New top civil servant Chris Wormald is ‘safe pair of hands’ but ‘devoid of charisma’
It was time, Keir Starmer said, for a “complete re-wiring of the British state”. But in the very same announcement he unveiled Chris Wormald, the epitome of a safe, low-key career government official, as his new chief civil servant. Hardly the man for a hard reset. So which one is it?
The official added: “I sat in hours of meetings with him and he was fundamentally an observer, and very rarely committed thoughts of any substance. His appointment personifies the failing upwards culture that makes so many of us want to leave the civil service.”
You can understand why Starmer has picked him.
An experienced bureaucrat makes sense as a choice for chief bureaucrat. Obviously when politicians talk about hard resets they don't mean it, but you can still achieve a lot if a) you really want to, and b) you harness the bureaucracy.
Might not be as satisfying as smashing the system, but substantial changes can be achieved.
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
We did "hope". It's dark, but going to get better. If anyone at Number Ten wants to borrow the resources, let me know.
But there's some weird physics that offsets earliest sunset (quite soon), shortest day (just before Christmas), and latest sunrise (early January). I mean, it works, and I know it works, but no I can't explain why it's so. Swirly whirly stuff. There's about twenty minutes still to come off the mornings before we properly start to lumber back towards spring.
Society really should go back to December being quiet contemplation and January party time. That's when we need it.
I'd happily move Christmas 20 days later. To the point when it genuinely does start to feel lighter. Because for me, dark mornings are a much bigger downer than dark evenings. Also, I love Nov and early Dec on their own merits. They don't need brightening up, for me.
On Advent Calendars: There was a Brian Bikston I saw yesterday to the effect of "kids these days will never know the excitement and joy of opening an advent calendar and discovering a picture of a bell". I have a been in my bonnet about this. I like chocolate - but have never found a chocolate advent calendar an objectively more enjoyable experience than an old fashioned picture one. The joy is the anticipation. There's none of that with a chocolate advent calendar. You know what you're going to get. And it's about gleefully ticking off the days, not having chocolate. And don't get me started on gift advent calendars; still worse gift advent calendars for adults. I am neither ascetic nor religious nor anticapitalistic, but even I think this is far, far, far too much.
You're turning into a Scrooge in your old age.
There's a joy of anticipation in chocolate advent calendars, yes you know you're getting a chocolate, but you don't know what one. In some it'll be shapes, eg maybe a bell as you mentioned or something else and it'll be different on different days. Oh and in most calendars you still get a picture or something else behind the door.
Never had a calendar where every day is the same.
As for gift advent calendars for adults - they're fun. Why is it too much? I've had a cheese one previously my wife got me in a previous year, I loved it. I got her a gin one in a previous year, she loved it. Again, didn't know what we'd get each day.
It's too much because you're ramping up something which is already exviting*, at a time of year which is already pleasant, and at a time when you are struggling to think of and indeed afford just the right presents for your loved ones. Even if you won't accept my argument about the natural serene beauty of early December, December is already fun. There's something on each day. Think how much more you'd enjoy a cheese/gin a day through the bleak and uneventful month of January.
* Caitlin Moran once made the complaint about people who try to layer unnecessary extra layers of excitement in top of things which are already exciting - like, though obviously I have no knowledge of this, men who say things like "Yes I'm really GIVING it to you" whike they have sex. A more prosaic example I fiavour is a carrot cake with a little icing carrot on the top. It's already a carrot cake , it's already exciting. The confectionery carrot doesn't make it any more either of these things.
New top civil servant Chris Wormald is ‘safe pair of hands’ but ‘devoid of charisma’
It was time, Keir Starmer said, for a “complete re-wiring of the British state”. But in the very same announcement he unveiled Chris Wormald, the epitome of a safe, low-key career government official, as his new chief civil servant. Hardly the man for a hard reset. So which one is it?
The official added: “I sat in hours of meetings with him and he was fundamentally an observer, and very rarely committed thoughts of any substance. His appointment personifies the failing upwards culture that makes so many of us want to leave the civil service.”
You can understand why Starmer has picked him.
“A complete rewiring of the British state”. Why is Starmer so relentlessly CRINGE? Is it too much of a “big ask” for him to say something that doesn’t make testicles shrivel in embarrassment seven light years away?
Also, the idea that the British state is going to be rewired by Sir Keir Starmer, the absolute embodiment of the British state in all its effete Woke mediocrity, is so absurd ir almost goes beyond cringe into something newly and interestingly worse than that, but it doesn’t quite make it, because Starmer is so fucking CRINGE
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
We did "hope". It's dark, but going to get better. If anyone at Number Ten wants to borrow the resources, let me know.
But there's some weird physics that offsets earliest sunset (quite soon), shortest day (just before Christmas), and latest sunrise (early January). I mean, it works, and I know it works, but no I can't explain why it's so. Swirly whirly stuff. There's about twenty minutes still to come off the mornings before we properly start to lumber back towards spring.
Society really should go back to December being quiet contemplation and January party time. That's when we need it.
I'd happily move Christmas 20 days later. To the point when it genuinely does start to feel lighter. Because for me, dark mornings are a much bigger downer than dark evenings. Also, I love Nov and early Dec on their own merits. They don't need brightening up, for me.
On Advent Calendars: There was a Brian Bikston I saw yesterday to the effect of "kids these days will never know the excitement and joy of opening an advent calendar and discovering a picture of a bell". I have a been in my bonnet about this. I like chocolate - but have never found a chocolate advent calendar an objectively more enjoyable experience than an old fashioned picture one. The joy is the anticipation. There's none of that with a chocolate advent calendar. You know what you're going to get. And it's about gleefully ticking off the days, not having chocolate. And don't get me started on gift advent calendars; still worse gift advent calendars for adults. I am neither ascetic nor religious nor anticapitalistic, but even I think this is far, far, far too much.
You're turning into a Scrooge in your old age.
There's a joy of anticipation in chocolate advent calendars, yes you know you're getting a chocolate, but you don't know what one. In some it'll be shapes, eg maybe a bell as you mentioned or something else and it'll be different on different days. Oh and in most calendars you still get a picture or something else behind the door.
Never had a calendar where every day is the same.
As for gift advent calendars for adults - they're fun. Why is it too much? I've had a cheese one previously my wife got me in a previous year, I loved it. I got her a gin one in a previous year, she loved it. Again, didn't know what we'd get each day.
It's too much because you're ramping up something which is already exviting*, at a time of year which is already pleasant, and at a time when you are struggling to think of and indeed afford just the right presents for your loved ones. Even if you won't accept my argument about the natural serene beauty of early December, December is already fun. There's something on each day. Think how much more you'd enjoy a cheese/gin a day through the bleak and uneventful month of January.
* Caitlin Moran once made the complaint about people who try to layer unnecessary extra layers of excitement in top of things which are already exciting - like, though obviously I have no knowledge of this, men who say things like "Yes I'm really GIVING it to you" whike they have sex. A more prosaic example I fiavour is a carrot cake with a little icing carrot on the top. It's already a carrot cake , it's already exciting. The confectionery carrot doesn't make it any more either of these things.
I vehemently disagree. All the traditions that add up, piled on top of other traditions, in a great chaotic mishmash is part of what makes December so memorable and unique.
When my daughter was 2 her grandparents in Canada got her/us a gift of Elf on the Shelf as a new Christmas tradition, which now a lot of people do. That for us now has rocketed up to being one of the main traditions in our house - with the kids waking up excited every morning to see what the Elves have done, then open their advent calendars - and ending the day with my wife cursing as to what the bloody Elves should be up to tonight.
Forget counting down to Christmas, our kids for the last few weeks have been counting down to the return of the Elves.
December was fun for us as kids without that, but adding things (done right) in makes it more magical not less.
New top civil servant Chris Wormald is ‘safe pair of hands’ but ‘devoid of charisma’
It was time, Keir Starmer said, for a “complete re-wiring of the British state”. But in the very same announcement he unveiled Chris Wormald, the epitome of a safe, low-key career government official, as his new chief civil servant. Hardly the man for a hard reset. So which one is it?
The official added: “I sat in hours of meetings with him and he was fundamentally an observer, and very rarely committed thoughts of any substance. His appointment personifies the failing upwards culture that makes so many of us want to leave the civil service.”
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
We did "hope". It's dark, but going to get better. If anyone at Number Ten wants to borrow the resources, let me know.
But there's some weird physics that offsets earliest sunset (quite soon), shortest day (just before Christmas), and latest sunrise (early January). I mean, it works, and I know it works, but no I can't explain why it's so. Swirly whirly stuff. There's about twenty minutes still to come off the mornings before we properly start to lumber back towards spring.
Society really should go back to December being quiet contemplation and January party time. That's when we need it.
Go on Stu - have a go at explaining the physics of what’s going on with the return of the light. It’s interesting. It’s our natural rhythms, like you said, December should be about contemplation and enjoying natural stillness, not orgy of consumerism, excess, and loud partying.
If anyone can explain “swirly whirly” physics, we are looking to you.
I love taking walks this time of year.
F*** that.
December should be about excess, loud partying, music, bright lights and spending time with family and friends.
Not any shite like contemplation, stillness or any of that crap.
Then you are missing something. The natural rhythm of the world about us is December is so uniquely still.
Sound boring.
The hectic nature of December, especially with kids, is part of its charm.
From Halloween to Christmas has been pretty non-stop for us, and then you get to the Christmas/New Year break and just switch off at last.
And then you stare into the bleak hollow pitiless eyes of January, a villain determined to violently assault you, and behind him is February, wielding a cosh
There's only about three and a half weeks of brutality. By the time you get to late January, the trajectory is so firmly in the direction of light that joy returns to the world. To my world, at least. I rather like Chinese New Year, which feels like exactly the right time for New Year.
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
We did "hope". It's dark, but going to get better. If anyone at Number Ten wants to borrow the resources, let me know.
But there's some weird physics that offsets earliest sunset (quite soon), shortest day (just before Christmas), and latest sunrise (early January). I mean, it works, and I know it works, but no I can't explain why it's so. Swirly whirly stuff. There's about twenty minutes still to come off the mornings before we properly start to lumber back towards spring.
Society really should go back to December being quiet contemplation and January party time. That's when we need it.
Go on Stu - have a go at explaining the physics of what’s going on with the return of the light. It’s interesting. It’s our natural rhythms, like you said, December should be about contemplation and enjoying natural stillness, not orgy of consumerism, excess, and loud partying.
If anyone can explain “swirly whirly” physics, we are looking to you.
I love taking walks this time of year.
F*** that.
December should be about excess, loud partying, music, bright lights and spending time with family and friends.
Not any shite like contemplation, stillness or any of that crap.
Then you are missing something. The natural rhythm of the world about us is December is so uniquely still.
Sound boring.
The hectic nature of December, especially with kids, is part of its charm.
From Halloween to Christmas has been pretty non-stop for us, and then you get to the Christmas/New Year break and just switch off at last.
And then you stare into the bleak hollow pitiless eyes of January, a villain determined to violently assault you, and behind him is February, wielding a cosh
There's only about three and a half weeks of brutality. By the time you get to late January, the trajectory is so firmly in the direction of light that joy returns to the world. To my world, at least. I rather like Chinese New Year, which feels like exactly the right time for New Year.
Agreed about the light, which is why it makes sense to have festivals where they are.
January is miserable, but we've bills to pay and are recovering from fun. Then when that ends, the light is coming back and we're heading into Spring, which is fun in its own right with Easter thrown in too.
Then its summer, that's just good in its own right too.
Then the weather starts to turn, its a shame that summer is over, but we've got a whole season of festivities that gets us through the worsening weather.
Our season of festivities begins on 1 October with the beginning of the month of Halloween, ending with the main event on the 31st. Then the clocks change, but we don't have time to get upset about early nights as its fireworks. Pause for Remembrance. Then its go, go, go for Christmas.
The whole of Autumn to winter is one long festival and I love it.
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
We did "hope". It's dark, but going to get better. If anyone at Number Ten wants to borrow the resources, let me know.
But there's some weird physics that offsets earliest sunset (quite soon), shortest day (just before Christmas), and latest sunrise (early January). I mean, it works, and I know it works, but no I can't explain why it's so. Swirly whirly stuff. There's about twenty minutes still to come off the mornings before we properly start to lumber back towards spring.
Society really should go back to December being quiet contemplation and January party time. That's when we need it.
Go on Stu - have a go at explaining the physics of what’s going on with the return of the light. It’s interesting. It’s our natural rhythms, like you said, December should be about contemplation and enjoying natural stillness, not orgy of consumerism, excess, and loud partying.
If anyone can explain “swirly whirly” physics, we are looking to you.
I love taking walks this time of year.
F*** that.
December should be about excess, loud partying, music, bright lights and spending time with family and friends.
Not any shite like contemplation, stillness or any of that crap.
Then you are missing something. The natural rhythm of the world about us is December is so uniquely still.
Sound boring.
The hectic nature of December, especially with kids, is part of its charm.
From Halloween to Christmas has been pretty non-stop for us, and then you get to the Christmas/New Year break and just switch off at last.
And then you stare into the bleak hollow pitiless eyes of January, a villain determined to violently assault you, and behind him is February, wielding a cosh
There's only about three and a half weeks of brutality. By the time you get to late January, the trajectory is so firmly in the direction of light that joy returns to the world. To my world, at least. I rather like Chinese New Year, which feels like exactly the right time for New Year.
We have firmly established that I get SAD much worse than you; I genuinely get miserable after just a fortnight of British winter weather, ie anything from late November to early March, quite a large chunk of the year. December is somehow tolerable because of Xmas, that said
In a sense my whole life has been a search for the perfect climate, to solve my SAD, but of course it does not exist
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
We did "hope". It's dark, but going to get better. If anyone at Number Ten wants to borrow the resources, let me know.
But there's some weird physics that offsets earliest sunset (quite soon), shortest day (just before Christmas), and latest sunrise (early January). I mean, it works, and I know it works, but no I can't explain why it's so. Swirly whirly stuff. There's about twenty minutes still to come off the mornings before we properly start to lumber back towards spring.
Society really should go back to December being quiet contemplation and January party time. That's when we need it.
Go on Stu - have a go at explaining the physics of what’s going on with the return of the light. It’s interesting. It’s our natural rhythms, like you said, December should be about contemplation and enjoying natural stillness, not orgy of consumerism, excess, and loud partying.
If anyone can explain “swirly whirly” physics, we are looking to you.
I love taking walks this time of year.
F*** that.
December should be about excess, loud partying, music, bright lights and spending time with family and friends.
Not any shite like contemplation, stillness or any of that crap.
Then you are missing something. The natural rhythm of the world about us is December is so uniquely still.
Sound boring.
The hectic nature of December, especially with kids, is part of its charm.
From Halloween to Christmas has been pretty non-stop for us, and then you get to the Christmas/New Year break and just switch off at last.
And then you stare into the bleak hollow pitiless eyes of January, a villain determined to violently assault you, and behind him is February, wielding a cosh
There's only about three and a half weeks of brutality. By the time you get to late January, the trajectory is so firmly in the direction of light that joy returns to the world. To my world, at least. I rather like Chinese New Year, which feels like exactly the right time for New Year.
Yes. A Wood Snake year is coming. I’m hoping inner strength and new beginnings will be good for me.
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
We did "hope". It's dark, but going to get better. If anyone at Number Ten wants to borrow the resources, let me know.
But there's some weird physics that offsets earliest sunset (quite soon), shortest day (just before Christmas), and latest sunrise (early January). I mean, it works, and I know it works, but no I can't explain why it's so. Swirly whirly stuff. There's about twenty minutes still to come off the mornings before we properly start to lumber back towards spring.
Society really should go back to December being quiet contemplation and January party time. That's when we need it.
I'd happily move Christmas 20 days later. To the point when it genuinely does start to feel lighter. Because for me, dark mornings are a much bigger downer than dark evenings. Also, I love Nov and early Dec on their own merits. They don't need brightening up, for me.
On Advent Calendars: There was a Brian Bikston I saw yesterday to the effect of "kids these days will never know the excitement and joy of opening an advent calendar and discovering a picture of a bell". I have a been in my bonnet about this. I like chocolate - but have never found a chocolate advent calendar an objectively more enjoyable experience than an old fashioned picture one. The joy is the anticipation. There's none of that with a chocolate advent calendar. You know what you're going to get. And it's about gleefully ticking off the days, not having chocolate. And don't get me started on gift advent calendars; still worse gift advent calendars for adults. I am neither ascetic nor religious nor anticapitalistic, but even I think this is far, far, far too much.
You're turning into a Scrooge in your old age.
There's a joy of anticipation in chocolate advent calendars, yes you know you're getting a chocolate, but you don't know what one. In some it'll be shapes, eg maybe a bell as you mentioned or something else and it'll be different on different days. Oh and in most calendars you still get a picture or something else behind the door.
Never had a calendar where every day is the same.
As for gift advent calendars for adults - they're fun. Why is it too much? I've had a cheese one previously my wife got me in a previous year, I loved it. I got her a gin one in a previous year, she loved it. Again, didn't know what we'd get each day.
It's too much because you're ramping up something which is already exviting*, at a time of year which is already pleasant, and at a time when you are struggling to think of and indeed afford just the right presents for your loved ones. Even if you won't accept my argument about the natural serene beauty of early December, December is already fun. There's something on each day. Think how much more you'd enjoy a cheese/gin a day through the bleak and uneventful month of January.
* Caitlin Moran once made the complaint about people who try to layer unnecessary extra layers of excitement in top of things which are already exciting - like, though obviously I have no knowledge of this, men who say things like "Yes I'm really GIVING it to you" whike they have sex. A more prosaic example I fiavour is a carrot cake with a little icing carrot on the top. It's already a carrot cake , it's already exciting. The confectionery carrot doesn't make it any more either of these things.
I vehemently disagree. All the traditions that add up, piled on top of other traditions, in a great chaotic mishmash is part of what makes December so memorable and unique.
.
Isn't that how all our traditions develop in the first place?
PETER DOOCY: “Tonight, we’re getting new details about that Trump-Trudeau dinner from two people who were at the table. We are told that when @JustinTrudeau told President-elect Trump that new tarrifs would kill the Canadian economy, Trump joked to him that if Canada can’t survive without ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100bn a year then maybe Canada should become the 51st state and Trudeau could become its governor!” @pdoocy tells @BretBaier
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
We did "hope". It's dark, but going to get better. If anyone at Number Ten wants to borrow the resources, let me know.
But there's some weird physics that offsets earliest sunset (quite soon), shortest day (just before Christmas), and latest sunrise (early January). I mean, it works, and I know it works, but no I can't explain why it's so. Swirly whirly stuff. There's about twenty minutes still to come off the mornings before we properly start to lumber back towards spring.
Society really should go back to December being quiet contemplation and January party time. That's when we need it.
I'd happily move Christmas 20 days later. To the point when it genuinely does start to feel lighter. Because for me, dark mornings are a much bigger downer than dark evenings. Also, I love Nov and early Dec on their own merits. They don't need brightening up, for me.
On Advent Calendars: There was a Brian Bikston I saw yesterday to the effect of "kids these days will never know the excitement and joy of opening an advent calendar and discovering a picture of a bell". I have a been in my bonnet about this. I like chocolate - but have never found a chocolate advent calendar an objectively more enjoyable experience than an old fashioned picture one. The joy is the anticipation. There's none of that with a chocolate advent calendar. You know what you're going to get. And it's about gleefully ticking off the days, not having chocolate. And don't get me started on gift advent calendars; still worse gift advent calendars for adults. I am neither ascetic nor religious nor anticapitalistic, but even I think this is far, far, far too much.
I wholeheartedly agree but did randomly buy my wife a posh French cosmetics advent calendar one year. She loved it, and I then struggled to explain why I didn’t repeat the gesture the following year.
I had a yarn advent calendar for the Covid Christmas, but by mutual agreement I started it on Christmas Day, and it continued into January. Much better way round to do those. This is why some of them are 12-day affairs, for the twelve days of Christmas.
Yarn as in cotton? Or a different story each day? I don’t think I’ve had an advent calendar of any shape or form for decades. But I used to like the picture ones (which no longer exist apparently).
Yarn as in wool. This may have been 100% wool, although it was sock weight, which is often a 75% wool, 25% acrylic mix, with the acrylic added for extra strength and better wear.
PETER DOOCY: “Tonight, we’re getting new details about that Trump-Trudeau dinner from two people who were at the table. We are told that when @JustinTrudeau told President-elect Trump that new tarrifs would kill the Canadian economy, Trump joked to him that if Canada can’t survive without ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100bn a year then maybe Canada should become the 51st state and Trudeau could become its governor!” @pdoocy tells @BretBaier
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
We did "hope". It's dark, but going to get better. If anyone at Number Ten wants to borrow the resources, let me know.
But there's some weird physics that offsets earliest sunset (quite soon), shortest day (just before Christmas), and latest sunrise (early January). I mean, it works, and I know it works, but no I can't explain why it's so. Swirly whirly stuff. There's about twenty minutes still to come off the mornings before we properly start to lumber back towards spring.
Society really should go back to December being quiet contemplation and January party time. That's when we need it.
Go on Stu - have a go at explaining the physics of what’s going on with the return of the light. It’s interesting. It’s our natural rhythms, like you said, December should be about contemplation and enjoying natural stillness, not orgy of consumerism, excess, and loud partying.
If anyone can explain “swirly whirly” physics, we are looking to you.
I love taking walks this time of year.
F*** that.
December should be about excess, loud partying, music, bright lights and spending time with family and friends.
Not any shite like contemplation, stillness or any of that crap.
Then you are missing something. The natural rhythm of the world about us is December is so uniquely still.
Sound boring.
The hectic nature of December, especially with kids, is part of its charm.
From Halloween to Christmas has been pretty non-stop for us, and then you get to the Christmas/New Year break and just switch off at last.
And then you stare into the bleak hollow pitiless eyes of January, a villain determined to violently assault you, and behind him is February, wielding a cosh
There's only about three and a half weeks of brutality. By the time you get to late January, the trajectory is so firmly in the direction of light that joy returns to the world. To my world, at least. I rather like Chinese New Year, which feels like exactly the right time for New Year.
We have firmly established that I get SAD much worse than you; I genuinely get miserable after just a fortnight of British winter weather, ie anything from late November to early March, quite a large chunk of the year. December is somehow tolerable because of Xmas, that said
In a sense my whole life has been a search for the perfect climate, to solve my SAD, but of course it does not exist
Yes, we have. I don't mean to make light of it. And I know we're all different. It's a conversation I enjoy because it allows me to enthuse about the various things I like about the winter in this country. Well, the autumn in particular. The astronomical autumn. Maybe I'm just trying to jolly you along. Try to make you see it my way because my way brings more happiness. Maybe it's as doomed as you urging me to religion for the same reason. Sorry if insensitive. If it helps, I really dislike having to get up before dawn.
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
We did "hope". It's dark, but going to get better. If anyone at Number Ten wants to borrow the resources, let me know.
But there's some weird physics that offsets earliest sunset (quite soon), shortest day (just before Christmas), and latest sunrise (early January). I mean, it works, and I know it works, but no I can't explain why it's so. Swirly whirly stuff. There's about twenty minutes still to come off the mornings before we properly start to lumber back towards spring.
Society really should go back to December being quiet contemplation and January party time. That's when we need it.
Go on Stu - have a go at explaining the physics of what’s going on with the return of the light. It’s interesting. It’s our natural rhythms, like you said, December should be about contemplation and enjoying natural stillness, not orgy of consumerism, excess, and loud partying.
If anyone can explain “swirly whirly” physics, we are looking to you.
I love taking walks this time of year.
F*** that.
December should be about excess, loud partying, music, bright lights and spending time with family and friends.
Not any shite like contemplation, stillness or any of that crap.
Then you are missing something. The natural rhythm of the world about us is December is so uniquely still.
Sound boring.
The hectic nature of December, especially with kids, is part of its charm.
From Halloween to Christmas has been pretty non-stop for us, and then you get to the Christmas/New Year break and just switch off at last.
And then you stare into the bleak hollow pitiless eyes of January, a villain determined to violently assault you, and behind him is February, wielding a cosh
There's only about three and a half weeks of brutality. By the time you get to late January, the trajectory is so firmly in the direction of light that joy returns to the world. To my world, at least. I rather like Chinese New Year, which feels like exactly the right time for New Year.
Agreed about the light, which is why it makes sense to have festivals where they are.
January is miserable, but we've bills to pay and are recovering from fun. Then when that ends, the light is coming back and we're heading into Spring, which is fun in its own right with Easter thrown in too.
Then its summer, that's just good in its own right too.
Then the weather starts to turn, its a shame that summer is over, but we've got a whole season of festivities that gets us through the worsening weather.
Our season of festivities begins on 1 October with the beginning of the month of Halloween, ending with the main event on the 31st. Then the clocks change, but we don't have time to get upset about early nights as its fireworks. Pause for Remembrance. Then its go, go, go for Christmas.
The whole of Autumn to winter is one long festival and I love it.
That's fair enough. Richard Tyndall has talked in the past about the Sacred Season. For me, that's early October to early December. That's when the land is at it's most beautiful, when the sense of mystery is at its greatest. That's also when many of my own traditions are. Christmas is good too, of course. Personally I'd just prefer to move everything back three and a half weeks. It's just a personal view and clearly it's never going to happen.
Nine men have been arrested following reports of tragedy chanting at Sunday's Premier League match between Liverpool and Manchester City.
Merseyside Police said nine men, aged between 19 and 57 and variously from Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Lancashire, had been detained at Anfield Stadium.
Nine men have been arrested following reports of tragedy chanting at Sunday's Premier League match between Liverpool and Manchester City.
Merseyside Police said nine men, aged between 19 and 57 and variously from Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Lancashire, had been detained at Anfield Stadium.
Should this be a criminal offence? Its disgusting and those involved should get a ban from attending, but should it be criminal? Although the public order act being used, it is only in the past or so that the CPS have told the police they can charge people under it for "tragedy chanting".
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
Rory Sutherland said something along the lines of not commenting on Jaguar's teaser campaign until he knew what it was teasing.
My first thoughts (and yes, it is a concept car) is it looks like it will never get over a speedbump and that the angled pink panel sticking up looked accidental.
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
I've always thought Nighthawks (which we used to use here at pb) looked like it was by Old Street tube (and we do not hear the name Silicon Roundabout any more).
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
That Jag looks interesting - yes it is only a concept car - but by the time it is engineered for real roads i think it will look super sexy and be very popular - especially in US.
I dont like the pink barbie colur but the blue and green versions look spectacular.
But that outside cupboard looks like a pime candidate for value engineering.
New top civil servant Chris Wormald is ‘safe pair of hands’ but ‘devoid of charisma’
It was time, Keir Starmer said, for a “complete re-wiring of the British state”. But in the very same announcement he unveiled Chris Wormald, the epitome of a safe, low-key career government official, as his new chief civil servant. Hardly the man for a hard reset. So which one is it?
The official added: “I sat in hours of meetings with him and he was fundamentally an observer, and very rarely committed thoughts of any substance. His appointment personifies the failing upwards culture that makes so many of us want to leave the civil service.”
You can understand why Starmer has picked him.
Never heard of him until today, but seems he was in charge at DoH when covid hit and there are, shall we say, some questions...
He was at the DfE before that and oversaw the early stages of academies and free schools.
Cummings considered him for Cabinet Secretary before plumping for Case as someone even more grey and useless that he could bully still more effectively.
His father was also a civil servant - he’s consistently denied any family involvement in his career, and given his father was as I understand quite a junior figure that may well be true, but it looks odd.
So on all boxes he’s a strange pick.
I can’t help wondering if it’s because he was state school educated.
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
The comments under the video aren't good though...
When are they ever?
Seldom.
But if they are saying it looks like a VW Beetle that’s been squashed by a giant’s foot and given slightly bigger wheels, they’re not actually wrong.
It looks absolutely revolting. Surely they could at least have kept that distinctive Jaguar bodywork with its lovely clean lines and put an electric motor in it?
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
I attended Sunday school once.
Them: "Where do your grandparents live?"
Me: "Forres"
Them: "No, I mean, what town?"
"Forres"
"Do you mean they live in a forest?"
"No, I mean they live in Forres".
"I think you mean they live in a forest".
"No, they live in a town called Forres".
:: patronising look ::
"So, this forest, where is it?"
.. continues until I become disillusioned with Christianity.
No. You became disillusioned with those in charge. You should never be disillusioned by the religion itself.
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
I attended Sunday school once.
Them: "Where do your grandparents live?"
Me: "Forres"
Them: "No, I mean, what town?"
"Forres"
"Do you mean they live in a forest?"
"No, I mean they live in Forres".
"I think you mean they live in a forest".
"No, they live in a town called Forres".
:: patronising look ::
"So, this forest, where is it?"
.. continues until I become disillusioned with Christianity.
No. You became disillusioned with those in charge. You should never be disillusioned by the religion itself.
PETER DOOCY: “Tonight, we’re getting new details about that Trump-Trudeau dinner from two people who were at the table. We are told that when @JustinTrudeau told President-elect Trump that new tarrifs would kill the Canadian economy, Trump joked to him that if Canada can’t survive without ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100bn a year then maybe Canada should become the 51st state and Trudeau could become its governor!” @pdoocy tells @BretBaier
Trump will have enjoyed that, and Trudeau will be his sort of person - he appreciates telegenic looks. Perhaps they'll end up getting on.
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
I attended Sunday school once.
Them: "Where do your grandparents live?"
Me: "Forres"
Them: "No, I mean, what town?"
"Forres"
"Do you mean they live in a forest?"
"No, I mean they live in Forres".
"I think you mean they live in a forest".
"No, they live in a town called Forres".
:: patronising look ::
"So, this forest, where is it?"
.. continues until I become disillusioned with Christianity.
No. You became disillusioned with those in charge. You should never be disillusioned by the religion itself.
Why not?
If you are determined not to be a follower then that's your choice.. I loved Latin but didn't like my teacher...
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
I attended Sunday school once.
Them: "Where do your grandparents live?"
Me: "Forres"
Them: "No, I mean, what town?"
"Forres"
"Do you mean they live in a forest?"
"No, I mean they live in Forres".
"I think you mean they live in a forest".
"No, they live in a town called Forres".
:: patronising look ::
"So, this forest, where is it?"
.. continues until I become disillusioned with Christianity.
No. You became disillusioned with those in charge. You should never be disillusioned by the religion itself.
Why not?
If you are determined not to be a follower then that's your choice.. I loved Latin but didn't like my teacher...
I see a vast difference between 'faith' and 'religion'. Faith is belief; religion is the human aspects of that faith.
IMV you do not need to be part of a group to have faith. Religion almost always taints faith.
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
We did "hope". It's dark, but going to get better. If anyone at Number Ten wants to borrow the resources, let me know.
But there's some weird physics that offsets earliest sunset (quite soon), shortest day (just before Christmas), and latest sunrise (early January). I mean, it works, and I know it works, but no I can't explain why it's so. Swirly whirly stuff. There's about twenty minutes still to come off the mornings before we properly start to lumber back towards spring.
Society really should go back to December being quiet contemplation and January party time. That's when we need it.
I'd happily move Christmas 20 days later. To the point when it genuinely does start to feel lighter. Because for me, dark mornings are a much bigger downer than dark evenings. Also, I love Nov and early Dec on their own merits. They don't need brightening up, for me.
On Advent Calendars: There was a Brian Bikston I saw yesterday to the effect of "kids these days will never know the excitement and joy of opening an advent calendar and discovering a picture of a bell". I have a been in my bonnet about this. I like chocolate - but have never found a chocolate advent calendar an objectively more enjoyable experience than an old fashioned picture one. The joy is the anticipation. There's none of that with a chocolate advent calendar. You know what you're going to get. And it's about gleefully ticking off the days, not having chocolate. And don't get me started on gift advent calendars; still worse gift advent calendars for adults. I am neither ascetic nor religious nor anticapitalistic, but even I think this is far, far, far too much.
I wholeheartedly agree but did randomly buy my wife a posh French cosmetics advent calendar one year. She loved it, and I then struggled to explain why I didn’t repeat the gesture the following year.
You have stitched yourself up goodand proper there, I'm afraid. My wife for years heavily hinted tbat she'd like a Yankee Candle advent calendar. Sadly being male I am impervious to hints. I assumed she was joking, because obviously advent calendara are for kiids or the easily led. By the year I realised she'd been sincere I'd put in so many years of not getting her one that she'd accepted it and I realised that thoufg I'd been inadvertently denying her what she wanted, if I now gave it to her I'd have to do so every year. Christmas presents are hard enough without also having to source advent presents.
Thornbridge do a beer one that I can recommend, if your wife likes IPA.
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
The comments under the video aren't good though...
When are they ever?
Seldom.
But if they are saying it looks like a VW Beetle that’s been squashed by a giant’s foot and given slightly bigger wheels, they’re not actually wrong.
It looks absolutely revolting. Surely they could at least have kept that distinctive Jaguar bodywork with its lovely clean lines and put an electric motor in it?
One of the advantages of an electric power train is that you don’t need a massive engine bay. The battery is flat slab that can under the floor. The motors are tiny compared with the equivalent power ICE and gearbox.
So that huge, blocky front is nothing to do with function.
The utter blistering hypocrisy of Biden and the Democrats
They spend two years concocting often dubious law cases against Trump - basically trying anything to get him in jail. But that’s ok because the Democrats aren’t criminals and they don’t break the law like Trump so they are allowed to bend the law a bit ahem
And now Biden flat out pardons his convicted criminal son. There will be an awful lot of Americans feeling very vindicated in their vote for Trump
Why the Democratss were right to drop Biden: #28 in a series...
Hunter's legal travails may be substantial, like a felony conviction for a felon packing a sidearm, but they are mere trifles compared to Tango man's charge sheet.
You have no idea whether that's true.
Thirty plus felony convictions, an adjudicated case of rape and video evidence that he figure headed the riots suggest I do.
Do you actually believe he raped E Jean Carroll?
Due process and a jury of his peers believed he did, so that is good enough for me. Provide me with the evidence to the contrary.
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
The comments under the video aren't good though...
When are they ever?
Seldom.
But if they are saying it looks like a VW Beetle that’s been squashed by a giant’s foot and given slightly bigger wheels, they’re not actually wrong.
It looks absolutely revolting. Surely they could at least have kept that distinctive Jaguar bodywork with its lovely clean lines and put an electric motor in it?
One of the advantages of an electric power train is that you don’t need a massive engine bay. The battery is flat slab that can under the floor. The motors are tiny compared with the equivalent power ICE and gearbox.
So that huge, blocky front is nothing to do with function.
Looks like it would be tricky pulling out at junctions too. Neither do I like the flattened beetle browed look. The windows are too small.
PETER DOOCY: “Tonight, we’re getting new details about that Trump-Trudeau dinner from two people who were at the table. We are told that when @JustinTrudeau told President-elect Trump that new tarrifs would kill the Canadian economy, Trump joked to him that if Canada can’t survive without ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100bn a year then maybe Canada should become the 51st state and Trudeau could become its governor!” @pdoocy tells @BretBaier
You seem very keen on posting demonstrations of what an arse he is.
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
I attended Sunday school once.
Them: "Where do your grandparents live?"
Me: "Forres"
Them: "No, I mean, what town?"
"Forres"
"Do you mean they live in a forest?"
"No, I mean they live in Forres".
"I think you mean they live in a forest".
"No, they live in a town called Forres".
:: patronising look ::
"So, this forest, where is it?"
.. continues until I become disillusioned with Christianity.
No. You became disillusioned with those in charge. You should never be disillusioned by the religion itself.
Why not?
If you are determined not to be a follower then that's your choice.. I loved Latin but didn't like my teacher...
I see a vast difference between 'faith' and 'religion'. Faith is belief; religion is the human aspects of that faith.
IMV you do not need to be part of a group to have faith. Religion almost always taints faith.
The individual experience is certainly fundamental, but so is the collective one. In order to determine if the internal experience is genuine it needs something to compare with. Books and theology can only go so far, we need fellow believers too.
Accessing the divine often involves coordination with others, particularly in ritualistic movements, singing, prayers etc. No man is an island detached from the main.
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
Rory Sutherland said something along the lines of not commenting on Jaguar's teaser campaign until he knew what it was teasing.
My first thoughts (and yes, it is a concept car) is it looks like it will never get over a speedbump and that the angled pink panel sticking up looked accidental.
What's the point of a ridiculously long bonnet in an EV ? Driver visibility looks awful, and interior space unnecessarily limited. It's like a rolling pastiche.
The initial responses to the actual new Jag are out, and ...my goodness, it's impressive. Whether it will sell is debatable and the antiwokists will push their own heads up their arses instead of saying something nice about it, but it's the most out-there debut since the Cybertruck, and it's a ton better looking.
The comments under the video aren't good though...
When are they ever?
Seldom.
But if they are saying it looks like a VW Beetle that’s been squashed by a giant’s foot and given slightly bigger wheels, they’re not actually wrong.
It looks absolutely revolting. Surely they could at least have kept that distinctive Jaguar bodywork with its lovely clean lines and put an electric motor in it?
One of the advantages of an electric power train is that you don’t need a massive engine bay. The battery is flat slab that can under the floor. The motors are tiny compared with the equivalent power ICE and gearbox.
So that huge, blocky front is nothing to do with function.
Looks like it would be tricky pulling out at junctions too. Neither do I like the flattened beetle browed look. The windows are too small.
It’s Retro Futurism - it’s the DeKhotinsky Sixteen Special (Roadster) from The Vortex Blaster.
In the Gemsbeck Continuum, in 1980 something, William Gibson pointed out that this was a vision of the future that had “All the sinister fruitiness of Hitler Youth propaganda”. 100% white, blond people….
This is a remarkable set of statistics. If Trump were able too resist actually doing anything of significance for a couple of years, he'd be seen as accomplishing a huge amount by the midterms.
This rise in US manufacturing construction spend via @JosephPolitano is absolutely mindblowing
New top civil servant Chris Wormald is ‘safe pair of hands’ but ‘devoid of charisma’
It was time, Keir Starmer said, for a “complete re-wiring of the British state”. But in the very same announcement he unveiled Chris Wormald, the epitome of a safe, low-key career government official, as his new chief civil servant. Hardly the man for a hard reset. So which one is it?
The official added: “I sat in hours of meetings with him and he was fundamentally an observer, and very rarely committed thoughts of any substance. His appointment personifies the failing upwards culture that makes so many of us want to leave the civil service.”
You can understand why Starmer has picked him.
Never heard of him until today, but seems he was in charge at DoH when covid hit and there are, shall we say, some questions...
He was at the DfE before that and oversaw the early stages of academies and free schools.
Cummings considered him for Cabinet Secretary before plumping for Case as someone even more grey and useless that he could bully still more effectively.
His father was also a civil servant - he’s consistently denied any family involvement in his career, and given his father was as I understand quite a junior figure that may well be true, but it looks odd.
So on all boxes he’s a strange pick.
I can’t help wondering if it’s because he was state school educated.
Why is it odd that his father was also a civil servant? Lots of people follow in a parent’s profession.
I seem to have fallen into a total mid-winter blue funk today.
And it's only 2nd December.
Chin up. Or fly south
On a positive note, in only 10 days time the sun will start setting a bit later each day.
I think that’s wrong. I did a Sunday school on advent yesterday, and I explained what people tend to get wrong about solsticeses is it stands still for a while, not flip a switch and go the other way.
The original advent was counting down to the solstice. When Christmas was moved into Yule, the 25th was chosen as that’s the first day of the return of the light. Advent calendars only about several hundred years old.
I explained counting down to the return of the light and counting down to the Birth of Jesus the King is one and the same thing, indistinguishable.
But the question I posed, do we really need chocolate behind the windows to get our interest?
And if you were packing the donkey for the journey, what things would you pack? you would be surprised the answers I got. Clothes, phones, YouTube. The obvious answer I thought was toothbrush!
I attended Sunday school once.
Them: "Where do your grandparents live?"
Me: "Forres"
Them: "No, I mean, what town?"
"Forres"
"Do you mean they live in a forest?"
"No, I mean they live in Forres".
"I think you mean they live in a forest".
"No, they live in a town called Forres".
:: patronising look ::
"So, this forest, where is it?"
.. continues until I become disillusioned with Christianity.
No. You became disillusioned with those in charge. You should never be disillusioned by the religion itself.
Why not?
If you are determined not to be a follower then that's your choice.. I loved Latin but didn't like my teacher...
I see a vast difference between 'faith' and 'religion'. Faith is belief; religion is the human aspects of that faith.
IMV you do not need to be part of a group to have faith. Religion almost always taints faith.
The individual experience is certainly fundamental, but so is the collective one. In order to determine if the internal experience is genuine it needs something to compare with. Books and theology can only go so far, we need fellow believers too.
Accessing the divine often involves coordination with others, particularly in ritualistic movements, singing, prayers etc. No man is an island detached from the main.
The problem is when the collective experience perverts the internal experience.
As an Irish person and a philhellene I think the Marbles should go home to Athens but do think we should acknowledge that the British didn't steal them as much as save them. Quite happy to slag off the looting Brits but in this case they deserve credit for saving them.
Comments
Might not be as satisfying as smashing the system, but substantial changes can be achieved.
Also, the idea that the British state is going to be rewired by Sir Keir Starmer, the absolute embodiment of the British state in all its effete Woke mediocrity, is so absurd ir almost goes beyond cringe into something newly and interestingly worse than that, but it doesn’t quite make it, because Starmer is so fucking CRINGE
When my daughter was 2 her grandparents in Canada got her/us a gift of Elf on the Shelf as a new Christmas tradition, which now a lot of people do. That for us now has rocketed up to being one of the main traditions in our house - with the kids waking up excited every morning to see what the Elves have done, then open their advent calendars - and ending the day with my wife cursing as to what the bloody Elves should be up to tonight.
Forget counting down to Christmas, our kids for the last few weeks have been counting down to the return of the Elves.
December was fun for us as kids without that, but adding things (done right) in makes it more magical not less.
Should be at home at number 10 then.
A team player.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/dec/02/actor-ian-smith-neighbours-harold-bishop-reveals-terminal-cancer-diagnosis
January is miserable, but we've bills to pay and are recovering from fun. Then when that ends, the light is coming back and we're heading into Spring, which is fun in its own right with Easter thrown in too.
Then its summer, that's just good in its own right too.
Then the weather starts to turn, its a shame that summer is over, but we've got a whole season of festivities that gets us through the worsening weather.
Our season of festivities begins on 1 October with the beginning of the month of Halloween, ending with the main event on the 31st. Then the clocks change, but we don't have time to get upset about early nights as its fireworks. Pause for Remembrance. Then its go, go, go for Christmas.
The whole of Autumn to winter is one long festival and I love it.
In a sense my whole life has been a search for the perfect climate, to solve my SAD, but of course it does not exist
Hopefully not at full speed in reverse.
PETER DOOCY: “Tonight, we’re getting new details about that Trump-Trudeau dinner from two people who were at the table. We are told that when @JustinTrudeau told President-elect Trump that new tarrifs would kill the Canadian economy, Trump joked to him that if Canada can’t survive without ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100bn a year then maybe Canada should become the 51st state and Trudeau could become its governor!” @pdoocy tells @BretBaier
https://x.com/europeelects/status/1863660659726078453
Georgescu (*): 58%
Lasconi (USR-RE): 42%
Fieldwork: 1 December 2024
Sample size: 24,629
https://x.com/tnewtondunn/status/1863747955997458923
It's a conversation I enjoy because it allows me to enthuse about the various things I like about the winter in this country. Well, the autumn in particular. The astronomical autumn. Maybe I'm just trying to jolly you along. Try to make you see it my way because my way brings more happiness. Maybe it's as doomed as you urging me to religion for the same reason. Sorry if insensitive.
If it helps, I really dislike having to get up before dawn.
Richard Tyndall has talked in the past about the Sacred Season. For me, that's early October to early December. That's when the land is at it's most beautiful, when the sense of mystery is at its greatest. That's also when many of my own traditions are.
Christmas is good too, of course. Personally I'd just prefer to move everything back three and a half weeks. It's just a personal view and clearly it's never going to happen.
World Labs is stuffed full of A++++ tier talent,
https://www.worldlabs.ai/blog
I really liked this demo,
https://x.com/theworldlabs/status/1863617998050980239
Nine men have been arrested following reports of tragedy chanting at Sunday's Premier League match between Liverpool and Manchester City.
Merseyside Police said nine men, aged between 19 and 57 and variously from Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Lancashire, had been detained at Anfield Stadium.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzGlTULmheI
My first thoughts (and yes, it is a concept car) is it looks like it will never get over a speedbump and that the angled pink panel sticking up looked accidental.
I obviously wasn't been serious, the YouTube comment section is famed for its negative hot takes.
I dont like the pink barbie colur but the blue and green versions look spectacular.
But that outside cupboard looks like a pime candidate for value engineering.
Cummings considered him for Cabinet Secretary before plumping for Case as someone even more grey and useless that he could bully still more effectively.
His father was also a civil servant - he’s consistently denied any family involvement in his career, and given his father was as I understand quite a junior figure that may well be true, but it looks odd.
So on all boxes he’s a strange pick.
I can’t help wondering if it’s because he was state school educated.
But if they are saying it looks like a VW Beetle that’s been squashed by a giant’s foot and given slightly bigger wheels, they’re not actually wrong.
It looks absolutely revolting. Surely they could at least have kept that distinctive Jaguar bodywork with its lovely clean lines and put an electric motor in it?
IMV you do not need to be part of a group to have faith. Religion almost always taints faith.
https://thornbridgebrewery.co.uk/products/a-very-thornbridge-christmas-advent-calendar
They do refilling packs too.
So that huge, blocky front is nothing to do with function.
Accessing the divine often involves coordination with others, particularly in ritualistic movements, singing, prayers etc. No man is an island detached from the main.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/liz-truss-is-apparently-too-mad-even-for-a-rightwing-us-audience/ar-AA1v8Rgb?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=142ee8e199b14d6480db62fd379bec1d&ei=22
Driver visibility looks awful, and interior space unnecessarily limited. It's like a rolling pastiche.
NEW THREAD
In the Gemsbeck Continuum, in 1980 something, William Gibson pointed out that this was a vision of the future that had “All the sinister fruitiness of Hitler Youth propaganda”. 100% white, blond people….
If Trump were able too resist actually doing anything of significance for a couple of years, he'd be seen as accomplishing a huge amount by the midterms.
This rise in US manufacturing construction spend via @JosephPolitano is absolutely mindblowing
So many CHIPS & IRA-fueled factories are about to start opening in January you're not gonna believe it..
https://x.com/aarmlovi/status/1863678945956106564
The GOP will, of course, take credit for all of this stuff that they voted against, and Biden managed to get through Congress.
It will be interesting to see if/how they fuck it up.