landscape that costs £100m’, of course, the answer to that is, you’ve got to be joking, right? Why would [they] like this eyesore?
“So now I’ve got two different bodies. One says I have to do it. The other one says: ‘No chance’. So what do you do? I reach for the lawyers and the environmental specialists and hydrologists and so on and so forth. It stretches out the time. I spend hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to do something, and then in the end, I win the planning commission by going over [the county council’s] head.”..
Bryson Dechambeau, the well-known golf player, was part of Trump's victory do.
May he get the yips and never win another tournament.
Nice to see you've changed that avatar.
Where are the beans ??!!
They'll be back but I'm not exactly full of them atm.
Well done you for showing up after the election result. Not everyone, after making such a monumental tool of themselves, would have returned so soon after the event.
A few hours kip works wonders.
To be fair it's 72,701,692 (and counting) people over the pond who've made tools of themselves. Except, no, that is not fair. It's victim blaming. Donald Trump is a conman extraordinaire.
In any case it's their prerogative, isn't it. It was a free and fair election and this is who they want as their president. Just as individuals have the right to make bad choices so do countries.
Well that's as maybe but on this site we are supposed to bring dispassionate and incisive analysis to these kind of situations so I'm ever so slightly disappointed to see that you are trying to blame others for your failure in this regard.
I'm not sure that @kinabalu did make a "monumental tool" of himself. He thought Kamala would win. She did not. It's an error but it reaches the threshold for "well that was a bit dumb", not "you're a monumental tool".
Trump talks to Macron before Starmer. Cold revenge
This Labour government is so utterly useless
Economically Macron is right of Starmer and less woke albeit neither are keen on Trump's tariffs and both wary of Trump's less hostile approach to Putin
Bryson Dechambeau, the well-known golf player, was part of Trump's victory do.
May he get the yips and never win another tournament.
Nice to see you've changed that avatar.
Where are the beans ??!!
They'll be back but I'm not exactly full of them atm.
Well done you for showing up after the election result. Not everyone, after making such a monumental tool of themselves, would have returned so soon after the event.
A few hours kip works wonders.
To be fair it's 72,701,692 (and counting) people over the pond who've made tools of themselves. Except, no, that is not fair. It's victim blaming. Donald Trump is a conman extraordinaire.
In any case it's their prerogative, isn't it. It was a free and fair election and this is who they want as their president. Just as individuals have the right to make bad choices so do countries.
Well that's as maybe but on this site we are supposed to bring dispassionate and incisive analysis to these kind of situations so I'm ever so slightly disappointed to see that you are trying to blame others for your failure in this regard.
I'm not sure that @kinabalu did make a "monumental tool" of himself. He thought Kamala would win. She did not. It's an error but it reaches the threshold for "well that was a bit dumb", not "you're a monumental tool".
Topping likes his needly banter. Misses the barracks, I think.
I see progressivist educational liturgy is now at the heart of government policy:
"Schools should end their ‘tunnel vision’ on exam results and think about student wellbeing more, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is expected to say today."
I'm heading over to NY shortly so I am hearing that I should be prepared for a tippeganza.
If you’re used to posh bits of NYC you likely won’t notice a difference
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
Wow seems bonkers although this time round I won't indeed be buying beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee but thanks for the heads up.
And speaking of the square states I will always remember fondly when as a starter in Kentucky one time I ordered "Potato skins" and was brought sixteen full halves of potato (so eight potatoes in all), not hollowed out but deep fried and then slathered in all the stuff you would expect, sour cream, bacon, whatnot.
As a starter. I then had the burger.
Bliss.
I do love the flyover states. Lost roads in Alabama or Arkansas or Mississippi
You can get lost in America - in your own car - like nowhere else on earth
For me what is so interesting is the road trip from Lexington to Cumberland Gap. In Lexington it is all white picket fences, immaculately manicured paddocks and "horse farms" as they call them ie tons of money. As you head south you see people selling their socks on the porch, literally dirt poor.
Tennessee is a surprisingly wonderful place (despite the usual American woes)
Glorious untouched countryside. Much of it overlooked by travellers
Reminds me of Aveyron in France
When I went *** ******* in Kentucky it was easy to think of what pre-industrial rural Britain would have been like. Grass for as far as you can see, untouched as you say, and seemingly without end.
I once spent a day working in our firm's office in Nashville, and a colleague came into my office wearing a sequinned cowboy hat.
I agree the rustic scenery in Tennessee is rather bucolic. As soon as you get into Alabama it changes somewhat. From clapperboarded churches and white picket fences to cotton fields and trailers.
Bryson Dechambeau, the well-known golf player, was part of Trump's victory do.
May he get the yips and never win another tournament.
Nice to see you've changed that avatar.
Where are the beans ??!!
They'll be back but I'm not exactly full of them atm.
Well done you for showing up after the election result. Not everyone, after making such a monumental tool of themselves, would have returned so soon after the event.
A few hours kip works wonders.
To be fair it's 72,701,692 (and counting) people over the pond who've made tools of themselves. Except, no, that is not fair. It's victim blaming. Donald Trump is a conman extraordinaire.
In any case it's their prerogative, isn't it. It was a free and fair election and this is who they want as their president. Just as individuals have the right to make bad choices so do countries.
Well that's as maybe but on this site we are supposed to bring dispassionate and incisive analysis to these kind of situations so I'm ever so slightly disappointed to see that you are trying to blame others for your failure in this regard.
So we have that - disappointment - in common at least.
Bryson Dechambeau, the well-known golf player, was part of Trump's victory do.
May he get the yips and never win another tournament.
Nice to see you've changed that avatar.
Where are the beans ??!!
They'll be back but I'm not exactly full of them atm.
Well done you for showing up after the election result. Not everyone, after making such a monumental tool of themselves, would have returned so soon after the event.
A few hours kip works wonders.
To be fair it's 72,701,692 (and counting) people over the pond who've made tools of themselves. Except, no, that is not fair. It's victim blaming. Donald Trump is a conman extraordinaire.
In any case it's their prerogative, isn't it. It was a free and fair election and this is who they want as their president. Just as individuals have the right to make bad choices so do countries.
Well that's as maybe but on this site we are supposed to bring dispassionate and incisive analysis to these kind of situations so I'm ever so slightly disappointed to see that you are trying to blame others for your failure in this regard.
I'm not sure that @kinabalu did make a "monumental tool" of himself. He thought Kamala would win. She did not. It's an error but it reaches the threshold for "well that was a bit dumb", not "you're a monumental tool".
Topping likes his needly banter. Misses the barracks, I think.
LOL I think monumental tool sums it up quite well.
Bret Stephens, a conservative who reluctantly supported Harris, gives his verdict on where Dems need to go:
"The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency."
"Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change."
Trump talks to Macron before Starmer. Cold revenge
This Labour government is so utterly useless
Economically Macron is right of Starmer and less woke albeit neither are keen on Trump's tariffs and both wary of Trump's less hostile approach to Putin
"On 6 November, Olaf Scholz fired Christian Lindner as finance minister. The decision marks the formal end of the three-party coalition – between the Social Democrats (SDP), Greens and Free Democratic Party (FDP), the latter of which Lindner leads. Hr was fired after refusing to accept Scholz’s order to declare a state of fiscal emergency that would allow the government to bypass the rules of the debt brake, which limits the government’s ability to borrow money. Scholz went on national TV to declare that he wants to set aside money to support Ukraine, and for an increase in defence spending that has now become necessary after the victory of Trump. He also said he would not accept a trade-off of taking funds earmarked for social policies. This will be the theme of the election campaign – and the new dividing line in German politics."
Looks like Germany is returning to traditional dividing lines with the FDP joining the CDU in opposition and the SDP staying in power for now with the Greens.
At the moment the AfD share though means neither block likely gets a majority at the next Federal election, so the likeliest outcome is another CDU and SPD grand coalition again as was the case from 2005-2009 and 2009-2021
The SPD would surely be extremely reluctant to join another grand coalition as the junior partner. It could be the death of them. Is a CDU/CSU coalition with the AfD still out of the question?
Zero chance of the CDU/CSU having anything at all to do with the AfD in this or the next parliament. If the SPD don't want (or maybe even if they do), CDU/CSU + Greens would be an alternative coalition - if they had the numbers. If Union + Greens isn't enough for a majority the SPD would (I'd assume) go into another grand coalition whether they want to or not.
I would imagine the Greens would be even less willing to go into a grand coalition with the CDU/CSU ideologically than the SPD are
On abortion, are there not lots of people who find boths extremes repellent? OTOH we have people saying 'Never', OTOH we have people basically speaking enthusiastically about what a great right it is to terminate unborn life because you want to in a context in which there are huge numbers of them, mostly entirely healthy.
While articulating a middle way between these two feels both intrusive into private lives and individual suffering, and also hard to pitch rightly, I wonder whether quite a lot of people are put off by the extremes on both sides, and have a very strong instinct that it should be both allowable but also much less routine or common.
One of these extremes only appears to exist as a fantasy. I've not seen the people enthusiastically calling for late abortions on a whim. I say that as someone steeped in the pro-choice movement (both parents + 1 godparent worked on the 1968 Abortion Act in the UK and the campaign leading up to it).
The reality of late abortion is that it is something women only do in extreme and rare situations. I am very happy to leave those difficult decisions up to the women involved and their healthcare teams. That's basically the approach that works in the UK. Late abortions are very rare; women aren't dying because healthcare staff are scared of being jailed (as now happens regularly in the US).
Govern et al. (2024; https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q1729 ) in the BMJ summarise the current US situation, although teasing out the effect of COVID-19 and changes in the law are complicated.
Without commenting on the rights and wrongs of the abortion law for that first case, that article jumps to a lot of conclusions about what was not an abortion but possibly poorer care following an abortion taken in a nine week pregnancy with a pill. Not really what is claimed.
I'm genuinely surprised that medics don't give life-saving help and to hell with the risk of a jury convicting them.
It probably ends up being down to them having no insurance though...
It’s not all about immediate crisis situations. It can be about someone has a problem, but isn’t imminently at risk, so you put off doing something because of the legal environment. But those delays increase the risks.
But women with sepsis being sent home because a doctor won't do a D&C because it might look like they have performed an abortion is just hideously wrong on so many levels. How does it sit wth the hippocratic oath?
"Avoid causing harm: Do not intentionally harm patients, and do not give them lethal drugs or abortifacients."
Is sending someone home to die in breach of the oath? Especially when they cannot administer anything that would cause an abortion?
Its all utter conjecture.
You've been presented with ample evidence that it's a real issue.
Another thing that I know a lot of Americans are complaining about. Ticket prices for everything. With COVID shut downs, plus inflation, plus monopoly of LiveNation, ticket prices are insane in the US. And then the cost of everything at the venue, plus tip....
People were moaning about £300 for Oasis here, I think most Americans would be going, wow, that's cheap.
And cheap motels. Motel 6 etc. Which used to be $50 and are suddenly $250 (plus tips)
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
And don't get me started on AirBnB.....Nightly Rate $199, plus cleaning fee, plus the fee on the cleaning fee, plus transaction fee, plus credit card fee on the transaction fee, plus the tax, plus the tip, plus the fine for not putting the garbage the correct 27 different bins each night you stay....that will be $499.
Yes. Oh god yes. I’ve had the same experience. Hideous and blatant gouging. Fuck them
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
Mrs U and I over the years have needed to go to the US a lot for work and often for extended periods. 10 years ago we would always tack on a trip, to see friends, family or just hang out and do tourism. Whichever partner wasn't out there, often join them for this.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
They seem to afford their football season tickets.
A family day out in Fascist Mouse Land is now more than a football season ticket (obviously unless you want Starmer level seats)....especially if you actually want to go on all the rides, because you have to buy the premium queue jumper ticket.
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
If I have it right Football Season tickets for the Premiership and League One vary between about £500 and £3000.
TBF Accrington Stanley are a bit less than that.
I assume those prices do not include the pies.
Accrington Stanley? Who are they?
I have a vague feeling of being ambushed here, so I'm holding my peace.
Young Casino: Fancy a drink? Young Sunil: Got any Quorn? Young Casino: If you want. [goes to fridge and takes a bottle of Quorn for Sunil, and a bottle of meat for himself] Young Sunil: Meat? UGH! Young Casino: It's what Ian Rush drinks! Young Sunil: Ian Rush?? Young Casino: Yeah, and he said, when I grow up, if I didn't drink lots of meat, I wouldn't be good enough to play for the Liberal Democrats! Young Sunil: Liberal Democrats? Who are they? Young Casino: Exactly!
Retained EU legislation which the tories kept after Brexit.
Actually, it doesn't appear that it was. Also, note the contribution to delay as well as the cost.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/07/cost-of-shed-to-protect-bat-colony-near-hs2-has-topped-100m-chair-says ...He said the “bat shed” was his favourite example of the problems caused. Thompson said the Bechstein’s bat was not protected elsewhere and “generally pretty available in most of northern Europe, western Europe. But nevertheless, under the Wildlife Act, 1981, it’s deemed to be a protected species in the UK, this bat, even though there’s lots of them.”
Thomson added: “No evidence, by the way, that high speed trains interfere with bats, but leave it on one side.”
HS2 had to obtain a licence from Natural England, which approved the bat mitigation structure, before asking planning permission from Buckinghamshire county council, he said.
“So when we go to [the] council and say: ‘Would you like to give us planning permission for this blot on the landscape that costs £100m’, of course, the answer to that is, you’ve got to be joking, right? Why would [they] like this eyesore?
“So now I’ve got two different bodies. One says I have to do it. The other one says: ‘No chance’. So what do you do? I reach for the lawyers and the environmental specialists and hydrologists and so on and so forth. It stretches out the time. I spend hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to do something, and then in the end, I win the planning commission by going over [the county council’s] head.”..
Does any other nation on earth bother with this nonsense ? I mean it's a bat. HS2 doesn't pass through that often; the bats might fly into the tunnel and still get hit by the train.
Trump talks to Macron before Starmer. Cold revenge
This Labour government is so utterly useless
Economically Macron is right of Starmer and less woke albeit neither are keen on Trump's tariffs and both wary of Trump's less hostile approach to Putin
Under Trump’s first presidency his first state visit was to France (two years before the UK one - if I can correctly recall - sure Trump loved the parade put on for him). So obviously the Tories “were so utterly useless” then? Or maybe the order of calls or indeed visits is not massively important. It’s the deeds that matter.
Also I seem to recall last time Trump took a call from Taiwan - somewhat annoying China / and presumably against the advice of the US diplomatic apparatus who still cling to the “One China” Nixonian approach.
Bryson Dechambeau, the well-known golf player, was part of Trump's victory do.
May he get the yips and never win another tournament.
Nice to see you've changed that avatar.
Where are the beans ??!!
They'll be back but I'm not exactly full of them atm.
Well done you for showing up after the election result. Not everyone, after making such a monumental tool of themselves, would have returned so soon after the event.
A few hours kip works wonders.
To be fair it's 72,701,692 (and counting) people over the pond who've made tools of themselves. Except, no, that is not fair. It's victim blaming. Donald Trump is a conman extraordinaire.
In any case it's their prerogative, isn't it. It was a free and fair election and this is who they want as their president. Just as individuals have the right to make bad choices so do countries.
Well that's as maybe but on this site we are supposed to bring dispassionate and incisive analysis to these kind of situations so I'm ever so slightly disappointed to see that you are trying to blame others for your failure in this regard.
I'm not sure that @kinabalu did make a "monumental tool" of himself. He thought Kamala would win. She did not. It's an error but it reaches the threshold for "well that was a bit dumb", not "you're a monumental tool".
Kinabalu had been very vocal, for a very long time, about his confidence that Trump wouldn't be a candidate in the election that he's now won.
I think he knows that it's fair he receives a bit of ribbing for that now.
Bret Stephens, a conservative who reluctantly supported Harris, gives his verdict on where Dems need to go:
"The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency."
"Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change."
Retained EU legislation which the tories kept after Brexit.
Actually, it doesn't appear that it was. Also, note the contribution to delay as well as the cost.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/07/cost-of-shed-to-protect-bat-colony-near-hs2-has-topped-100m-chair-says ...He said the “bat shed” was his favourite example of the problems caused. Thompson said the Bechstein’s bat was not protected elsewhere and “generally pretty available in most of northern Europe, western Europe. But nevertheless, under the Wildlife Act, 1981, it’s deemed to be a protected species in the UK, this bat, even though there’s lots of them.”
Thomson added: “No evidence, by the way, that high speed trains interfere with bats, but leave it on one side.”
HS2 had to obtain a licence from Natural England, which approved the bat mitigation structure, before asking planning permission from Buckinghamshire county council, he said.
“So when we go to [the] council and say: ‘Would you like to give us planning permission for this blot on the landscape that costs £100m’, of course, the answer to that is, you’ve got to be joking, right? Why would [they] like this eyesore?
“So now I’ve got two different bodies. One says I have to do it. The other one says: ‘No chance’. So what do you do? I reach for the lawyers and the environmental specialists and hydrologists and so on and so forth. It stretches out the time. I spend hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to do something, and then in the end, I win the planning commission by going over [the county council’s] head.”..
They are definitely a European protected species.
If you make a clearing in a woodland to put a railway through, they will almost certainly fly up and down it.
However - for £100m you could do some serious habitat restoration elsewhere. Would using even a 1/10th of that to plant or manage some woodland for bats elsewhere be better than some ridiculously expensive bodge that might save a few individuals?
Bret Stephens, a conservative who reluctantly supported Harris, gives his verdict on where Dems need to go:
"The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency."
"Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change."
Trump talks to Macron before Starmer. Cold revenge
This Labour government is so utterly useless
Economically Macron is right of Starmer and less woke albeit neither are keen on Trump's tariffs and both wary of Trump's less hostile approach to Putin
Under Trump’s first presidency his first state visit was to France (two years before the UK one - if I can correctly recall - sure Trump loved the parade put on for him). So obviously the Tories “were so utterly useless” then? Or maybe the order of calls or indeed visits is not massively important. It’s the deeds that matter.
Also I seem to recall last time Trump took a call from Taiwan - somewhat annoying China / and presumably against the advice of the US diplomatic apparatus who still cling to the “One China” Nixonian approach.
Trump does what Trump does
France is the US's oldest ally, united by a common enemy.
Comments
"The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency."
"Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/opinion/donald-trump-defeat-democrats.html
I bought a bar of Cadbury's and some pet treats in an 'English shop' in old Colorado Springs, just because I was passing, and the total space was left blank for a tip. I told her that no genuine English shop would expect a tip just for selling stuff, and it was bad enough that the tax is extra.
In a West Virginia golf resort hotel, the breakfast was entirely self-service; get your own food, get your own coffee - the only thing the female server hanging about brought me was the bill, yet there was still a tip expectation of 20%.
The interesting thing is that Americans themselves are starting to complain about the spread of the tipping culture from restaurants - where they expect it and think it's reasonable (partly because a very high proportion of them were servers for a while when young or as side jobs when a student) to over-the-counter transactions and the like.
Turning the great American road trip - a wonderful demotic thing - into a luxury (which is tragic)
"Avoid causing harm: Do not intentionally harm patients, and do not give them lethal drugs or abortifacients."
Is sending someone home to die in breach of the oath? Especially when they cannot administer anything that would cause an abortion?
My youngest (now an ADULT) is upstairs crying because the hairdresser has cut an inch or so too much off her hair.. I mean. For Christ's sake. Nothing I say will help.
Think of those in Trump's America.
The £3 billion was the bill incurred by the Conservatives in 2022/3 who chose not to operate the system effectively for whatever reason, and ransacked the ODA budget to pay for their warehousing of immigrants. Nothing whatsoever to do with the new Government, who have not been in power long enough to make any difference beyond a few leading indicators.
It's a parallel to the current Conservative technique of trying to blame the new Labour Government for the things they did not do, or did do, themselves.
Rupert Lowe MP is relying on his supporters being thick. Or, possibly, he's thick himself.
I listened to that whole Q&A session and Angela Eagle was quite impressive.
The change is the spread beyond the big glam cities and into every single possible transaction. Buy some beef jerky in a gas station in Tennessee and your card transaction will have a tipping option - 15-30% - and it’s not obvious how you say No Tip
And you’re tipping someone who literally just pressed a button on a till or scanned your jerky
The other thing that seems to work in the US but not in Europe is checking the hotel prices during my trip - cancelling and re-booking the room a week or two beforehand can often be significantly cheaper than it was when booked well ahead. In Europe prices tend to move the other way, or places are full.
I seriously have no great desire to return to the USA unless it is some gilded press trip and I get a personal robot butler (who doesn’t require tips)
...Which is why Orban scooted off sharpish when he saw Starmer's limo pulling up.
$20 an hour for a fast food worker is not bad, especially if they then get tips.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2024/03/26/california-minimum-wage-jobs/73107149007/
Any conservative who denies that is deluding themselves.
We haven't done that since COVID because of the cost of it, and we are fortunate to earn good money. I can't see how Joe Bloggs, who used to take the family to Florida to see Mickey Mouse, is affording that these days.
Oasis face value tickets for Chicago and New Jersey were far cheaper (£64 plus fees) than the UK.
Oasis tickets on Stubhub for Chicago are £160
So, no, I don't think they would be saying "wow thats cheap".
It’s sad - for travellers - because America is a great country and Americans are great people but as a pro I cannot recommend America as a destination. Not at the moment. Unless you’re loaded it’s not worth the heavy costs
At which point Trump's "I will abolish inflation" will be recognised alongside Brown's 'abolishing' of boom and bust.
And speaking of the square states I will always remember fondly when as a starter in Kentucky one time I ordered "Potato skins" and was brought sixteen full halves of potato (so eight potatoes in all), not hollowed out but deep fried and then slathered in all the stuff you would expect, sour cream, bacon, whatnot.
As a starter. I then had the burger.
Bliss.
It's just not worth it for OBGYNs to risk their licenses on a regular basis (however they might decide) - so they move states.
This Labour government is so utterly useless
https://www.google.co.uk/search?cs=0&q=2024+United+States+presidential+election&si=ACC90nyWw_5GPxZyH252nBTWOVq0UhOv-_rTs3Gr4G2tMA_7tA8TWPYR-b7MO0ZnR6z4djImUiyf4KGqyUAK7S1UnJP20M1z5VV0FfV2ZsvUjdElsQBfzWWg3vVKKZHXhsqDj2ITkemPZc1A2Pp6OBHaQUjAV7AU3mw5TAL-xz8SsA7h5KFULb2H1PTY4dTnj9OXKqYdllBj&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7_7TE2ciJAxVOX0EAHbxMJxgQ99QDegYIAAgAEBI&biw=1272&bih=602&dpr=1.5
Apols for the hideous URL!
Magic Kingdom with lightening lane pass is $450 per person in peak season...for a single day. Then obviously they want all the fizzy drinks, candy, a toy.
This shouldn't be surprising. The population of the US is large, the country is large, creating lots of tourism opportunities for it's own population, and it's a long way from most other rich countries that are sources of tourists.
Most of the Motel 6's along Route 66 are between $60 and $100 in May next year
You want a knife and fork - that'll be two dollars? Salt and pepper - one dollar? Here's a list ...
You can get lost in America - in your own car - like nowhere else on earth
Will Labour get this, or not ?
"Britain’s HS2 rail line spent £100mn building an arch over the railway to protect overflying bats from hitting its trains.
"Thompson, who became chair in 2023, said the bat measure was just one of 8,276 consents HS2 needed."
High infrastructure costs are a policy choice.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu/status/1854518510082306063
TBF Accrington Stanley are a bit less than that.
I assume those prices do not include the pies.
The point is loads of working class Brits used to go to Florida for what was really quite affordable holiday. In fact lots bought holiday homes because it was actually pretty cost effective place to go for sunshine and loads of demand from other Brits to rent out your property.
Were any Usonian ones actually before Laker Airlines ?
I thoroughly recommend reading his book 'Goliath' (which is only published in the US sadly, but is probably available on Amazon in the UK). His thesis, which I find compelling, is that one of the actual threats to democracy isn't (surprisingly) 'trans people or illegals', but monopolistic businesses who put their own dictators into power to prevent anti-trust policies or regulation that promotes competition (and thus keeps costs down).
Billy Joel ?
Las Vegas started at about £50
Anfield next summer were generally £175 although a handful of obstructed views at about £90
Springsteen ?
Cheaper in Pittsburgh, Syracuse or Albany this year than tickets in Liverpool or Manchester next year.
Probably the only difference is the USA has a far bigger pool of people prepared to pay "dynamic" prices.
With this articles, they provided charts and it showed that many of these companies where basically making up for all the "lost" inflation they didn't add onto costs during 2010s and then some more on top.
The duo/monopoly aspect obviously allowed even more of this and this is particularly problematic in the US. Capitalism requires fair markets.
Half of the conversations started with "I've got this bat...".
I always wondered what proportion of encounters was actually reported. 10%? 5%? 1%?
It used to be that bat surveys involved sitting out all night but it has got a lot easier now with remote ultrasound recording and "AI" processing.
Which no doubt means that more bats are found...
In this case it seems they had Bechstein's, which pretty much confined to southern England. Protected species under the European Habitat Directive.
To be fair it's 72,701,692 (and counting) people over the pond who've made tools of themselves. Except, no, that is not fair. It's victim blaming. Donald Trump is a conman extraordinaire.
In any case it's their prerogative, isn't it. It was a free and fair election and this is who they want as their president. Just as individuals have the right to make bad choices so do countries.
Like I said before, prediction market behaviour is hard to read because to an external observer a rich moron looks the same as someone with inside information, and if you've got inside information it's in your interests to try to look like a rich moron.
Glorious untouched countryside. Much of it overlooked by travellers
Reminds me of Aveyron in France
They weren't even a thing when I was a kid.
Disney world is about £500 for 7 days (any days out of 14).
No one does a park every day.
Take your own F&B - just not in glass
2 weeks B&B in Benidorn for a family of 4 in the school hols is £5k minimum
Counter-intuitive or what?!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/royals/article-14032483/Meghan-Prince-Harrys-Portugal-investing-Netflix-millions-property-portfolio.html
Also, note the contribution to delay as well as the cost.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/07/cost-of-shed-to-protect-bat-colony-near-hs2-has-topped-100m-chair-says
...He said the “bat shed” was his favourite example of the problems caused. Thompson said the Bechstein’s bat was not protected elsewhere and “generally pretty available in most of northern Europe, western Europe. But nevertheless, under the Wildlife Act, 1981, it’s deemed to be a protected species in the UK, this bat, even though there’s lots of them.”
Thomson added: “No evidence, by the way, that high speed trains interfere with bats, but leave it on one side.”
HS2 had to obtain a licence from Natural England, which approved the bat mitigation structure, before asking planning permission from Buckinghamshire county council, he said.
“So when we go to [the] council and say: ‘Would you like to give us planning permission for this blot on the landscape that costs £100m’, of course, the answer to that is, you’ve got to be joking, right? Why would [they] like this eyesore?
“So now I’ve got two different bodies. One says I have to do it. The other one says: ‘No chance’. So what do you do? I reach for the lawyers and the environmental specialists and hydrologists and so on and so forth. It stretches out the time. I spend hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to do something, and then in the end, I win the planning commission by going over [the county council’s] head.”..
"Schools should end their ‘tunnel vision’ on exam results and think about student wellbeing more, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is expected to say today."
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/nov/06/phillipson-to-ask-schools-to-end-exam-tunnel-vision-and-look-to-wellbeing?status=Active&utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH 20241107 House ads HT+CID_310fdaa8b6106fcdd6ed713af1dc02ea
I agree the rustic scenery in Tennessee is rather bucolic. As soon as you get into Alabama it changes somewhat. From clapperboarded churches and white picket fences to cotton fields and trailers.
Young Sunil: Got any Quorn?
Young Casino: If you want.
[goes to fridge and takes a bottle of Quorn for Sunil, and a bottle of meat for himself]
Young Sunil: Meat? UGH!
Young Casino: It's what Ian Rush drinks!
Young Sunil: Ian Rush??
Young Casino: Yeah, and he said, when I grow up, if I didn't drink lots of meat, I wouldn't be good enough to play for the Liberal Democrats!
Young Sunil: Liberal Democrats? Who are they?
Young Casino: Exactly!
Also I seem to recall last time Trump took a call from Taiwan - somewhat annoying China / and presumably against the advice of the US diplomatic apparatus who still cling to the “One China” Nixonian approach.
Trump does what Trump does
I think he knows that it's fair he receives a bit of ribbing for that now.
If you make a clearing in a woodland to put a railway through, they will almost certainly fly up and down it.
However - for £100m you could do some serious habitat restoration elsewhere. Would using even a 1/10th of that to plant or manage some woodland for bats elsewhere be better than some ridiculously expensive bodge that might save a few individuals?