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Brits really do not like the odious Trump – politicalbetting.com

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  • AlsoLei said:

    AlsoLei said:

    Cookie said:

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    I think you have misunderstood. It is not a question of whether it is advertised to children. It is a blanket ban on advertising these products before 9pm or at all online. It doesn't matter who they are directed at, they will be banned. The full list is found on the Government website and explicitly includes granola, mueseli, and porridge along with Tea and Coffee - but not alcohol.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restricting-advertising-of-less-healthy-food-or-drink-on-tv-and-online-products-in-scope/restricting-advertising-of-less-healthy-food-or-drink-on-tv-and-online-products-in-scope
    What? They're proposing to ban pre-watershed advertising for ... tea?
    I don't call for revocation of British citizenship lightly, but this strikes me as borderline treacherous.
    Tea (and coffee) drinks with added sugar.

    PBers are forever moaning about increasing rates of obesity and diabetes and their contribution to the rocketing cost of the NHS. And now moaning about restrictions on advertising products that are unnecessarily high in fat, salt, or sugar when kids might be watching.

    Sure, the last govt was fairly crap, but this is one of the few bits of Boris' manifesto that actually made it into law. Indeed, the Tories were so proud of it that they promised to ban it all over again if they had won the last GE: https://order-order.com/2024/06/12/tory-manifesto-pledges-to-ban-junk-food-adverts-they-already-banned/
    Fat is not bad for you though and it is carbs not fat that causes obesity.

    People need to get over the "low fat" bollocks that does not work.
    I don't particularly disagree - and although the NPM formula used for these regulations does take account of saturated fat, sodium, and total calories as well as sugar, the effect does seem to be weighted most heavily against sugary foods.

    It was billed as a ban on advertising 'junk' food, and doesn't actually seem that bad an attempt at doing just that.
    There's nothing wrong with saturated fats so long as you aren't going overboard on carbs though.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,857
    Will 2025 see any by-elections? It is very hard to think of a single GB constituency where a by-election would not be extremely fascinating. It would be good to have one or two.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,554
    Leon said:

    I might write a Knappers Gazette article on the Beauty of Backwaters

    Places forgotten by time, transport and history that have - perhaps as a consequence - retained their charm. And they STILL have that sleepy quality

    Mompos is a perfect example. It was important in its day. The Colombian Spanish nobility fled here to avoid the fierce English raids on the coast. Heh

    And it was also a massively important trading port on the great river

    But then it became a literal backwater as the river silted and then cars and roads etc

    In Britain I would say all of Herefordshire. It is still weirdly hard to reach and as a result is arguably the loveliest most unspoiled county in England

    Any others?

    Repton, I seem to recall it was the effective capital of Mercia and a big deal. Now it’s just a place Jeremy Clarkson went to school.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,521

    We really are at a very uncertain point. The US in transition to who knows what, France on the brink, Germany heading for an election, Romania possibly electing a crazy President who wants to block Ukrainian exports through their waters. And that is to forget the middle east. All the while we have the axis of autocracy seeking to cause chaos. I don't remember another point like this in my lifetime. The financial crisis and Brexit look piddling in comparison.

    With Biden falling asleep, Scholz done for and Macron in crisis, welcome Sir Keir as acting leader of the free world for the next seven weeks.

    There is one silver lining or two.

    All the axis of autocracy countries have terrible demographic problems. And free countries have some outstanding universities that enable those countries to create outstanding military technology.

    The autocrats don’t have unlimited supplies of young men who can be sent to die for the greater glory of the dictator, nor do they have access to the best weaponry.
  • algarkirk said:

    Will 2025 see any by-elections? It is very hard to think of a single GB constituency where a by-election would not be extremely fascinating. It would be good to have one or two.

    Frodsham ?
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,437
    Just eat what you want, but vary and moderate your desires where possible.

    You'll take more years off your life by worrying about what you're eating, and be unhappier. Most diets are just fads designed to take your money and make you unhappy.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,495

    malcolmg said:

    So Ive been through the press in France Germany Italy and Spain and none of them have reported on the world changing events surrounding Greg Wallace.

    Do they understand nothing ?

    Rather a sadly dismissive post. If a rather forward camp man pulled his todger out, his modesty covered only by a sock, because he thought it might attract your interest, I suspect you would be quite justifiably outraged. Is there a difference?
    when did he have his todger out, the fantasies are escalating
    Apparently he didn't it was covered by a sock. My mistake.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14137559/amp/Gregg-Wallace-allegations-naked-MasterChef-studio.html

    Nothing to see here Squire, move along.
    The thing is that these sorts of actions are on an escalating ladder. Today it is "todger out", but what about tomorrow or next week? When does flashing no longer satisfy and so the perpetrator moves up to assault or rape or murder?

    Are we supposed to wait until it gets really, deadly serious?
    Jermaine Jenas's feet didn't touch the ground for "sexting".How the hell did Wallace keep his presenting role after claims were made about his behaviour in 2018? Moving on from your point this was only a handful of years after Savile. I am not suggesting a parallel, however it does seem blind eyes remain blind to national treasures.
    I ask again when did the fantasy that he had his tadger out appear, what crackpot came up with that one.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,521
    edited December 4
    Leon said:

    I might write a Knappers Gazette article on the Beauty of Backwaters

    Places forgotten by time, transport and history that have - perhaps as a consequence - retained their charm. And they STILL have that sleepy quality

    Mompos is a perfect example. It was important in its day. The Colombian Spanish nobility fled here to avoid the fierce English raids on the coast. Heh

    And it was also a massively important trading port on the great river

    But then it became a literal backwater as the river silted and then cars and roads etc

    In Britain I would say all of Herefordshire. It is still weirdly hard to reach and as a result is arguably the loveliest most unspoiled county in England

    Any others?

    Weardale is a beautiful backwater.

    So is Nidderdale.
  • ManOfGwentManOfGwent Posts: 108
    algarkirk said:

    Will 2025 see any by-elections? It is very hard to think of a single GB constituency where a by-election would not be extremely fascinating. It would be good to have one or two.

    Runcorn and Helsby (Sucker punch MP) is the only potential at the moment I think.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,114

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    The syrupy instant porridge perhaps is the wrong sort of cereal, but a lot of granola and muesli contains a lot of sugar.
    Bloomin' doctors... telling us wot's healthy........

    (21 posts remaining)
    I don't really support this ban, but our carb heavy breakfast is a dangerous meal.

    Ironically a food fand thought healthy when it originated in the USA.

    Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal: Why You Should Ditch Your Morning Meal For Health and Wellbeing https://amzn.eu/d/hP1LPEj

    Good to see you drop by, even if only briefly. PB is a poorer place without you.
    Breakfast for me

    2 weetabix plus blueberries plus coffee plus actimel blueberry

    No sugar

    Plus rumours Jenrick jumping to Reform !!!
    Jenrick jumping ship is quite some rumour.

    Sounds like Kemi is annoying a lot of people.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,442

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    The syrupy instant porridge perhaps is the wrong sort of cereal, but a lot of granola and muesli contains a lot of sugar.
    Bloomin' doctors... telling us wot's healthy........

    (21 posts remaining)
    I don't really support this ban, but our carb heavy breakfast is a dangerous meal.

    Ironically a food fand thought healthy when it originated in the USA.

    Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal: Why You Should Ditch Your Morning Meal For Health and Wellbeing https://amzn.eu/d/hP1LPEj

    Good to see you drop by, even if only briefly. PB is a poorer place without you.
    Breakfast for me

    2 weetabix plus blueberries plus coffee plus actimel blueberry

    No sugar

    Plus rumours Jenrick jumping to Reform !!!
    Those rumours would presumably have the same effect on some peoples' digestive systems as a high-fibre breakfast would.

    Would be an odd one, though. After all, Jenrick was immigration minister when the system stopped trying and numbers went though the roof.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,495
    Omnium said:

    malcolmg said:

    Leon said:

    This is one of the more dubious cases arising from the summer riots.

    A former boxer prosecuted for saying in a YouTube video that "young white girls are being raped by these grooming gangs". He initially pled not guilty and was remanded in custody without bail in August. After being locked up for months he's eventually pled guilty to a charge of 'sending communication of an offensive nature' and will now be sentenced.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce328p9330eo

    Who the fuck flagged this?

    If there is no more context to this case than that presented here it is an outrage. Despite his back record. There might well be such context - we don’t know

    Stop flagging you pathetic fools
    There seems to be a new found enthusiasm for flagging posts. I got more last week than I had in the previous years. Now William's post was mind numbingly silly, but certainly not warranting of a flag.
    The moderators have stated that a ban will follow the unnecessary use of flagging

    I misread that as flogging, and wondered just how far the moderators were going these days.
    I saw fagging
    I'd never have thought of you as public school, but if there's something you need to say then saying it is important.
    I would have sorted the roasters out
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,437
    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    I might write a Knappers Gazette article on the Beauty of Backwaters

    Places forgotten by time, transport and history that have - perhaps as a consequence - retained their charm. And they STILL have that sleepy quality

    Mompos is a perfect example. It was important in its day. The Colombian Spanish nobility fled here to avoid the fierce English raids on the coast. Heh

    And it was also a massively important trading port on the great river

    But then it became a literal backwater as the river silted and then cars and roads etc

    In Britain I would say all of Herefordshire. It is still weirdly hard to reach and as a result is arguably the loveliest most unspoiled county in England

    Any others?

    Repton, I seem to recall it was the effective capital of Mercia and a big deal. Now it’s just a place Jeremy Clarkson went to school.
    Oi! I went to school there before. In Repton, that is, not *at* Repton.

    (We used to use their swimming pool though; and I have happy memories of descending those time-worn steps down to the church's Saxon crypt.)
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,495

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    The syrupy instant porridge perhaps is the wrong sort of cereal, but a lot of granola and muesli contains a lot of sugar.
    Bloomin' doctors... telling us wot's healthy........

    (21 posts remaining)
    I don't really support this ban, but our carb heavy breakfast is a dangerous meal.

    Ironically a food fand thought healthy when it originated in the USA.

    Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal: Why You Should Ditch Your Morning Meal For Health and Wellbeing https://amzn.eu/d/hP1LPEj

    Good to see you drop by, even if only briefly. PB is a poorer place without you.
    Breakfast for me

    2 weetabix plus blueberries plus coffee plus actimel blueberry

    No sugar

    Plus rumours Jenrick jumping to Reform !!!
    For me either that , shreddies or even better porridge.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,496
    NB for @boulay

    Ta. Never been. Is it pretty?

    Crucially it has to have retained a lot of charm just by being forgotten

    I’m tempted to cite Natchez Mississippi. Oddly reminds me of mompox
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,161
    Leon said:

    I might write a Knappers Gazette article on the Beauty of Backwaters

    Places forgotten by time, transport and history that have - perhaps as a consequence - retained their charm. And they STILL have that sleepy quality

    Mompos is a perfect example. It was important in its day. The Colombian Spanish nobility fled here to avoid the fierce English raids on the coast. Heh

    And it was also a massively important trading port on the great river

    But then it became a literal backwater as the river silted and then cars and roads etc

    In Britain I would say all of Herefordshire. It is still weirdly hard to reach and as a result is arguably the loveliest most unspoiled county in England

    Any others?

    Northumberland.

    You could join Sunil on a trip on the new rail service to Ashington before visiting nice bits.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,554
    edited December 4
    Leon said:

    NB for @boulay

    Ta. Never been. Is it pretty?

    Crucially it has to have retained a lot of charm just by being forgotten

    I’m tempted to cite Natchez Mississippi. Oddly reminds me of mompox

    I have no idea, never been either as it’s a backwater.

    Edit, just looked at it. Seems pretty but the sort of place there are lots of murders of boring middle class people in ITv or Harlen Coben series.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,895

    Just eat what you want, but vary and moderate your desires where possible.

    You'll take more years off your life by worrying about what you're eating, and be unhappier. Most diets are just fads designed to take your money and make you unhappy.

    That's easy to say, but not as easy to do.

    We've rapidly moved from a state that existed for hundreds of thousands of years - relatively, or very, scarce food and intense physical activity to get it - to one where there is a large surplus of food, particularly food stuffed with sugar, an industry determined to sell as much food as possible, and sedentary working lives.

    Put like that it's perhaps surprising that the obesity stats aren't way worse.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,099
    @RobDotHutton

    I am begging - begging! - the Tories to make "Actually, a Fixed Penalty Notice for breaching Covid rules is not the same as a criminal conviction" into the centrepiece of their Christmas campaign.

    https://x.com/RobDotHutton/status/1864311552674762928



    Oh...

    https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1864393558167572947
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,442
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    The syrupy instant porridge perhaps is the wrong sort of cereal, but a lot of granola and muesli contains a lot of sugar.
    Bloomin' doctors... telling us wot's healthy........

    (21 posts remaining)
    I don't really support this ban, but our carb heavy breakfast is a dangerous meal.

    Ironically a food fand thought healthy when it originated in the USA.

    Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal: Why You Should Ditch Your Morning Meal For Health and Wellbeing https://amzn.eu/d/hP1LPEj

    Good to see you drop by, even if only briefly. PB is a poorer place without you.
    Breakfast for me

    2 weetabix plus blueberries plus coffee plus actimel blueberry

    No sugar

    Plus rumours Jenrick jumping to Reform !!!
    Jenrick jumping ship is quite some rumour.

    Sounds like Kemi is annoying a lot of people.
    All politicians fail eventually. Partly because their job is impossible and partly because if they knew when to quit they would never get to the top. Furthermore, the failure mode of most politicians is pretty obvious well in advance. Character and whatnot. The only questions are when will that failure happen and will they manage to do any good in the meantime.

    Everyone knows that Kemi B doesn't suffer fools gladly, and everyone has known it for quite a while. In the right circumstances, that can be a superpower. It's a bit tricky when your survival depends on not annoying your underlings. It's worse when quite a few of those you have to suffer actually are fools.
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,186
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    The syrupy instant porridge perhaps is the wrong sort of cereal, but a lot of granola and muesli contains a lot of sugar.
    Bloomin' doctors... telling us wot's healthy........

    (21 posts remaining)
    I don't really support this ban, but our carb heavy breakfast is a dangerous meal.

    Ironically a food fand thought healthy when it originated in the USA.

    Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal: Why You Should Ditch Your Morning Meal For Health and Wellbeing https://amzn.eu/d/hP1LPEj

    Good to see you drop by, even if only briefly. PB is a poorer place without you.
    Thank you.

    Although PB is not on the govt banned list, I find myself refreshed by reducing my interactions and my absence is likely better for CR's blood pressure :D
  • AlsoLeiAlsoLei Posts: 1,500

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    The syrupy instant porridge perhaps is the wrong sort of cereal, but a lot of granola and muesli contains a lot of sugar.
    Bloomin' doctors... telling us wot's healthy........

    (21 posts remaining)
    I don't really support this ban, but our carb heavy breakfast is a dangerous meal.

    Ironically a food fand thought healthy when it originated in the USA.

    Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal: Why You Should Ditch Your Morning Meal For Health and Wellbeing https://amzn.eu/d/hP1LPEj

    Good to see you drop by, even if only briefly. PB is a poorer place without you.
    Breakfast for me

    2 weetabix plus blueberries plus coffee plus actimel blueberry

    No sugar

    Plus rumours Jenrick jumping to Reform !!!
    Those rumours would presumably have the same effect on some peoples' digestive systems as a high-fibre breakfast would.

    Would be an odd one, though. After all, Jenrick was immigration minister when the system stopped trying and numbers went though the roof.
    Interesting. He's currently just about the favourite as next Tory leader, so this would suggest that he thinks that Kemi's likely to last until the next election.

    Even so, he'd surely want something substantial from Farage in return. At the moment, he's got a high profile Shad Cab role which allows him to play to his strengths (such as they are). Moving to a minor party and playing fourth fiddle behind Farage, Tice, and Anderson would be quite a step down.
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,186
    malcolmg said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    The syrupy instant porridge perhaps is the wrong sort of cereal, but a lot of granola and muesli contains a lot of sugar.
    Bloomin' doctors... telling us wot's healthy........

    (21 posts remaining)
    I don't really support this ban, but our carb heavy breakfast is a dangerous meal.

    Ironically a food fand thought healthy when it originated in the USA.

    Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal: Why You Should Ditch Your Morning Meal For Health and Wellbeing https://amzn.eu/d/hP1LPEj

    Good to see you drop by, even if only briefly. PB is a poorer place without you.
    Breakfast for me

    2 weetabix plus blueberries plus coffee plus actimel blueberry

    No sugar

    Plus rumours Jenrick jumping to Reform !!!
    For me either that , shreddies or even better porridge.
    Personally I go for Rice Krispies, toast and green tea.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,682

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    I think you have misunderstood. It is not a question of whether it is advertised to children. It is a blanket ban on advertising these products before 9pm or at all online. It doesn't matter who they are directed at, they will be banned. The full list is found on the Government website and explicitly includes granola, mueseli, and porridge along with Tea and Coffee - but not alcohol.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restricting-advertising-of-less-healthy-food-or-drink-on-tv-and-online-products-in-scope/restricting-advertising-of-less-healthy-food-or-drink-on-tv-and-online-products-in-scope
    I thought alcohol advertising before 9pm was already banned, which is why so many brands are advertising their 0.0 products, so that they can advertise their brand before the watershed?
    Nope. They are in Ireland but not in the UK (although not sure if the proposed ban in Scotland came into force). All the rules say is that adverts must not be targeted at those under 18 years of age.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,161

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    I might write a Knappers Gazette article on the Beauty of Backwaters

    Places forgotten by time, transport and history that have - perhaps as a consequence - retained their charm. And they STILL have that sleepy quality

    Mompos is a perfect example. It was important in its day. The Colombian Spanish nobility fled here to avoid the fierce English raids on the coast. Heh

    And it was also a massively important trading port on the great river

    But then it became a literal backwater as the river silted and then cars and roads etc

    In Britain I would say all of Herefordshire. It is still weirdly hard to reach and as a result is arguably the loveliest most unspoiled county in England

    Any others?

    Repton, I seem to recall it was the effective capital of Mercia and a big deal. Now it’s just a place Jeremy Clarkson went to school.
    Oi! I went to school there before. In Repton, that is, not *at* Repton.

    (We used to use their swimming pool though; and I have happy memories of descending those time-worn steps down to the church's Saxon crypt.)
    Does playing squash on the courts at Eton beat swimming in the pool at Repton?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,114
    edited December 4

    Just eat what you want, but vary and moderate your desires where possible.

    You'll take more years off your life by worrying about what you're eating, and be unhappier. Most diets are just fads designed to take your money and make you unhappy.

    That's easy to say, but not as easy to do.

    We've rapidly moved from a state that existed for hundreds of thousands of years - relatively, or very, scarce food and intense physical activity to get it - to one where there is a large surplus of food, particularly food stuffed with sugar, an industry determined to sell as much food as possible, and sedentary working lives.

    Put like that it's perhaps surprising that the obesity stats aren't way worse.
    In particular a craving for high energy salty foods.

    Obesity is a worldwide issue, rampant in the urban areas across Africa, Middle East and Asia.

    Laissez-faire on diets isn't working, just look around next time you are in a High St or Supermarket.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,554
    Leon said:

    NB for @boulay

    Ta. Never been. Is it pretty?

    Crucially it has to have retained a lot of charm just by being forgotten

    I’m tempted to cite Natchez Mississippi. Oddly reminds me of mompox

    Is Bonn a backwater? Former capital of W Germany but replaced by Berlin. When I think of Bonn I think of Helmut Kohl eating a giant sausage and drinking a Stein. That’s it.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,496
    Udine!

    The perfect Italian backwater. Even people in beautiful Udine often forget it exists
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,033
    That mobile phone mast application in Rottingdean is interesting.
    The report is here: https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/s203946/Report BH2024 01723 - St Margarets High Street.pdf

    It looks as though the key elements in the decision from the Planning Officer were:
    - Listed building
    - no attempt to shield or camouflage
    - Didn't bother to check other locations that weren't listed

    I've always been uncomfortable with the entire "character of the area" thing but I've got to admit this is very much so. If they're going to put that into legislation, this is going to happen.

    The overall decision does look a bit arguable (and I'd argue it if on the Committee), but you need strong arguments, or to spot something completely missed or inaccurate, to go against the Planning Officer advice.

    The local representations aren't very relevant. Most of them are discounted.

    - Loss of external amenity space on the roof.
    - Detrimental impact on the historic significance of the locally listed building.
    - Visible from on top of, and beneath, the cliffs, and from surrounding streets
    - Detrimental impact on human health.
    - Noise nuisance.
    - Impact on the building's electricity supply.
    - Alternative sites should be used - temporary base station within the Marine
    Cliffs car park, roof of White Horse, non-residential buildings.
    - Developer has no right to carry out the development.
    - Will make the building harder to maintain will not be able to access the roof.
    - Cabling necessary for the development will occupy ductwork space.
    - Height of equipment will make it vulnerable to damage from the wind.
    - Detrimental impact on property value.
    - Approving the proposal will encourage further development.


    Only the second, third, and seventh are material here (and the third and seventh really only because of the second). The others are either dismissed or ignored (people often mention property values and that's never allowed as a consideration).
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,033
    If the developer comes back with reasons why the alternative sites aren't workable (or, if they are, to apply for there, preferably on a non-listed building), and come up with some level of screening or camouflage, it'll sail through.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,161
    Leon said:

    Udine!

    The perfect Italian backwater. Even people in beautiful Udine often forget it exists

    Not to be confused with U-Dine, a chain of self-service eateries in the mid-west.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,099
    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    NB for @boulay

    Ta. Never been. Is it pretty?

    Crucially it has to have retained a lot of charm just by being forgotten

    I’m tempted to cite Natchez Mississippi. Oddly reminds me of mompox

    Is Bonn a backwater? Former capital of W Germany but replaced by Berlin. When I think of Bonn I think of Helmut Kohl eating a giant sausage and drinking a Stein. That’s it.
    Bonn is great. Good Christmas market
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,437

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    I might write a Knappers Gazette article on the Beauty of Backwaters

    Places forgotten by time, transport and history that have - perhaps as a consequence - retained their charm. And they STILL have that sleepy quality

    Mompos is a perfect example. It was important in its day. The Colombian Spanish nobility fled here to avoid the fierce English raids on the coast. Heh

    And it was also a massively important trading port on the great river

    But then it became a literal backwater as the river silted and then cars and roads etc

    In Britain I would say all of Herefordshire. It is still weirdly hard to reach and as a result is arguably the loveliest most unspoiled county in England

    Any others?

    Repton, I seem to recall it was the effective capital of Mercia and a big deal. Now it’s just a place Jeremy Clarkson went to school.
    Oi! I went to school there before. In Repton, that is, not *at* Repton.

    (We used to use their swimming pool though; and I have happy memories of descending those time-worn steps down to the church's Saxon crypt.)
    Does playing squash on the courts at Eton beat swimming in the pool at Repton?
    Only if you have an embarrassing story.

    We used Repton School's PE instructor, a massive ex-army man who frightened my sister silly. I loved him. One winter's day, with miniature ice floes on the outside pool's surface (*), we went swimming. I dived in and started a length, only to hear the instructor's whistle go. That was a signal to immediately get to the side, but I continued the length. When I finished, I heard his voice boom: "Jessop! Your trunks are down this end!"

    So I did the walk of shame aback long the edge of the pool to pick them up.

    (As I was the youngest son, I had hand-me-downs from my brother. It turns out that my trunks were a couple of sizes too big...)

    (*) Repton School apparently only got an indoor pool in the last couple of decades...
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,554
    Leon said:

    Udine!

    The perfect Italian backwater. Even people in beautiful Udine often forget it exists

    Caen, capital of the Norman empire. Beautiful historic overlooked gem. Now just sounds like a good French swearword.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,864
    edited December 4

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    The syrupy instant porridge perhaps is the wrong sort of cereal, but a lot of granola and muesli contains a lot of sugar.
    Bloomin' doctors... telling us wot's healthy........

    (21 posts remaining)
    I don't really support this ban, but our carb heavy breakfast is a dangerous meal.

    Ironically a food fand thought healthy when it originated in the USA.

    Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal: Why You Should Ditch Your Morning Meal For Health and Wellbeing https://amzn.eu/d/hP1LPEj

    Good to see you drop by, even if only briefly. PB is a poorer place without you.
    Breakfast for me

    2 weetabix plus blueberries plus coffee plus actimel blueberry

    No sugar

    Plus rumours Jenrick jumping to Reform !!!
    Where? I have seen none, after all Jenrick is Badenoch's Shadow Justice Secretary now.

  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,987
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of Hemingway - in his favour his house in Cuba is one of the more interesting writers’ houses I’ve visited. Also beautiful. And it screams “repressed gay”

    Very few are interesting. Pushkin’s is only interesting coz it’s got souvenirs of his fatal duel - the letter of challenge, the blood soaked waistcoat

    The brontes is good coz it’s intense

    Any others?

    I say all this coz I’ve just been to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s gaff in Aracataca and it’s RUBBISH

    Does Anne Hathaway's cottage count, I've always enjoyed that one.

    Good to see where the actress grew up. ;)
    Hah. I’ve never actually been to that one

    I think “writer’s houses” are hampered by the fact most writers live quite boring lives, consisting mainly of sitting alone writing; it’s not box office

    Once you’ve seen the crucial desk and maybe the bedroom, meh
    The array of dildos in Jane Austen's gaff wasn't what I was expecting to see.
    Not to mention the manacles and nipple clamps.
    I'm now remembering this old Big Train sketch :

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHWtXSKSQSY

    Big Train - Florence Nightingale
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,864

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    viewcode said:

    It was interesting listening to Tim Montgomerie on Sky this morning about his defection to Reform which he said was a result of the immigration figures but he also said he doesn't agree with everything Farage says and unlike Reform he supports increasing foreign aid

    He went on to say that in time, some accommodation between the Conservatives and Reform is quite likely which seemed as if he was hoping to act as a bridge between the two

    It does appear from recent polling that the combined total of the two is gaining on the left and it would change politics if this happened, and not in a good way fror labour

    In the Battle Of Trafalgar, Nelson defeated a larger force by splitting his opponents into two. In more modern times, the 1980s split of British Labour into Labour & SDP, and the later split of the Canadian Conservatives, kept them out of government for a decade. Until the pro-immigration Conservatives and the anti-immigration Reform come to an accommodation (I suggest controlled/capped immigration cf Goodwin et al), they will remain out of power.
    Indeed, in the 20th century FPTP helped the Conservatives more as the left was divided between the Liberals and Labour, now it helps Labour more as the right is divided between the Tories and Reform. Hence Starmer's landslide Labour win on just 33.7% of the vote
    from last thread but on topic, there is another element to FPTP oft flagged up by Mike Smithson - who likes you as an option rather than waste a vote, who wouldn’t vote for you in any circumstance?

    This can get you an awful lot of seats under FPTP for just 33.7% of the vote, or even for 12.2%.
    When you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats, it’s stark it’s not party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP.

    I suspect if Reform support went from 14.3 to 0 at next GE, Conservatives shouldn’t expect anything near 14.3% uplift in their own vote - much of that 14.3 came from what voters had been telling pollsters would be Labour vote for much last 2 years of the last parliament. If i’m right, what has been appeal of the populist right wing party to those voters - or merely a protest vote, not real support for right of centre?

    Psephology should pursue why LLG thought same about outcome they wanted in 2024, and measure how this moves now in coming years to predict the next result in advance. At same time the flip side, why doesn’t anyone, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform?

    For example: do you attract the conservative minded, if seen as populist? Can you even be populist and Conservative at the same time? That’s a key question for Badenoch’s Tories, especially if Conservatives, now free from government for five long years, want the 8.4 drop in turnout lifting their share next time.

    Let me answer by introducing the magic phrase our psephology needs to apply more seriously in this era - spectral-syncretic politics. Without shadow of doubt Starmer’s government is pursuing fiscal conservatism, welfare to workfare reform and deregulation - so two Clintonesque periods of Labour government in a row, a lot of psephology may still have a mindset stuck in pre 97 past about Labour and missing that if Badenoch messes up the “can you be populist and conservative at the same time” teaser, Labour and Lib Dem’s will mop up even more new votes.
    Starmer's tax rises on farmers and business owners is certainly not fiscal conservatism. Nor is his renationalising of rail companies today or his splurging payrises on GPs and train drivers.

    Not all Reform voters are ex Tories but in July a clear plurality were. They are now making inroads with Labour voters and the more they do that the more that starts to help the Tories under FPTP (as long as they don't make so many inroads with Labour voters they take the lead in the polls in which case it would be Farage heading for most seats not Badenoch)
    So you are of the mindset this government is certainly going to be “old Labour” not Third Way as I’m sure it is going to be?

    This is getting to the nub of how interesting this period of politics is, as one of us will miss what is actually happening at the time. Take this as an example.

    “Starmer's tax rises on farmers is certainly not fiscal conservatism.”

    How often is “fiscal conservatism” the rule of the ledger book, oblivious to social consequences? Such as an argument to shut down so many mines so quickly in the 1980s and 1990s, that equally didn’t consider social impact and social costs of that decision making?

    Was it “old labour” who wrote off the 1980s introduced change, or 2024 fiscal conservatism? Not that it’s Infinity War or anything, but I have at least one former Conservative Party Chancellor on my side of this point of view don’t I?

    Even if we disagree about how “old labour” this government is going to be, you can still answer the following question to you as a hypothetical:
    If they governed in “the third way” including welfare to workfare reform and deregulation too as well as this fiscal conservatism, will it harm Labours re-election chances, or help them hold and build on the July 2024 voting block?
    It is already closer to the Labour government's of the 1970s or Brown Labour than Blair's New Labour.

    As for mines, Wilson closed more mines than Thatcher did, she just took on the NUM harder. Indeed the last Conservative government proposed to open a new mine in Cumbria but Labour via Ed Miliband .abandoned the plan once it took office.

    Outside of the public sector most voters are seeing their taxes go up more than their pay and immigration also rising further while pensioners have also seen their WFA cut. Welfare to work doesn't attract many voters unless it sees taxes go down too for those already in work to reflect lower welfare costs and Labour are certainly not deregulating anywhere at present.

    Hence already Labour is down about 6-7% on the 34% it got in July, mainly to Reform's benefit
    You just couldn’t bring yourself to answer the question could you? 😌

    Nuff said. Let’s hope you are right in your psephology, and I’m not back on May 4th 2029 saying: fucking told you nearly five years ago - you dipstick!
    Or neither of us are right and Farage enters beaming the doors of No 10 as the UK's first non Tory and non Labour PM for over a century
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,316

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    I might write a Knappers Gazette article on the Beauty of Backwaters

    Places forgotten by time, transport and history that have - perhaps as a consequence - retained their charm. And they STILL have that sleepy quality

    Mompos is a perfect example. It was important in its day. The Colombian Spanish nobility fled here to avoid the fierce English raids on the coast. Heh

    And it was also a massively important trading port on the great river

    But then it became a literal backwater as the river silted and then cars and roads etc

    In Britain I would say all of Herefordshire. It is still weirdly hard to reach and as a result is arguably the loveliest most unspoiled county in England

    Any others?

    Repton, I seem to recall it was the effective capital of Mercia and a big deal. Now it’s just a place Jeremy Clarkson went to school.
    Oi! I went to school there before. In Repton, that is, not *at* Repton.

    (We used to use their swimming pool though; and I have happy memories of descending those time-worn steps down to the church's Saxon crypt.)
    Does playing squash on the courts at Eton beat swimming in the pool at Repton?
    Only if you have an embarrassing story.

    We used Repton School's PE instructor, a massive ex-army man who frightened my sister silly. I loved him. One winter's day, with miniature ice floes on the outside pool's surface (*), we went swimming. I dived in and started a length, only to hear the instructor's whistle go. That was a signal to immediately get to the side, but I continued the length. When I finished, I heard his voice boom: "Jessop! Your trunks are down this end!"

    So I did the walk of shame aback long the edge of the pool to pick them up.

    (As I was the youngest son, I had hand-me-downs from my brother. It turns out that my trunks were a couple of sizes too big...)

    (*) Repton School apparently only got an indoor pool in the last couple of decades...
    According to an old friend Flogger Fisher, subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury, was still remembered with a shudder in the 1960s.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,987
    Foxy said:

    Just eat what you want, but vary and moderate your desires where possible.

    You'll take more years off your life by worrying about what you're eating, and be unhappier. Most diets are just fads designed to take your money and make you unhappy.

    That's easy to say, but not as easy to do.

    We've rapidly moved from a state that existed for hundreds of thousands of years - relatively, or very, scarce food and intense physical activity to get it - to one where there is a large surplus of food, particularly food stuffed with sugar, an industry determined to sell as much food as possible, and sedentary working lives.

    Put like that it's perhaps surprising that the obesity stats aren't way worse.
    In particular a craving for high energy salty foods.

    Obesity is a worldwide issue, rampant in the urban areas across Africa, Middle East and Asia.

    Laissez-faire on diets isn't working, just look around next time you are in a High St or Supermarket.
    You may have missed the current social media drama around the 'Rumin8' seaweed cattle feed. It seems seaweed powder is like a magnet for 5G/Bill Gates/Antivax people who were otherwise getting bored.

    Seaweed - just say no. While you ram nitrite-riddled day-glo bacon down your neck.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,033
    As an aside - the number of objections received, or comments in support don't change much.
    It's not the number, but the content.

    They need to identify material considerations against the legislation (NPPF, Local Plan Policies, case law precedent) to have any effect.

    Your house price value, personal view (in most cases - there are special rules for wind turbines and mobile phone masts, or in AONBs, Conservation areas, and for listed buildings), personal inconvenience cannot be considered.

    And if you write to the councillors, they'll almost invariably send back a polite and non-committal response. Because the code of conduct that came in about ten years ago means that if they have given a hint of any pre-determination makes any decision in which they voted legally unsound (would provide solid grounds for an appeal or judicial review to annul it).

    To be honest, the entire inviting comments and objections element now seems to be taking the piss. If you don't have significant planning training or experience and put in a comment, you'll feel openly ignored, which will wind you up.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,144
    edited December 4
    Leon said:

    I might write a Knappers Gazette article on the Beauty of Backwaters

    Places forgotten by time, transport and history that have - perhaps as a consequence - retained their charm. And they STILL have that sleepy quality

    Mompos is a perfect example. It was important in its day. The Colombian Spanish nobility fled here to avoid the fierce English raids on the coast. Heh

    And it was also a massively important trading port on the great river

    But then it became a literal backwater as the river silted and then cars and roads etc

    In Britain I would say all of Herefordshire. It is still weirdly hard to reach and as a result is arguably the loveliest most unspoiled county in England

    Any others?

    Newtown, on the island. Trashed by the French some time in the 1300s, never recovered, but kept its MP as a ‘rotten borough’ with just a handful of electors, through to the Reform Act. Now just a few houses at the end of a silted up estuary.

    Acquilae, in Fruili, in Roman times one of the most important cities in the known world, trashed by the Huns, inhabitants fled off to the marshes and eventually founded Venice and Grado, of which you might have heard. Now just a string of under-visited Roman remains strung out along the side of a very straight road. With a pizza place opposite.

    Cahokia, outside St Louis. Considered once to have been a major settlement, probably predating the ‘native’ Americans, now just a collection of mounds in a field.

    Any of a collection of former gold rush towns in Colorado and California, such as Elmo, Cripple Creek or Leadville.

    Some of the major Hanseatic trading towns, which time has passed by since trading interest switched to the Atlantic, such as Lubeck or Visby.

    Italy has various towns abandoned after major earthquakes, such as old Noto in Sicily and Craco in Basilicata.

    Dunwich on the east coast, which sunk beneath the waves.

    Delphi in Greece, now just a small village

    Tintagel in your home county; you don’t need the story.

    Even my now home town, the place to be and be seen in Victorian times, with multiple steamers daily, outreach lectures by Oxford University in the summertime, and rocketing land prices. Now, not quite so hectic.

    Or you could make a case for Amalfi - not sleepy or overlooked nowadays, but believed to have once been in the top ten most populous cities of the western world.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,987
    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    NB for @boulay

    Ta. Never been. Is it pretty?

    Crucially it has to have retained a lot of charm just by being forgotten

    I’m tempted to cite Natchez Mississippi. Oddly reminds me of mompox

    Is Bonn a backwater? Former capital of W Germany but replaced by Berlin. When I think of Bonn I think of Helmut Kohl eating a giant sausage and drinking a Stein. That’s it.
    The Bonn-set A Small Town in Germany is one of my favourite le Carré novels. There is also a quite good R4 dramatisation.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,099
    ohnotnow said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    NB for @boulay

    Ta. Never been. Is it pretty?

    Crucially it has to have retained a lot of charm just by being forgotten

    I’m tempted to cite Natchez Mississippi. Oddly reminds me of mompox

    Is Bonn a backwater? Former capital of W Germany but replaced by Berlin. When I think of Bonn I think of Helmut Kohl eating a giant sausage and drinking a Stein. That’s it.
    The Bonn-set A Small Town in Germany is one of my favourite le Carré novels. There is also a quite good R4 dramatisation.
    Have you read the 'new' one? Karla's Choice
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,895
    Foxy said:

    Just eat what you want, but vary and moderate your desires where possible.

    You'll take more years off your life by worrying about what you're eating, and be unhappier. Most diets are just fads designed to take your money and make you unhappy.

    That's easy to say, but not as easy to do.

    We've rapidly moved from a state that existed for hundreds of thousands of years - relatively, or very, scarce food and intense physical activity to get it - to one where there is a large surplus of food, particularly food stuffed with sugar, an industry determined to sell as much food as possible, and sedentary working lives.

    Put like that it's perhaps surprising that the obesity stats aren't way worse.
    In particular a craving for high energy salty foods.

    Obesity is a worldwide issue, rampant in the urban areas across Africa, Middle East and Asia.

    Laissez-faire on diets isn't working, just look around next time you are in a High St or Supermarket.
    One reason why exclusion diets like Bart's carnivore diet can work is that by heavily restricting the choice of food available you make food less interesting and it becomes harder to eat too many calories.

    I experienced that for the very short period I was on a restricted diet before a colonoscopy. Steamed fish and plain rice is fine, as is grilled chicken breast and plain pasta, but they get really boring, really quickly. Grilled chicken is about 150 calories per 100g. So you'd need to eat about 1.7kg of chicken a day to meet your daily calorie requirement. I like chicken, but I'd find that hard to do because it would be so dull.

    Now, I'm sure that Bart makes his meat tasty and interesting to eat in a variety of ways. I'm not saying he's someone with zero interest in food as a Dionysian pleasure. But essentially every approach to eating less food is one of self-denial, and so unless society can find a way to encourage people to cultivate self-denial as a virtue more generally, we shouldn't be surprised that people struggle with it, and that governments are turning to more heavy-handed approaches instead.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,807
    edited December 4
    ...
    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    The syrupy instant porridge perhaps is the wrong sort of cereal, but a lot of granola and muesli contains a lot of sugar.
    Bloomin' doctors... telling us wot's healthy........

    (21 posts remaining)
    I don't really support this ban, but our carb heavy breakfast is a dangerous meal.

    Ironically a food fand thought healthy when it originated in the USA.

    Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal: Why You Should Ditch Your Morning Meal For Health and Wellbeing https://amzn.eu/d/hP1LPEj

    Good to see you drop by, even if only briefly. PB is a poorer place without you.
    Breakfast for me

    2 weetabix plus blueberries plus coffee plus actimel blueberry

    No sugar

    Plus rumours Jenrick jumping to Reform !!!
    Where? I have seen none, after all Jenrick is Badenoch's Shadow Justice Secretary now.

    I haven't seen this rumour either. Montie actually mentions Jenrick in his Talk TV interview, but only in the context of him being a loyal Tory and staying put.

    Suella I'd have thought is far likelier as a big coup. Clearly no love lost between her and Kemi (though the animosity seems mostly on Kemi's side) and not a sniff of a Shadow Cabinet role.

  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,811
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of Hemingway - in his favour his house in Cuba is one of the more interesting writers’ houses I’ve visited. Also beautiful. And it screams “repressed gay”

    Very few are interesting. Pushkin’s is only interesting coz it’s got souvenirs of his fatal duel - the letter of challenge, the blood soaked waistcoat

    The brontes is good coz it’s intense

    Any others?

    I say all this coz I’ve just been to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s gaff in Aracataca and it’s RUBBISH

    Does Anne Hathaway's cottage count, I've always enjoyed that one.

    Good to see where the actress grew up. ;)
    Hah. I’ve never actually been to that one

    I think “writer’s houses” are hampered by the fact most writers live quite boring lives, consisting mainly of sitting alone writing; it’s not box office

    Once you’ve seen the crucial desk and maybe the bedroom, meh
    Robert Graves's house in Deya, Majorca, is lovely to visit. Helps if you know something of his turbulent life and loves. And a superb setting. His grave is in the village churchyard. Apparently he wad buried upright due to lack of space.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,987
    Scott_xP said:

    ohnotnow said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    NB for @boulay

    Ta. Never been. Is it pretty?

    Crucially it has to have retained a lot of charm just by being forgotten

    I’m tempted to cite Natchez Mississippi. Oddly reminds me of mompox

    Is Bonn a backwater? Former capital of W Germany but replaced by Berlin. When I think of Bonn I think of Helmut Kohl eating a giant sausage and drinking a Stein. That’s it.
    The Bonn-set A Small Town in Germany is one of my favourite le Carré novels. There is also a quite good R4 dramatisation.
    Have you read the 'new' one? Karla's Choice
    No! Didn't even know of it! I feel a Christmas treat coming on.....

    Ta!
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,442
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    viewcode said:

    It was interesting listening to Tim Montgomerie on Sky this morning about his defection to Reform which he said was a result of the immigration figures but he also said he doesn't agree with everything Farage says and unlike Reform he supports increasing foreign aid

    He went on to say that in time, some accommodation between the Conservatives and Reform is quite likely which seemed as if he was hoping to act as a bridge between the two

    It does appear from recent polling that the combined total of the two is gaining on the left and it would change politics if this happened, and not in a good way fror labour

    In the Battle Of Trafalgar, Nelson defeated a larger force by splitting his opponents into two. In more modern times, the 1980s split of British Labour into Labour & SDP, and the later split of the Canadian Conservatives, kept them out of government for a decade. Until the pro-immigration Conservatives and the anti-immigration Reform come to an accommodation (I suggest controlled/capped immigration cf Goodwin et al), they will remain out of power.
    Indeed, in the 20th century FPTP helped the Conservatives more as the left was divided between the Liberals and Labour, now it helps Labour more as the right is divided between the Tories and Reform. Hence Starmer's landslide Labour win on just 33.7% of the vote
    from last thread but on topic, there is another element to FPTP oft flagged up by Mike Smithson - who likes you as an option rather than waste a vote, who wouldn’t vote for you in any circumstance?

    This can get you an awful lot of seats under FPTP for just 33.7% of the vote, or even for 12.2%.
    When you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats, it’s stark it’s not party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP.

    I suspect if Reform support went from 14.3 to 0 at next GE, Conservatives shouldn’t expect anything near 14.3% uplift in their own vote - much of that 14.3 came from what voters had been telling pollsters would be Labour vote for much last 2 years of the last parliament. If i’m right, what has been appeal of the populist right wing party to those voters - or merely a protest vote, not real support for right of centre?

    Psephology should pursue why LLG thought same about outcome they wanted in 2024, and measure how this moves now in coming years to predict the next result in advance. At same time the flip side, why doesn’t anyone, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform?

    For example: do you attract the conservative minded, if seen as populist? Can you even be populist and Conservative at the same time? That’s a key question for Badenoch’s Tories, especially if Conservatives, now free from government for five long years, want the 8.4 drop in turnout lifting their share next time.

    Let me answer by introducing the magic phrase our psephology needs to apply more seriously in this era - spectral-syncretic politics. Without shadow of doubt Starmer’s government is pursuing fiscal conservatism, welfare to workfare reform and deregulation - so two Clintonesque periods of Labour government in a row, a lot of psephology may still have a mindset stuck in pre 97 past about Labour and missing that if Badenoch messes up the “can you be populist and conservative at the same time” teaser, Labour and Lib Dem’s will mop up even more new votes.
    Starmer's tax rises on farmers and business owners is certainly not fiscal conservatism. Nor is his renationalising of rail companies today or his splurging payrises on GPs and train drivers.

    Not all Reform voters are ex Tories but in July a clear plurality were. They are now making inroads with Labour voters and the more they do that the more that starts to help the Tories under FPTP (as long as they don't make so many inroads with Labour voters they take the lead in the polls in which case it would be Farage heading for most seats not Badenoch)
    So you are of the mindset this government is certainly going to be “old Labour” not Third Way as I’m sure it is going to be?

    This is getting to the nub of how interesting this period of politics is, as one of us will miss what is actually happening at the time. Take this as an example.

    “Starmer's tax rises on farmers is certainly not fiscal conservatism.”

    How often is “fiscal conservatism” the rule of the ledger book, oblivious to social consequences? Such as an argument to shut down so many mines so quickly in the 1980s and 1990s, that equally didn’t consider social impact and social costs of that decision making?

    Was it “old labour” who wrote off the 1980s introduced change, or 2024 fiscal conservatism? Not that it’s Infinity War or anything, but I have at least one former Conservative Party Chancellor on my side of this point of view don’t I?

    Even if we disagree about how “old labour” this government is going to be, you can still answer the following question to you as a hypothetical:
    If they governed in “the third way” including welfare to workfare reform and deregulation too as well as this fiscal conservatism, will it harm Labours re-election chances, or help them hold and build on the July 2024 voting block?
    It is already closer to the Labour government's of the 1970s or Brown Labour than Blair's New Labour.

    As for mines, Wilson closed more mines than Thatcher did, she just took on the NUM harder. Indeed the last Conservative government proposed to open a new mine in Cumbria but Labour via Ed Miliband .abandoned the plan once it took office.

    Outside of the public sector most voters are seeing their taxes go up more than their pay and immigration also rising further while pensioners have also seen their WFA cut. Welfare to work doesn't attract many voters unless it sees taxes go down too for those already in work to reflect lower welfare costs and Labour are certainly not deregulating anywhere at present.

    Hence already Labour is down about 6-7% on the 34% it got in July, mainly to Reform's benefit
    You just couldn’t bring yourself to answer the question could you? 😌

    Nuff said. Let’s hope you are right in your psephology, and I’m not back on May 4th 2029 saying: fucking told you nearly five years ago - you dipstick!
    Or neither of us are right and Farage enters beaming the doors of No 10 as the UK's first non Tory and non Labour PM for over a century
    Needs quite a lot of votes in places that have been pretty immune to Farage's charms so far. Red Wall plus Faded Seaside Towns doesn't get you that far. Possible, of course, but it needs Something Else to happen.

    Put the Find Out Now poll into Electoral Calculus (Lab 25, Con 27, Ref 22, LD 12, Grn 9), ignore the whole "uniform swing doesn't work on this scale" voices screaming in your head, and you get

    Lab 260, Con 228, LD 68, Ref 40, Grn 6 and good luck picking a government out of that. Not that it matters, because there won't be an election for four years or so.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,268
    Emmanuel Macron will address the French people tomorrow.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 5,053

    Leon said:

    I might write a Knappers Gazette article on the Beauty of Backwaters

    Places forgotten by time, transport and history that have - perhaps as a consequence - retained their charm. And they STILL have that sleepy quality

    Mompos is a perfect example. It was important in its day. The Colombian Spanish nobility fled here to avoid the fierce English raids on the coast. Heh

    And it was also a massively important trading port on the great river

    But then it became a literal backwater as the river silted and then cars and roads etc

    In Britain I would say all of Herefordshire. It is still weirdly hard to reach and as a result is arguably the loveliest most unspoiled county in England

    Any others?

    Northumberland.

    You could join Sunil on a trip on the new rail service to Ashington before visiting nice bits.
    The parts of Northumberland north and west of Hexham, specifically.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,144

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of Hemingway - in his favour his house in Cuba is one of the more interesting writers’ houses I’ve visited. Also beautiful. And it screams “repressed gay”

    Very few are interesting. Pushkin’s is only interesting coz it’s got souvenirs of his fatal duel - the letter of challenge, the blood soaked waistcoat

    The brontes is good coz it’s intense

    Any others?

    I say all this coz I’ve just been to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s gaff in Aracataca and it’s RUBBISH

    Does Anne Hathaway's cottage count, I've always enjoyed that one.

    Good to see where the actress grew up. ;)
    Hah. I’ve never actually been to that one

    I think “writer’s houses” are hampered by the fact most writers live quite boring lives, consisting mainly of sitting alone writing; it’s not box office

    Once you’ve seen the crucial desk and maybe the bedroom, meh
    Robert Graves's house in Deya, Majorca, is lovely to visit. Helps if you know something of his turbulent life and loves. And a superb setting. His grave is in the village churchyard. Apparently he wad buried upright due to lack of space.
    Tennyson’s home on the island, in a very nice spot.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,161

    Emmanuel Macron will address the French people tomorrow.

    Just getting the script emailed over from Seoul...
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,987

    Emmanuel Macron will address the French people tomorrow.

    That'll cheer them up.
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,186

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    AlsoLei said:

    malcolmg said:

    Food deemed to be unhealthy for kids! :open_mouth:

    At least this time no one can blame the EU! :smiley:

    Merry Xmas you lot...

    https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/04/full-list-junk-foods-new-advert-ban-including-porridge-crumpets-22119393

    They are stark raving mad, of all the crap food around they pick porridge, total nutters.
    Is porridge commonly advertised to children?

    It seems to me that the ban is on 'breakfast cereals', and it's the Metro who have translated that into granola, mueseli, and porridge - but the sort of cereals that are actually advertised to kids are, er, slightly different...
    The syrupy instant porridge perhaps is the wrong sort of cereal, but a lot of granola and muesli contains a lot of sugar.
    Bloomin' doctors... telling us wot's healthy........

    (21 posts remaining)
    I don't really support this ban, but our carb heavy breakfast is a dangerous meal.

    Ironically a food fand thought healthy when it originated in the USA.

    Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal: Why You Should Ditch Your Morning Meal For Health and Wellbeing https://amzn.eu/d/hP1LPEj

    Good to see you drop by, even if only briefly. PB is a poorer place without you.
    Breakfast for me

    2 weetabix plus blueberries plus coffee plus actimel blueberry

    No sugar

    Plus rumours Jenrick jumping to Reform !!!
    Jenrick jumping ship is quite some rumour.

    Sounds like Kemi is annoying a lot of people.
    [snip!]
    Everyone knows that Kemi B doesn't suffer fools gladly, [snip!]
    I take it she does not spend much time looking in a mirror?

  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,987

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of Hemingway - in his favour his house in Cuba is one of the more interesting writers’ houses I’ve visited. Also beautiful. And it screams “repressed gay”

    Very few are interesting. Pushkin’s is only interesting coz it’s got souvenirs of his fatal duel - the letter of challenge, the blood soaked waistcoat

    The brontes is good coz it’s intense

    Any others?

    I say all this coz I’ve just been to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s gaff in Aracataca and it’s RUBBISH

    Does Anne Hathaway's cottage count, I've always enjoyed that one.

    Good to see where the actress grew up. ;)
    Hah. I’ve never actually been to that one

    I think “writer’s houses” are hampered by the fact most writers live quite boring lives, consisting mainly of sitting alone writing; it’s not box office

    Once you’ve seen the crucial desk and maybe the bedroom, meh
    Robert Graves's house in Deya, Majorca, is lovely to visit. Helps if you know something of his turbulent life and loves. And a superb setting. His grave is in the village churchyard. Apparently he wad buried upright due to lack of space.
    It's not especially worth visiting in itself, but the house on Jura where Orwell used to write is quite a spot. And a very good excuse to accidentally wander past some very good distilleries.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,682
    edited December 4

    As an aside - the number of objections received, or comments in support don't change much.
    It's not the number, but the content.

    They need to identify material considerations against the legislation (NPPF, Local Plan Policies, case law precedent) to have any effect.

    Your house price value, personal view (in most cases - there are special rules for wind turbines and mobile phone masts, or in AONBs, Conservation areas, and for listed buildings), personal inconvenience cannot be considered.

    And if you write to the councillors, they'll almost invariably send back a polite and non-committal response. Because the code of conduct that came in about ten years ago means that if they have given a hint of any pre-determination makes any decision in which they voted legally unsound (would provide solid grounds for an appeal or judicial review to annul it).

    To be honest, the entire inviting comments and objections element now seems to be taking the piss. If you don't have significant planning training or experience and put in a comment, you'll feel openly ignored, which will wind you up.

    I have been called upon to do a lot of archaeology comments or objections to planning decisions and have to tell people that, even if I symapthise with them about their objections, unless there is something legally or practically wrong with the archaeological asessment, I am just wasting my time and theirs in doing a report.

    It is actually surprising the number of times archaeology units, called in to do mitigation work to tick the boxes for developers, fail in the most basic desk top and field assessment work so I am always happy to read through the reports and perhaps insist that further work needs to be done. But even there, unless they have missed something really obvious (which does happen) then I have to advise the objectors that it is very unlikely to make any difference to the final decision. But I also enjoy pointing out to the developers that they have paid a lot of money to a professional archaeology unit that has completely failed to do the basic, necessary work.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,144
    carnforth said:
    ”spanning a range of ages” isn’t doing much work in that article. It would be more noteworthy if the thirteen women he picked on all had the same age.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,144

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    viewcode said:

    It was interesting listening to Tim Montgomerie on Sky this morning about his defection to Reform which he said was a result of the immigration figures but he also said he doesn't agree with everything Farage says and unlike Reform he supports increasing foreign aid

    He went on to say that in time, some accommodation between the Conservatives and Reform is quite likely which seemed as if he was hoping to act as a bridge between the two

    It does appear from recent polling that the combined total of the two is gaining on the left and it would change politics if this happened, and not in a good way fror labour

    In the Battle Of Trafalgar, Nelson defeated a larger force by splitting his opponents into two. In more modern times, the 1980s split of British Labour into Labour & SDP, and the later split of the Canadian Conservatives, kept them out of government for a decade. Until the pro-immigration Conservatives and the anti-immigration Reform come to an accommodation (I suggest controlled/capped immigration cf Goodwin et al), they will remain out of power.
    Indeed, in the 20th century FPTP helped the Conservatives more as the left was divided between the Liberals and Labour, now it helps Labour more as the right is divided between the Tories and Reform. Hence Starmer's landslide Labour win on just 33.7% of the vote
    from last thread but on topic, there is another element to FPTP oft flagged up by Mike Smithson - who likes you as an option rather than waste a vote, who wouldn’t vote for you in any circumstance?

    This can get you an awful lot of seats under FPTP for just 33.7% of the vote, or even for 12.2%.
    When you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats, it’s stark it’s not party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP.

    I suspect if Reform support went from 14.3 to 0 at next GE, Conservatives shouldn’t expect anything near 14.3% uplift in their own vote - much of that 14.3 came from what voters had been telling pollsters would be Labour vote for much last 2 years of the last parliament. If i’m right, what has been appeal of the populist right wing party to those voters - or merely a protest vote, not real support for right of centre?

    Psephology should pursue why LLG thought same about outcome they wanted in 2024, and measure how this moves now in coming years to predict the next result in advance. At same time the flip side, why doesn’t anyone, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform?

    For example: do you attract the conservative minded, if seen as populist? Can you even be populist and Conservative at the same time? That’s a key question for Badenoch’s Tories, especially if Conservatives, now free from government for five long years, want the 8.4 drop in turnout lifting their share next time.

    Let me answer by introducing the magic phrase our psephology needs to apply more seriously in this era - spectral-syncretic politics. Without shadow of doubt Starmer’s government is pursuing fiscal conservatism, welfare to workfare reform and deregulation - so two Clintonesque periods of Labour government in a row, a lot of psephology may still have a mindset stuck in pre 97 past about Labour and missing that if Badenoch messes up the “can you be populist and conservative at the same time” teaser, Labour and Lib Dem’s will mop up even more new votes.
    Starmer's tax rises on farmers and business owners is certainly not fiscal conservatism. Nor is his renationalising of rail companies today or his splurging payrises on GPs and train drivers.

    Not all Reform voters are ex Tories but in July a clear plurality were. They are now making inroads with Labour voters and the more they do that the more that starts to help the Tories under FPTP (as long as they don't make so many inroads with Labour voters they take the lead in the polls in which case it would be Farage heading for most seats not Badenoch)
    So you are of the mindset this government is certainly going to be “old Labour” not Third Way as I’m sure it is going to be?

    This is getting to the nub of how interesting this period of politics is, as one of us will miss what is actually happening at the time. Take this as an example.

    “Starmer's tax rises on farmers is certainly not fiscal conservatism.”

    How often is “fiscal conservatism” the rule of the ledger book, oblivious to social consequences? Such as an argument to shut down so many mines so quickly in the 1980s and 1990s, that equally didn’t consider social impact and social costs of that decision making?

    Was it “old labour” who wrote off the 1980s introduced change, or 2024 fiscal conservatism? Not that it’s Infinity War or anything, but I have at least one former Conservative Party Chancellor on my side of this point of view don’t I?

    Even if we disagree about how “old labour” this government is going to be, you can still answer the following question to you as a hypothetical:
    If they governed in “the third way” including welfare to workfare reform and deregulation too as well as this fiscal conservatism, will it harm Labours re-election chances, or help them hold and build on the July 2024 voting block?
    It is already closer to the Labour government's of the 1970s or Brown Labour than Blair's New Labour.

    As for mines, Wilson closed more mines than Thatcher did, she just took on the NUM harder. Indeed the last Conservative government proposed to open a new mine in Cumbria but Labour via Ed Miliband .abandoned the plan once it took office.

    Outside of the public sector most voters are seeing their taxes go up more than their pay and immigration also rising further while pensioners have also seen their WFA cut. Welfare to work doesn't attract many voters unless it sees taxes go down too for those already in work to reflect lower welfare costs and Labour are certainly not deregulating anywhere at present.

    Hence already Labour is down about 6-7% on the 34% it got in July, mainly to Reform's benefit
    You just couldn’t bring yourself to answer the question could you? 😌

    Nuff said. Let’s hope you are right in your psephology, and I’m not back on May 4th 2029 saying: fucking told you nearly five years ago - you dipstick!
    Or neither of us are right and Farage enters beaming the doors of No 10 as the UK's first non Tory and non Labour PM for over a century
    Needs quite a lot of votes in places that have been pretty immune to Farage's charms so far. Red Wall plus Faded Seaside Towns doesn't get you that far. Possible, of course, but it needs Something Else to happen.

    Put the Find Out Now poll into Electoral Calculus (Lab 25, Con 27, Ref 22, LD 12, Grn 9), ignore the whole "uniform swing doesn't work on this scale" voices screaming in your head, and you get

    Lab 260, Con 228, LD 68, Ref 40, Grn 6 and good luck picking a government out of that. Not that it matters, because there won't be an election for four years or so.
    I get the impression the Tories here on the island were looking forward to retaking the council next year, but with the emergence of Farage’s lot as a potential player in local government, that now looks rather less likely.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,811

    As an aside - the number of objections received, or comments in support don't change much.
    It's not the number, but the content.

    They need to identify material considerations against the legislation (NPPF, Local Plan Policies, case law precedent) to have any effect.

    Your house price value, personal view (in most cases - there are special rules for wind turbines and mobile phone masts, or in AONBs, Conservation areas, and for listed buildings), personal inconvenience cannot be considered.

    And if you write to the councillors, they'll almost invariably send back a polite and non-committal response. Because the code of conduct that came in about ten years ago means that if they have given a hint of any pre-determination makes any decision in which they voted legally unsound (would provide solid grounds for an appeal or judicial review to annul it).

    To be honest, the entire inviting comments and objections element now seems to be taking the piss. If you don't have significant planning training or experience and put in a comment, you'll feel openly ignored, which will wind you up.

    I have been called upon to do a lot of archaeology comments or objections to planning decisions and have to tell people that, even if I symapthise with them about their objections, unless there is something legally or practically wrong with the archaeological asessment, I am just wasting my time and theirs in doing a report.

    It is actually surprising the number of times archaeology units, called in to do mitigation work to tick the boxes for developers, fail in the most basic desk top and field assessment work so I am always happy to read through the reports and perhaps insist that further work needs to be done. But even there, unless they have missed something really obvious (which does happen) then I have to advise the objectors that it is very unlikely to make any difference to the final decision. But I also enjoy pointing out to the developers that they have paid a lot of money to a professional archaeology unit that has completely failed to do the basic, necessary work.
    There's a very obvious conflict of interest when the developer gets to appoint so-called expert third-party experts. I know of one wildlife consultancy, appointed by a windfarm developer, who managed to miss an occupied golden eagle eyrie.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578
    edited December 4
    algarkirk said:

    Will 2025 see any by-elections? It is very hard to think of a single GB constituency where a by-election would not be extremely fascinating. It would be good to have one or two.

    It's always good to have by-elections.

    Wiki history shows there are usually at least a handful in the first 12 months after an election.

    79-80: 3
    83-84: 5
    87-88: 0
    92-93: 0
    97-98: 3
    01-02: 2
    05-06: 3
    10-11: 3
    15-16: 3
    17-18: 2
    19-20: 0

    The reasons being:

    Void election - 1
    Resignation (including due to crime/scandal/other appointment) - 7
    Peerages - 2
    Ill health - 1
    Death - 13
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,330

    As an aside - the number of objections received, or comments in support don't change much.
    It's not the number, but the content.

    They need to identify material considerations against the legislation (NPPF, Local Plan Policies, case law precedent) to have any effect.

    Your house price value, personal view (in most cases - there are special rules for wind turbines and mobile phone masts, or in AONBs, Conservation areas, and for listed buildings), personal inconvenience cannot be considered.

    And if you write to the councillors, they'll almost invariably send back a polite and non-committal response. Because the code of conduct that came in about ten years ago means that if they have given a hint of any pre-determination makes any decision in which they voted legally unsound (would provide solid grounds for an appeal or judicial review to annul it).

    To be honest, the entire inviting comments and objections element now seems to be taking the piss. If you don't have significant planning training or experience and put in a comment, you'll feel openly ignored, which will wind you up.

    I have been called upon to do a lot of archaeology comments or objections to planning decisions and have to tell people that, even if I symapthise with them about their objections, unless there is something legally or practically wrong with the archaeological asessment, I am just wasting my time and theirs in doing a report.

    It is actually surprising the number of times archaeology units, called in to do mitigation work to tick the boxes for developers, fail in the most basic desk top and field assessment work so I am always happy to read through the reports and perhaps insist that further work needs to be done. But even there, unless they have missed something really obvious (which does happen) then I have to advise the objectors that it is very unlikely to make any difference to the final decision. But I also enjoy pointing out to the developers that they have paid a lot of money to a professional archaeology unit that has completely failed to do the basic, necessary work.
    There's a very obvious conflict of interest when the developer gets to appoint so-called expert third-party experts. I know of one wildlife consultancy, appointed by a windfarm developer, who managed to miss an occupied golden eagle eyrie.
    Same here. Even managed to miss the *rookery*, and very much else.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,682

    As an aside - the number of objections received, or comments in support don't change much.
    It's not the number, but the content.

    They need to identify material considerations against the legislation (NPPF, Local Plan Policies, case law precedent) to have any effect.

    Your house price value, personal view (in most cases - there are special rules for wind turbines and mobile phone masts, or in AONBs, Conservation areas, and for listed buildings), personal inconvenience cannot be considered.

    And if you write to the councillors, they'll almost invariably send back a polite and non-committal response. Because the code of conduct that came in about ten years ago means that if they have given a hint of any pre-determination makes any decision in which they voted legally unsound (would provide solid grounds for an appeal or judicial review to annul it).

    To be honest, the entire inviting comments and objections element now seems to be taking the piss. If you don't have significant planning training or experience and put in a comment, you'll feel openly ignored, which will wind you up.

    I have been called upon to do a lot of archaeology comments or objections to planning decisions and have to tell people that, even if I symapthise with them about their objections, unless there is something legally or practically wrong with the archaeological asessment, I am just wasting my time and theirs in doing a report.

    It is actually surprising the number of times archaeology units, called in to do mitigation work to tick the boxes for developers, fail in the most basic desk top and field assessment work so I am always happy to read through the reports and perhaps insist that further work needs to be done. But even there, unless they have missed something really obvious (which does happen) then I have to advise the objectors that it is very unlikely to make any difference to the final decision. But I also enjoy pointing out to the developers that they have paid a lot of money to a professional archaeology unit that has completely failed to do the basic, necessary work.
    There's a very obvious conflict of interest when the developer gets to appoint so-called expert third-party experts. I know of one wildlife consultancy, appointed by a windfarm developer, who managed to miss an occupied golden eagle eyrie.
    Sadly that is the basis of the whole 'mitigation' industry both in heritage and environmental assessments.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,198
    edited December 4
    kle4 said:

    algarkirk said:

    Will 2025 see any by-elections? It is very hard to think of a single GB constituency where a by-election would not be extremely fascinating. It would be good to have one or two.

    It's always good to have by-elections.

    Wiki history shows there are usually at least a handful in the first 12 months after an election.

    79-80: 3
    83-84: 5
    87-88: 0
    92-93: 0
    97-98: 3
    01-02: 2
    05-06: 3
    10-11: 3
    15-16: 3
    17-18: 2
    19-20: 0
    97-98 surprises me because if the amount of younger, new blood at the end election (much like this time). I guess one was Sir John Major, but three? Linked to devolution? Livingstone or Dobson for the mayoralty?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,330
    edited December 4
    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of Hemingway - in his favour his house in Cuba is one of the more interesting writers’ houses I’ve visited. Also beautiful. And it screams “repressed gay”

    Very few are interesting. Pushkin’s is only interesting coz it’s got souvenirs of his fatal duel - the letter of challenge, the blood soaked waistcoat

    The brontes is good coz it’s intense

    Any others?

    I say all this coz I’ve just been to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s gaff in Aracataca and it’s RUBBISH

    Does Anne Hathaway's cottage count, I've always enjoyed that one.

    Good to see where the actress grew up. ;)
    Hah. I’ve never actually been to that one

    I think “writer’s houses” are hampered by the fact most writers live quite boring lives, consisting mainly of sitting alone writing; it’s not box office

    Once you’ve seen the crucial desk and maybe the bedroom, meh
    Robert Graves's house in Deya, Majorca, is lovely to visit. Helps if you know something of his turbulent life and loves. And a superb setting. His grave is in the village churchyard. Apparently he wad buried upright due to lack of space.
    It's not especially worth visiting in itself, but the house on Jura where Orwell used to write is quite a spot. And a very good excuse to accidentally wander past some very good distilleries.
    Gilbert White in Selborne. Hardy at High Bockhampton near Dorchester (farmhouse, complete with earth closet in the heart of Hardy country and right beside the Roman Road of the poem across Egdon (?) Heath) (have not been to Max Gate). Hugh Miller in Cromarty (interesting C18 house survival in itself, and a great little burgh fossilised by economic decline in the C19).
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,330
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of Hemingway - in his favour his house in Cuba is one of the more interesting writers’ houses I’ve visited. Also beautiful. And it screams “repressed gay”

    Very few are interesting. Pushkin’s is only interesting coz it’s got souvenirs of his fatal duel - the letter of challenge, the blood soaked waistcoat

    The brontes is good coz it’s intense

    Any others?

    I say all this coz I’ve just been to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s gaff in Aracataca and it’s RUBBISH

    Does Anne Hathaway's cottage count, I've always enjoyed that one.

    Good to see where the actress grew up. ;)
    Hah. I’ve never actually been to that one

    I think “writer’s houses” are hampered by the fact most writers live quite boring lives, consisting mainly of sitting alone writing; it’s not box office

    Once you’ve seen the crucial desk and maybe the bedroom, meh
    Robert Graves's house in Deya, Majorca, is lovely to visit. Helps if you know something of his turbulent life and loves. And a superb setting. His grave is in the village churchyard. Apparently he wad buried upright due to lack of space.
    Tennyson’s home on the island, in a very nice spot.
    Oh yes, with the walk on the chalk down behind to the Tennyson Monument. And the dinofootprints and fossil logjam on the beach in the other direction.

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578
    biggles said:

    kle4 said:

    algarkirk said:

    Will 2025 see any by-elections? It is very hard to think of a single GB constituency where a by-election would not be extremely fascinating. It would be good to have one or two.

    It's always good to have by-elections.

    Wiki history shows there are usually at least a handful in the first 12 months after an election.

    79-80: 3
    83-84: 5
    87-88: 0
    92-93: 0
    97-98: 3
    01-02: 2
    05-06: 3
    10-11: 3
    15-16: 3
    17-18: 2
    19-20: 0
    97-98 surprises me because if the amount of younger, new blood at the end election (much like this time). I guess one was Sir John Major, but three? Linked to devolution? Livingstone or Dobson for the mayoralty?
    Michael Shersby (Uxbridge), Gordon McMaster (Paisley South), and Piers Merchant (Beckenham), Mark Oaten (Winchster), technically. 2 deaths and a scandal and 1 void election.

    Not heard of any of them unfortunately bar Oaten.
    kle4 said:

    algarkirk said:

    Will 2025 see any by-elections? It is very hard to think of a single GB constituency where a by-election would not be extremely fascinating. It would be good to have one or two.

    It's always good to have by-elections.

    Wiki history shows there are usually at least a handful in the first 12 months after an election.

    79-80: 3
    83-84: 5
    87-88: 0
    92-93: 0
    97-98: 3
    01-02: 2
    05-06: 3
    10-11: 3
    15-16: 3
    17-18: 2
    19-20: 0

    The reasons being:

    Void election - 1
    Resignation (including due to crime/scandal/other appointment) - 7
    Peerages - 2
    Ill health - 1
    Death - 13
    Should be 2 void elections total and 4 by-electionsin 1997 - somehow missed the famous Winchester one.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,895
    biggles said:

    kle4 said:

    algarkirk said:

    Will 2025 see any by-elections? It is very hard to think of a single GB constituency where a by-election would not be extremely fascinating. It would be good to have one or two.

    It's always good to have by-elections.

    Wiki history shows there are usually at least a handful in the first 12 months after an election.

    79-80: 3
    83-84: 5
    87-88: 0
    92-93: 0
    97-98: 3
    01-02: 2
    05-06: 3
    10-11: 3
    15-16: 3
    17-18: 2
    19-20: 0
    97-98 surprises me because if the amount of younger, new blood at the end election (much like this time). I guess one was Sir John Major, but three? Linked to devolution? Livingstone or Dobson for the mayoralty?
    The first London Mayoral election wasn't until 2000.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,864
    edited December 4

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    viewcode said:

    It was interesting listening to Tim Montgomerie on Sky this morning about his defection to Reform which he said was a result of the immigration figures but he also said he doesn't agree with everything Farage says and unlike Reform he supports increasing foreign aid

    He went on to say that in time, some accommodation between the Conservatives and Reform is quite likely which seemed as if he was hoping to act as a bridge between the two

    It does appear from recent polling that the combined total of the two is gaining on the left and it would change politics if this happened, and not in a good way fror labour

    In the Battle Of Trafalgar, Nelson defeated a larger force by splitting his opponents into two. In more modern times, the 1980s split of British Labour into Labour & SDP, and the later split of the Canadian Conservatives, kept them out of government for a decade. Until the pro-immigration Conservatives and the anti-immigration Reform come to an accommodation (I suggest controlled/capped immigration cf Goodwin et al), they will remain out of power.
    Indeed, in the 20th century FPTP helped the Conservatives more as the left was divided between the Liberals and Labour, now it helps Labour more as the right is divided between the Tories and Reform. Hence Starmer's landslide Labour win on just 33.7% of the vote
    from last thread but on topic, there is another element to FPTP oft flagged up by Mike Smithson - who likes you as an option rather than waste a vote, who wouldn’t vote for you in any circumstance?

    This can get you an awful lot of seats under FPTP for just 33.7% of the vote, or even for 12.2%.
    When you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats, it’s stark it’s not party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP.

    I suspect if Reform support went from 14.3 to 0 at next GE, Conservatives shouldn’t expect anything near 14.3% uplift in their own vote - much of that 14.3 came from what voters had been telling pollsters would be Labour vote for much last 2 years of the last parliament. If i’m right, what has been appeal of the populist right wing party to those voters - or merely a protest vote, not real support for right of centre?

    Psephology should pursue why LLG thought same about outcome they wanted in 2024, and measure how this moves now in coming years to predict the next result in advance. At same time the flip side, why doesn’t anyone, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform?

    For example: do you attract the conservative minded, if seen as populist? Can you even be populist and Conservative at the same time? That’s a key question for Badenoch’s Tories, especially if Conservatives, now free from government for five long years, want the 8.4 drop in turnout lifting their share next time.

    Let me answer by introducing the magic phrase our psephology needs to apply more seriously in this era - spectral-syncretic politics. Without shadow of doubt Starmer’s government is pursuing fiscal conservatism, welfare to workfare reform and deregulation - so two Clintonesque periods of Labour government in a row, a lot of psephology may still have a mindset stuck in pre 97 past about Labour and missing that if Badenoch messes up the “can you be populist and conservative at the same time” teaser, Labour and Lib Dem’s will mop up even more new votes.
    Starmer's tax rises on farmers and business owners is certainly not fiscal conservatism. Nor is his renationalising of rail companies today or his splurging payrises on GPs and train drivers.

    Not all Reform voters are ex Tories but in July a clear plurality were. They are now making inroads with Labour voters and the more they do that the more that starts to help the Tories under FPTP (as long as they don't make so many inroads with Labour voters they take the lead in the polls in which case it would be Farage heading for most seats not Badenoch)
    So you are of the mindset this government is certainly going to be “old Labour” not Third Way as I’m sure it is going to be?

    This is getting to the nub of how interesting this period of politics is, as one of us will miss what is actually happening at the time. Take this as an example.

    “Starmer's tax rises on farmers is certainly not fiscal conservatism.”

    How often is “fiscal conservatism” the rule of the ledger book, oblivious to social consequences? Such as an argument to shut down so many mines so quickly in the 1980s and 1990s, that equally didn’t consider social impact and social costs of that decision making?

    Was it “old labour” who wrote off the 1980s introduced change, or 2024 fiscal conservatism? Not that it’s Infinity War or anything, but I have at least one former Conservative Party Chancellor on my side of this point of view don’t I?

    Even if we disagree about how “old labour” this government is going to be, you can still answer the following question to you as a hypothetical:
    If they governed in “the third way” including welfare to workfare reform and deregulation too as well as this fiscal conservatism, will it harm Labours re-election chances, or help them hold and build on the July 2024 voting block?
    It is already closer to the Labour government's of the 1970s or Brown Labour than Blair's New Labour.

    As for mines, Wilson closed more mines than Thatcher did, she just took on the NUM harder. Indeed the last Conservative government proposed to open a new mine in Cumbria but Labour via Ed Miliband .abandoned the plan once it took office.

    Outside of the public sector most voters are seeing their taxes go up more than their pay and immigration also rising further while pensioners have also seen their WFA cut. Welfare to work doesn't attract many voters unless it sees taxes go down too for those already in work to reflect lower welfare costs and Labour are certainly not deregulating anywhere at present.

    Hence already Labour is down about 6-7% on the 34% it got in July, mainly to Reform's benefit
    You just couldn’t bring yourself to answer the question could you? 😌

    Nuff said. Let’s hope you are right in your psephology, and I’m not back on May 4th 2029 saying: fucking told you nearly five years ago - you dipstick!
    Or neither of us are right and Farage enters beaming the doors of No 10 as the UK's first non Tory and non Labour PM for over a century
    Needs quite a lot of votes in places that have been pretty immune to Farage's charms so far. Red Wall plus Faded Seaside Towns doesn't get you that far. Possible, of course, but it needs Something Else to happen.

    Put the Find Out Now poll into Electoral Calculus (Lab 25, Con 27, Ref 22, LD 12, Grn 9), ignore the whole "uniform swing doesn't work on this scale" voices screaming in your head, and you get

    Lab 260, Con 228, LD 68, Ref 40, Grn 6 and good luck picking a government out of that. Not that it matters, because there won't be an election for four years or so.
    That would be a Labour minority government with LD support.

    Put in Ref 30, Lab 22, Con 22, LD 12 by contrast into EC and you get Reform 300, Labour 128, Con 88, LDs 72, Grn 5 and Farage PM with Tory support

    https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=22&LAB=22&LIB=12&Reform=30&Green=8&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,835
    IanB2 said:

    carnforth said:
    ”spanning a range of ages” isn’t doing much work in that article. It would be more noteworthy if the thirteen women he picked on all had the same age.
    An interesting companion phrase to "of a certain age" I suppose.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,399
    edited December 4
    Scott_xP said:

    @RobDotHutton

    I am begging - begging! - the Tories to make "Actually, a Fixed Penalty Notice for breaching Covid rules is not the same as a criminal conviction" into the centrepiece of their Christmas campaign.

    https://x.com/RobDotHutton/status/1864311552674762928



    Oh...

    https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1864393558167572947

    John Rentoul (in Indy email):-
    Unusually, she came to the chamber with a prepared line and was made to look foolish by Keir Starmer thinking on his feet. She said, referring to Louise Haigh’s resignation over a conviction for fraud, that people want “conviction politicians, not politicians with convictions”.

    Starmer responded by “reminding” her that “two of her predecessors had convictions”. Afterwards, we in the press gallery agreed that a former director of public prosecutions ought to know that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s penalty notices for breaching coronavirus regulations are not convictions, but Starmer had won the moment.


    We should note in passing that Starmer has a habit of misspeaking. At PMQs today he said Justice rather than Transport Secretary, for instance. If he is not careful, he'll have the amateur neurologists on his case.

    ETA Hutton is right. Kemi and her team get everything wrong. Did they learn nothing from Oscar Wilde?
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,442
    biggles said:

    kle4 said:

    algarkirk said:

    Will 2025 see any by-elections? It is very hard to think of a single GB constituency where a by-election would not be extremely fascinating. It would be good to have one or two.

    It's always good to have by-elections.

    Wiki history shows there are usually at least a handful in the first 12 months after an election.

    79-80: 3
    83-84: 5
    87-88: 0
    92-93: 0
    97-98: 3
    01-02: 2
    05-06: 3
    10-11: 3
    15-16: 3
    17-18: 2
    19-20: 0
    97-98 surprises me because if the amount of younger, new blood at the end election (much like this time). I guess one was Sir John Major, but three? Linked to devolution? Livingstone or Dobson for the mayoralty?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_by-elections_(1979–2010)#1997–2001_Parliament

    One Labour MP died.
    One Conservative MP resigned due to personal scandal.
    One seat from the General Election was rerun following a legal challenge.

    Major stayed on until 2001.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578
    edited December 4


    To be honest, the entire inviting comments and objections element now seems to be taking the piss. If you don't have significant planning training or experience and put in a comment, you'll feel openly ignored, which will wind you up.

    Objections tend to be ignored as not material, or given far too much weight by local cllrs (5G is unhealthy!)

    Committee members are more careful and circumspect to avoid predetermination, but local cllrs believe (or have to pretend to believe) quantity over quality matters. They do a disservice if they pretend to residents mere democratic will is enough, given however much they are their to represent residents they have to make decisions within the legal planning framework. Some have to pretend otherwise to retain support.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,114
    edited December 4
    On the topic, let us hope and pray this is how it stays with the public.

    Because one of the worst issues with Trump 2.0 win is that there are now loads of wild right-wingers in this country just inching to run a Trump-style 'Make Britain Great Again' campaign of lies and disinformation with a plan to destroy our own democracy. They think he's shown that's how you win.

    Couldn't happen here etc etc?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578

    On the topic, let us hope and pray this is how stays with the public.

    Because one of the worst issues with Trump 2.0 win is that there are now loads of wild right-wingers in this country just inching to run a Trump-style 'Make Britain Great Again' campaign of lies and disinformation with a plan to destroy our own democracy. They think he's shown that's how you win.

    Couldn't happen here etc etc?

    Trump is a very unpleasant individual on a personal level. Voters might like his courseness, not care about it, or think he is worth it anyway, but I feel like we're less used to it, and a politician would have to be very very well liked to overcome distaste. So I think people trying to ape Trump will do badly - even in american many Trump wannabes have not done well.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,114
    Academic grifters latest:

    Matt Goodwin
    @GoodwinMJ

    Eek. Tomorrow morning I’m presenting @GBNEWS with @beverleyturner
    Tune in 9-12!

    https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1864256229083664496
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,114
    kle4 said:

    On the topic, let us hope and pray this is how stays with the public.

    Because one of the worst issues with Trump 2.0 win is that there are now loads of wild right-wingers in this country just inching to run a Trump-style 'Make Britain Great Again' campaign of lies and disinformation with a plan to destroy our own democracy. They think he's shown that's how you win.

    Couldn't happen here etc etc?

    Trump is a very unpleasant individual on a personal level. Voters might like his courseness, not care about it, or think he is worth it anyway, but I feel like we're less used to it, and a politician would have to be very very well liked to overcome distaste. So I think people trying to ape Trump will do badly - even in american many Trump wannabes have not done well.
    True. Maybe he is unique. I hope so.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,709

    biggles said:

    kle4 said:

    algarkirk said:

    Will 2025 see any by-elections? It is very hard to think of a single GB constituency where a by-election would not be extremely fascinating. It would be good to have one or two.

    It's always good to have by-elections.

    Wiki history shows there are usually at least a handful in the first 12 months after an election.

    79-80: 3
    83-84: 5
    87-88: 0
    92-93: 0
    97-98: 3
    01-02: 2
    05-06: 3
    10-11: 3
    15-16: 3
    17-18: 2
    19-20: 0
    97-98 surprises me because if the amount of younger, new blood at the end election (much like this time). I guess one was Sir John Major, but three? Linked to devolution? Livingstone or Dobson for the mayoralty?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_by-elections_(1979–2010)#1997–2001_Parliament

    One Labour MP died.
    One Conservative MP resigned due to personal scandal.
    One seat from the General Election was rerun following a legal challenge.

    Major stayed on until 2001.
    One Conservative MP died as well - the MP for Uxbridge died only a couple of weeks after the election.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,114
    Acyn
    @Acyn
    ·
    2h
    Fetterman: I'm considering voting yes on DeSantis if he finally admits that he has lifts in his boots. I'm sure he does. You know, maybe three inches. Four inches at least.
  • Foxy said:

    Just eat what you want, but vary and moderate your desires where possible.

    You'll take more years off your life by worrying about what you're eating, and be unhappier. Most diets are just fads designed to take your money and make you unhappy.

    That's easy to say, but not as easy to do.

    We've rapidly moved from a state that existed for hundreds of thousands of years - relatively, or very, scarce food and intense physical activity to get it - to one where there is a large surplus of food, particularly food stuffed with sugar, an industry determined to sell as much food as possible, and sedentary working lives.

    Put like that it's perhaps surprising that the obesity stats aren't way worse.
    In particular a craving for high energy salty foods.

    Obesity is a worldwide issue, rampant in the urban areas across Africa, Middle East and Asia.

    Laissez-faire on diets isn't working, just look around next time you are in a High St or Supermarket.
    One reason why exclusion diets like Bart's carnivore diet can work is that by heavily restricting the choice of food available you make food less interesting and it becomes harder to eat too many calories.

    I experienced that for the very short period I was on a restricted diet before a colonoscopy. Steamed fish and plain rice is fine, as is grilled chicken breast and plain pasta, but they get really boring, really quickly. Grilled chicken is about 150 calories per 100g. So you'd need to eat about 1.7kg of chicken a day to meet your daily calorie requirement. I like chicken, but I'd find that hard to do because it would be so dull.

    Now, I'm sure that Bart makes his meat tasty and interesting to eat in a variety of ways. I'm not saying he's someone with zero interest in food as a Dionysian pleasure. But essentially every approach to eating less food is one of self-denial, and so unless society can find a way to encourage people to cultivate self-denial as a virtue more generally, we shouldn't be surprised that people struggle with it, and that governments are turning to more heavy-handed approaches instead.
    The thing with a carnivore-based diet (which allows eggs, dairy, cheese etc) is there's no shortage of tasty food to have and no guilt from having as much of it as you want.

    So yes if I want a quick and simple meal I can do that, with eg tonight's meal being a quick and easy one after I got home from work of just chicken breast seasoned and thrown into the air fryer to cook for 15 minutes, with a side of black pudding added to the air fryer halfway through.

    Though there's no shortage of interesting and tasty food available for me to have and to be honest the bits I'm cutting out primarily are the bits I'd be less interested in but previously felt obliged to have on top of the food I would want.

    EG I used to love eating cheese and crackers, but now still eating the cheese but omitting the biscuits is no worse for me.

    Most self-denial diets I've failed with because they're unsustainable. Personally I can sustain this one as I'm keeping the bits I love and dropping the bits I'm not too fussed with anyway.
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,186

    kle4 said:

    On the topic, let us hope and pray this is how stays with the public.

    Because one of the worst issues with Trump 2.0 win is that there are now loads of wild right-wingers in this country just inching to run a Trump-style 'Make Britain Great Again' campaign of lies and disinformation with a plan to destroy our own democracy. They think he's shown that's how you win.

    Couldn't happen here etc etc?

    Trump is a very unpleasant individual on a personal level. Voters might like his courseness, not care about it, or think he is worth it anyway, but I feel like we're less used to it, and a politician would have to be very very well liked to overcome distaste. So I think people trying to ape Trump will do badly - even in american many Trump wannabes have not done well.
    True. Maybe he is unique. I hope so.
    The UK has already had its "Trump" aka Boris.

    Desperate for money, proven liar, adulterer, ignores the rules, only lightly in touch with reality, not really all that bright and on the political right.

    I cannot seeing us electing a UK Trump no matter how many fascists and right-wing extremists spend their time frothing and yelling.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,608
    Leon said:

    Speaking of Hemingway - in his favour his house in Cuba is one of the more interesting writers’ houses I’ve visited. Also beautiful. And it screams “repressed gay”

    Very few are interesting. Pushkin’s is only interesting coz it’s got souvenirs of his fatal duel - the letter of challenge, the blood soaked waistcoat

    The brontes is good coz it’s intense

    Any others?

    I say all this coz I’ve just been to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s gaff in Aracataca and it’s RUBBISH

    I'd skip on Tom Knox's apartment personally. There's a distinct lack of noom.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,443
    ohnotnow said:

    Foxy said:

    Just eat what you want, but vary and moderate your desires where possible.

    You'll take more years off your life by worrying about what you're eating, and be unhappier. Most diets are just fads designed to take your money and make you unhappy.

    That's easy to say, but not as easy to do.

    We've rapidly moved from a state that existed for hundreds of thousands of years - relatively, or very, scarce food and intense physical activity to get it - to one where there is a large surplus of food, particularly food stuffed with sugar, an industry determined to sell as much food as possible, and sedentary working lives.

    Put like that it's perhaps surprising that the obesity stats aren't way worse.
    In particular a craving for high energy salty foods.

    Obesity is a worldwide issue, rampant in the urban areas across Africa, Middle East and Asia.

    Laissez-faire on diets isn't working, just look around next time you are in a High St or Supermarket.
    You may have missed the current social media drama around the 'Rumin8' seaweed cattle feed. It seems seaweed powder is like a magnet for 5G/Bill Gates/Antivax people who were otherwise getting bored.

    Seaweed - just say no. While you ram nitrite-riddled day-glo bacon down your
    neck.
    Rumin8 is an interesting company - the scientific adviser is an old friend of mine.

    Fundamentally a natural product that increases productivity and reduces methane has got to be a good thing, right?
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,186

    Acyn
    @Acyn
    ·
    2h
    Fetterman: I'm considering voting yes on DeSantis if he finally admits that he has lifts in his boots. I'm sure he does. You know, maybe three inches. Four inches at least.

    Perhaps he should pop in to his closet and just put on the 5" stilettos for his next press conference.

    He would certainly get a lot of coverage....
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,608

    ohnotnow said:

    Foxy said:

    Just eat what you want, but vary and moderate your desires where possible.

    You'll take more years off your life by worrying about what you're eating, and be unhappier. Most diets are just fads designed to take your money and make you unhappy.

    That's easy to say, but not as easy to do.

    We've rapidly moved from a state that existed for hundreds of thousands of years - relatively, or very, scarce food and intense physical activity to get it - to one where there is a large surplus of food, particularly food stuffed with sugar, an industry determined to sell as much food as possible, and sedentary working lives.

    Put like that it's perhaps surprising that the obesity stats aren't way worse.
    In particular a craving for high energy salty foods.

    Obesity is a worldwide issue, rampant in the urban areas across Africa, Middle East and Asia.

    Laissez-faire on diets isn't working, just look around next time you are in a High St or Supermarket.
    You may have missed the current social media drama around the 'Rumin8' seaweed cattle feed. It seems seaweed powder is like a magnet for 5G/Bill Gates/Antivax people who were otherwise getting bored.

    Seaweed - just say no. While you ram nitrite-riddled day-glo bacon down your
    neck.
    Rumin8 is an interesting company - the scientific adviser is an old friend of mine.

    Fundamentally a natural product that increases productivity and reduces methane has got to be a good thing, right?
    Errr.

    So long as you don't mind being tracked, sure.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,125
    edited December 4

    Scott_xP said:

    @RobDotHutton

    I am begging - begging! - the Tories to make "Actually, a Fixed Penalty Notice for breaching Covid rules is not the same as a criminal conviction" into the centrepiece of their Christmas campaign.

    https://x.com/RobDotHutton/status/1864311552674762928



    Oh...

    https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1864393558167572947

    John Rentoul (in Indy email):-
    Unusually, she came to the chamber with a prepared line and was made to look foolish by Keir Starmer thinking on his feet. She said, referring to Louise Haigh’s resignation over a conviction for fraud, that people want “conviction politicians, not politicians with convictions”.

    Starmer responded by “reminding” her that “two of her predecessors had convictions”. Afterwards, we in the press gallery agreed that a former director of public prosecutions ought to know that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s penalty notices for breaching coronavirus regulations are not convictions, but Starmer had won the moment.


    We should note in passing that Starmer has a habit of misspeaking. At PMQs today he said Justice rather than Transport Secretary, for instance. If he is not careful, he'll have the amateur neurologists on his case.

    Be fair to the Prime Minister.

    You can't expect him to get his terms right on the fly. Or at all.

    It took him more than two years to decide what a woman is, and he's apparently in a similar state by what a working person is, to judge by the Budget.

    I suppose if you REALLY want to confuse him, you can ask him what a working woman with a conviction is...
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578

    Acyn
    @Acyn
    ·
    2h
    Fetterman: I'm considering voting yes on DeSantis if he finally admits that he has lifts in his boots. I'm sure he does. You know, maybe three inches. Four inches at least.

    Easy for Fetterman to say - he was described by the BBC once as being a 'hulking' 6ft 8.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,213

    Foxy said:

    Just eat what you want, but vary and moderate your desires where possible.

    You'll take more years off your life by worrying about what you're eating, and be unhappier. Most diets are just fads designed to take your money and make you unhappy.

    That's easy to say, but not as easy to do.

    We've rapidly moved from a state that existed for hundreds of thousands of years - relatively, or very, scarce food and intense physical activity to get it - to one where there is a large surplus of food, particularly food stuffed with sugar, an industry determined to sell as much food as possible, and sedentary working lives.

    Put like that it's perhaps surprising that the obesity stats aren't way worse.
    In particular a craving for high energy salty foods.

    Obesity is a worldwide issue, rampant in the urban areas across Africa, Middle East and Asia.

    Laissez-faire on diets isn't working, just look around next time you are in a High St or Supermarket.
    One reason why exclusion diets like Bart's carnivore diet can work is that by heavily restricting the choice of food available you make food less interesting and it becomes harder to eat too many calories.

    I experienced that for the very short period I was on a restricted diet before a colonoscopy. Steamed fish and plain rice is fine, as is grilled chicken breast and plain pasta, but they get really boring, really quickly. Grilled chicken is about 150 calories per 100g. So you'd need to eat about 1.7kg of chicken a day to meet your daily calorie requirement. I like chicken, but I'd find that hard to do because it would be so dull.

    Now, I'm sure that Bart makes his meat tasty and interesting to eat in a variety of ways. I'm not saying he's someone with zero interest in food as a Dionysian pleasure. But essentially every approach to eating less food is one of self-denial, and so unless society can find a way to encourage people to cultivate self-denial as a virtue more generally, we shouldn't be surprised that people struggle with it, and that governments are turning to more heavy-handed approaches instead.
    The thing with a carnivore-based diet (which allows eggs, dairy, cheese etc) is there's no shortage of tasty food to have and no guilt from having as much of it as you want.

    So yes if I want a quick and simple meal I can do that, with eg tonight's meal being a quick and easy one after I got home from work of just chicken breast seasoned and thrown into the air fryer to cook for 15 minutes, with a side of black pudding added to the air fryer halfway through.

    Though there's no shortage of interesting and tasty food available for me to have and to be honest the bits I'm cutting out primarily are the bits I'd be less interested in but previously felt obliged to have on top of the food I would want.

    EG I used to love eating cheese and crackers, but now still eating the cheese but omitting the biscuits is no worse for me.

    Most self-denial diets I've failed with because they're unsustainable. Personally I can sustain this one as I'm keeping the bits I love and dropping the bits I'm not too fussed with anyway.
    What about drinks? Does alcohol count as carbs?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,082
    Space News

    Trump nominates Jared Isaacman to become the next NASA administrator

    https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/jared-isaacman-entrepreneur-and-private-astronaut-is-trumps-choice-to-lead-nasa/
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,835
    TimS said:

    Foxy said:

    Just eat what you want, but vary and moderate your desires where possible.

    You'll take more years off your life by worrying about what you're eating, and be unhappier. Most diets are just fads designed to take your money and make you unhappy.

    That's easy to say, but not as easy to do.

    We've rapidly moved from a state that existed for hundreds of thousands of years - relatively, or very, scarce food and intense physical activity to get it - to one where there is a large surplus of food, particularly food stuffed with sugar, an industry determined to sell as much food as possible, and sedentary working lives.

    Put like that it's perhaps surprising that the obesity stats aren't way worse.
    In particular a craving for high energy salty foods.

    Obesity is a worldwide issue, rampant in the urban areas across Africa, Middle East and Asia.

    Laissez-faire on diets isn't working, just look around next time you are in a High St or Supermarket.
    One reason why exclusion diets like Bart's carnivore diet can work is that by heavily restricting the choice of food available you make food less interesting and it becomes harder to eat too many calories.

    I experienced that for the very short period I was on a restricted diet before a colonoscopy. Steamed fish and plain rice is fine, as is grilled chicken breast and plain pasta, but they get really boring, really quickly. Grilled chicken is about 150 calories per 100g. So you'd need to eat about 1.7kg of chicken a day to meet your daily calorie requirement. I like chicken, but I'd find that hard to do because it would be so dull.

    Now, I'm sure that Bart makes his meat tasty and interesting to eat in a variety of ways. I'm not saying he's someone with zero interest in food as a Dionysian pleasure. But essentially every approach to eating less food is one of self-denial, and so unless society can find a way to encourage people to cultivate self-denial as a virtue more generally, we shouldn't be surprised that people struggle with it, and that governments are turning to more heavy-handed approaches instead.
    The thing with a carnivore-based diet (which allows eggs, dairy, cheese etc) is there's no shortage of tasty food to have and no guilt from having as much of it as you want.

    So yes if I want a quick and simple meal I can do that, with eg tonight's meal being a quick and easy one after I got home from work of just chicken breast seasoned and thrown into the air fryer to cook for 15 minutes, with a side of black pudding added to the air fryer halfway through.

    Though there's no shortage of interesting and tasty food available for me to have and to be honest the bits I'm cutting out primarily are the bits I'd be less interested in but previously felt obliged to have on top of the food I would want.

    EG I used to love eating cheese and crackers, but now still eating the cheese but omitting the biscuits is no worse for me.

    Most self-denial diets I've failed with because they're unsustainable. Personally I can sustain this one as I'm keeping the bits I love and dropping the bits I'm not too fussed with anyway.
    What about drinks? Does alcohol count as carbs?
    Nah:

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drinking-Mans-Diet-Robert-Cameron/dp/091868465X
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,114
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of Hemingway - in his favour his house in Cuba is one of the more interesting writers’ houses I’ve visited. Also beautiful. And it screams “repressed gay”

    Very few are interesting. Pushkin’s is only interesting coz it’s got souvenirs of his fatal duel - the letter of challenge, the blood soaked waistcoat

    The brontes is good coz it’s intense

    Any others?

    I say all this coz I’ve just been to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s gaff in Aracataca and it’s RUBBISH

    I'd skip on Tom Knox's apartment personally. There's a distinct lack of noom.
    dylan thomas house on cliff is brilliant. i just so wanted to buy it when i looked around
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,505
    edited December 4
    Got to make sure you have had your daily caffeine hit before carrying out a hit....

    Suspect visited Starbucks before shooting
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/crmn2ry1224t

    Seems less likely he is Agent 47, going into a coffee shop that will definitely have cameras, not wearing any gloves immediately before assassinating somebody....
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,114

    Got to make sure you have had your daily caffeine hit before carrying out a hit....

    Suspect visited Starbucks before shooting
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/crmn2ry1224t

    Seems less likely he is Agent 47, going into a coffee shop that will definitely have cameras, not wearing any gloves immediately before assassinating somebody....

    The provisional wing of Obamacare?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,882

    Nigelb said:

    malcolmg said:

    malcolmg said:

    This shift on immigration from Labour is really intriguing and the fact they’ve done it so early suggests they think it’s a major problem area but also one they feel they can tackle.

    I do think if they manage to cut immigration next year and the next they’ll be perceived quite differently.

    Another pig just flew past
    Why are you so horrible to everyone? What have we ever done to you?
    why are you such a wimp, as much chance of those dullards cutting immigration as me being pope.
    The hat might suit you malc, "the hat maketh the man." Something like that anyway.
    'Manners maketh man'

    My music teacher sent me to detention many times (unfairly) and each time I had to write that 600 times
    Isn't it makyth ?

    1200 times please.
    Seems unfair to insist on proper spelling for a saying with roots well before the first English dictionary.
    I only got lines once.

    One was "e.g.," x75 because I wrote it without the comma. It was x25 but I had done three of them.

    That was a HISTORY teacher FFS. Who slightly resembled Mike Graham (see Jabba the Hutt), and who was known as "Slob".

    There was something else I have forgotten on the same occasion.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,114
    Whose turn is it next on The World's Gone To Shit show?

    Why it's dear old France.

    Welcome aboard mon frères!!!
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,012
    Cookie said:

    malcolmg said:

    So Ive been through the press in France Germany Italy and Spain and none of them have reported on the world changing events surrounding Greg Wallace.

    Do they understand nothing ?

    Rather a sadly dismissive post. If a rather forward camp man pulled his todger out, his modesty covered only by a sock, because he thought it might attract your interest, I suspect you would be quite justifiably outraged. Is there a difference?
    when did he have his todger out, the fantasies are escalating
    Apparently he didn't it was covered by a sock. My mistake.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14137559/amp/Gregg-Wallace-allegations-naked-MasterChef-studio.html

    Nothing to see here Squire, move along.
    The thing is that these sorts of actions are on an escalating ladder. Today it is "todger out", but what about tomorrow or next week? When does flashing no longer satisfy and so the perpetrator moves up to assault or rape or murder?

    Are we supposed to wait until it gets really, deadly serious?
    Jermaine Jenas's feet didn't touch the ground for "sexting".How the hell did Wallace keep his presenting role after claims were made about his behaviour in 2018? Moving on from your point this was only a handful of years after Savile. I am not suggesting a parallel, however it does seem blind eyes remain blind to national treasures.
    We're setting the bar very very low if Greg Wallace is a national treasure.
    I don't mean to join the pile-on here. He was no worae a broadcaster than many. But he's hardly Joanna Lumley.
    Our local Masterchef finalist insists that he is utterly charming and better than anyone else at putting people at their ease when trying to deal with the stress of the Masterchef kitchen.

    My wife says we are to cancel our TV licence if he is kicked out.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,161
    Off topic, when did these fecking shitty soldier nutcrackers become a Christmas "thing"?

    What's that all about?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,268

    kle4 said:

    On the topic, let us hope and pray this is how stays with the public.

    Because one of the worst issues with Trump 2.0 win is that there are now loads of wild right-wingers in this country just inching to run a Trump-style 'Make Britain Great Again' campaign of lies and disinformation with a plan to destroy our own democracy. They think he's shown that's how you win.

    Couldn't happen here etc etc?

    Trump is a very unpleasant individual on a personal level. Voters might like his courseness, not care about it, or think he is worth it anyway, but I feel like we're less used to it, and a politician would have to be very very well liked to overcome distaste. So I think people trying to ape Trump will do badly - even in american many Trump wannabes have not done well.
    True. Maybe he is unique. I hope so.
    The UK has already had its "Trump" aka Boris.

    Desperate for money, proven liar, adulterer, ignores the rules, only lightly in touch with reality, not really all that bright and on the political right.

    I cannot seeing us electing a UK Trump no matter how many fascists and right-wing extremists spend their time frothing and yelling.
    Boris is more the like British Trudeau. Testing late-stage liberalism to destruction.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,505
    edited December 4

    Whose turn is it next on The World's Gone To Shit show?

    Why it's dear old France.

    Welcome aboard mon frères!!!

    It isn't really new though. The whole time Macron has been in office any small changes he has tried to make have been met with NON. And the country is perhaps even more split than the US, with the far left and the far right having sizable public backing.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,882
    edited December 4

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    I think we all know Trump is toxic but how his Presidency plays out goodness knows

    France in a mess but Macron invites Trump to attend the reopening of the Notre -Dame

    The response by the French to Trump's presence will be interesting

    https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-attend-notre-dame-cathedral-reopening-first-foreign-trip-since-election-2024-12-03/

    Why on earth have Donald Trump at an event like that? It's meant to be a celebration of elegance and beauty.
    As he is the next most powerful man in the world and is a champion of celebrating western nations Christian heritage like Macron, which includes attending events such as the restoration of Notre Dame
    Christian heritage? How many commandments has he driven a coach and horses through?
    I'd estimate eight or nine. I don't know about killing or murder. Some culpable deaths on his construction projects would not be a surprise, and as a developer in NY in the 1970s and 1980s he will possibly have been up to his neck in relatonships with organised crime. The others are slam dunks.

    PS Google AI only came up with nine, although it clearly has a PR Man or a circumlocuting lawyer: "Here are some of..."
This discussion has been closed.