Do American “Journalists” understand just how badly they come across to the rest of the world, when literally hundreds of millions of people are watching?
Do American “Journalists” understand just how badly they come across to the rest of the world, when literally hundreds of millions of people are watching?
Are they doing their usual screaming over the top of one another?
The UK’s net zero plan targets zero emissions by 2050, despite its <1% global emissions compared to China’s >30%. I can’t help but critique the economic cost to agriculture and industry. Subsidies must balance sustainability and rural livelihoods.
What are your thoughts?
Ed should come back with his thoughts on sports cars and 1970s rock.
Miliband does not seem like an expert on energy either.
I'll take him over Jeremy Clarkson.
Whatever your thoughts on Clarkson he has done more for farming in this country than a century of government ministers. Of course a lot of the time he is playing a role on camera. But I think he genuinely cares about his farm, about farming and about those around him.
Miliband is not a realist. He inhabits a dream like world at some distance from reality. There is every reason to embrace green technology and build a better world. But there is also the reality that some energy policies are nonsense, such as paying wind farm owners NOT to generate power. We ought to be benefitting from the huge increases in green energy yet somehow in the UK was are still paying the highest prices. What's gone wrong?
You only have to see the reaction of farmers to Clarkson’s show. It’s the best thing that’s happened to rural communities for decades.
Someone needs to get it into SirKeir and Miliband’s heads that economic growth is inversely proportional to energy prices, pretty much more so than any other single factor. Will it take Ineos closing their Grangemouth factory for them to wake up - or will they think of the factory closing as a positive development, even if the net result is the same production outsourced overseas where there’s fewer carbon targets?
They will see the closing of Grangemouth as a positive development as it will make Scotland more dependent on England.
The closure of Grangemouth is a disaster for Scotland and a serious problem for the rest of the UK. It is a result of unbelievably stupid and naïve policies pretending that we are somehow contributing to the defeat of global warming by burning oil from the Middle East instead of the North Sea. That the party who used to scream "Its Scotland's Oil" is somehow signed up for this self inflicted harm shows you how far the looking glass we have come.
Do American “Journalists” understand just how badly they come across to the rest of the world, when literally hundreds of millions of people are watching?
I imagine it is not a major concern when they have to please their increasingly radical viewers, on both left and right.
Don't forget about how Fox freaked out when their viewers got mad that they didn't fully buy into election stealing claims, tried to win them back, and it ended up costing them hundreds of millions in legal settlements. The messages between executives was blatant, they were angry at any actual journalism which did not deliver the message their viewers wanted to hear, as it was bad for business.
Do American “Journalists” understand just how badly they come across to the rest of the world, when literally hundreds of millions of people are watching?
Are they doing their usual screaming over the top of one another?
Yes, and then asking the most inane and domestically partisan questions, at an international summit.
Could we get Sumi Somaskanda to present Newsnight? (Obviously she's very pretty, but she's also very good) We need good journalists in the UK political space.
The Oval Office meeting went much better than last time
JD Vance barely spoke
The funniest outcome from that was one commentator who defended Zelensky as they have long been pro-Ukrainian, but failed to remember their audience had leaned increasingly right over the years, and so had to humiliatingly claim to have reflected on it and actually Trump and Vance were totally right all along to talk and act the way they did. It was so unconvincing, and a great example of how any type of commentator is vulnerable to moulding their views to keep attention or praise from their main audience.
Could we get Sumi Somaskanda to present Newsnight? (Obviously she's very pretty, but she's also very good) We need good journalists in the UK political space.
Donald Trump said a ceasefire was not necessary for peace in Ukraine, saying a deal could be worked out while the two countries are at war.
“I don’t think you need a ceasefire. You know, if you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war, I didn’t do any ceasefires,” the US president said alongside Mr Zelensky.
Trying to work out these 6 wars he has ended.
The War of the Roses. The War of the Spanish Succession. The War to end all Wars. The Mother of all Wars.
I am in Jajce (Jye-it-say) in the north-west of Bosnia at the moment. It is a pleasant, small, mountain town of around 7,000, with a good-looking waterfall, a historic old town and a semi-ruined fortress. It looked really nice in today's glorious, unbroken sunshine. But the moment I started researching its history, I uncovered the horrors it suffered in the Bosnian War and that really changed how I saw it. For a start, its population was 13,500 in 1991, so it has fallen by almost half. But the population's composition has changed dramatically as well: the Serbian population has collapsed from 28% in 1991 to barely 2%, (probably more since 16% of the population identified as Yugoslav in 1991, which is no longer a category, and they were probably mostly Serbs) while the Croat proportion has soared from 14% to 46% and the Bosnian Muslim proportion has remained steady. Don't forget that these are proportions of a collapsing total.
You can see the reality behind these horrifying statistics in the huge memorials all over the town to the victims of that war - hundreds or thousands of names of all ages with death dates of 1992-95. I also read about the 1992 exodus of around 40,000 Muslim and Croat civilians from the town (mostly refugees from elsewhere) when it looked like the town was about to fall to the Serbs under Serbian sniping. Of course when the Croats retook the town the Serbs had to leave. All the religious buildings that had survived centuries of conflict, two world wars and forty years of Communism were destroyed.
Why do I bring this up, given it was just one of thousands of incidents of ethnic cleansing during the last century? It's I think a particularly good example of the reality behind terms like "population exchange" which Trump and Netanyahu glibly proposed for Gaza, or which Putin wants for parts of Ukraine. That the area still hasn't recovered decades later, still being full of abandoned houses and with an economy entirely dependent on tourism, surely shows that even the "victors" don't really win. And the cemeteries and the memorials all around town show exactly what happens to the losers.
I am in Jajce in the north-west of Bosnia at the moment. It is a pleasant, small, mountain town of around 7,000, with a good-looking waterfall, a historic old town and a semi-ruined fortress. But the moment I started researching its history, I uncovered the horrors it suffered in the Bosnian War and that really changed how I saw it. For a start, its population was 13,500 in 1991, so it has fallen by almost half. But the population's composition has changed dramatically as well: the Serbian population has collapsed from 28% in 1991 to barely 2%, (probably more since 16% of the population identified as Yugoslav in 1991, which is no longer a category, and they were probably mostly Serbs) while the Croat proportion has soared from 14% to 46% and the Bosnian Muslim proportion has remained steady. Don't forget that these are proportions of a collapsing total.
You can see the reality behind these horrifying statistics in the huge memorials all over the town to the victims of that war - hundreds or thousands of names of all ages with death dates of 1992-95. I also read about the 1992 exodus of around 40,000 Muslim and Croat civilians from the town (mostly refugees from elsewhere) when it looked like the town was about to fall to the Serbs under Serbian sniping. Of course when the Croats retook the town the Serbs had to leave. All the religious buildings that had survived centuries of conflict, two world wars and forty years of Communism were destroyed.
Why do I bring this up, given it was just one of thousands of incidents of ethnic cleansing during the last century? It's I think a particularly good example of the reality behind terms like "population exchange" which Trump and Netanyahu glibly proposed for Gaza, or which Putin wants for parts of Ukraine. That the area still hasn't recovered decades later, still being full of abandoned houses and with an economy entirely dependent on tourism, surely shows that even the "victors" don't really win. And the cemeteries and the memorials all around town show exactly what happens to the losers.
I am in Jajce in the north-west of Bosnia at the moment. It is a pleasant, small, mountain town of around 7,000, with a good-looking waterfall, a historic old town and a semi-ruined fortress. But the moment I started researching its history, I uncovered the horrors it suffered in the Bosnian War and that really changed how I saw it. For a start, its population was 13,500 in 1991, so it has fallen by almost half. But the population's composition has changed dramatically as well: the Serbian population has collapsed from 28% in 1991 to barely 2%, (probably more since 16% of the population identified as Yugoslav in 1991, which is no longer a category, and they were probably mostly Serbs) while the Croat proportion has soared from 14% to 46% and the Bosnian Muslim proportion has remained steady. Don't forget that these are proportions of a collapsing total.
You can see the reality behind these horrifying statistics in the huge memorials all over the town to the victims of that war - hundreds or thousands of names of all ages with death dates of 1992-95. I also read about the 1992 exodus of around 40,000 Muslim and Croat civilians from the town (mostly refugees from elsewhere) when it looked like the town was about to fall to the Serbs under Serbian sniping. Of course when the Croats retook the town the Serbs had to leave. All the religious buildings that had survived centuries of conflict, two world wars and forty years of Communism were destroyed.
Why do I bring this up, given it was just one of thousands of incidents of ethnic cleansing during the last century? It's I think a particularly good example of the reality behind terms like "population exchange" which Trump and Netanyahu glibly proposed for Gaza, or which Putin wants for parts of Ukraine. That the area still hasn't recovered decades later, still being full of abandoned houses and with an economy entirely dependent on tourism, surely shows that even the "victors" don't really win. And the cemeteries and the memorials all around town show exactly what happens to the losers.
Comment of the day.
And a reminder that the first world war never quite ended.
Could we get Sumi Somaskanda to present Newsnight? (Obviously she's very pretty, but she's also very good) We need good journalists in the UK political space.
She looks OK for an Indian lady
Oh I'd sell my soul. The glass beads though aren't her future. She really is very good as a journalist.
Passing between the towns of Irwin and Bucha on the train, with sad memories of when they were two of the most famous small towns in the world just over three years ago.
I don't want to be cynical about the apparently novel new 'bibliotherapy', but I am a little surprised we are having to relearn the idea that reading fiction can be relaxing, good for your mental health, and help you deal with real world issues by taking lessons from it.
Was that something society no longer realised you could do with books?
I just was blown away," Russell recalls. Learning from the lessons and mistakes of fictional characters helped her process what she was going through and made her feel less alone. "It opened up something in me that needed to be opened and needed to heal," she says. ...
While the benefits of self-help literature are well documented, advocates of fiction-based or "creative bibliotherapy" claim similar advantages. They argue that immersing oneself in rich, simulated worlds – often reflective of real-life experiences – can help readers process emotions, discover coping strategies, or simply provide momentary escape from their everyday woes. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250616-how-bibliotherapy-can-both-help-and-harm-your-mental-health
Never too late to learn I suppose, and maybe those brought up digitally never had the chance. Currently on A Dance to the Music of Time, third time around, which gets better and better (it's either 2500 pages of posh gossip or the finest novel sequence of the 20th century - not much opinion in the middle). Now which fictional character who posts on PB is strangely reminiscent of Charles Stringham?
The UK’s net zero plan targets zero emissions by 2050, despite its <1% global emissions compared to China’s >30%. I can’t help but critique the economic cost to agriculture and industry. Subsidies must balance sustainability and rural livelihoods.
What are your thoughts?
My thoughts. Given China's population is twenty times the size of the UK, Clarkson doesn't do maths.
The UK’s net zero plan targets zero emissions by 2050, despite its <1% global emissions compared to China’s >30%. I can’t help but critique the economic cost to agriculture and industry. Subsidies must balance sustainability and rural livelihoods.
What are your thoughts?
My thoughts. Given China's population is twenty times the size of the UK, Clarkson doesn't do maths.
Err the maths would indicate that China is producing more than 150% more emissions than the UK per UK population on that basis.
What they need is an Ed Miliband so that they stop making things and import them from somewhere else instead. But I think they would just shoot him and invoice his family for the bullet.
The UK’s net zero plan targets zero emissions by 2050, despite its <1% global emissions compared to China’s >30%. I can’t help but critique the economic cost to agriculture and industry. Subsidies must balance sustainability and rural livelihoods.
What are your thoughts?
My thoughts. Given China's population is twenty times the size of the UK, Clarkson doesn't do maths.
Err the maths would indicate that China is producing more than 150% more emissions than the UK per UK population on that basis.
What they need is an Ed Miliband so that they stop making things and import them from somewhere else instead. But I think they would just shoot him and invoice his family for the bullet.
The ashen-faces on Trump's inner circle coming out of the Alaska meeting makes you think: did Putin obliquely reference what he has on file if he doesn't get the deal he wants?
It is actually quite difficult to imagine what they could have that is worse than what is already known.
Financial fraud? New York has exposed it.
Sexual shenanigans? Those who don't know how close Trump was to Epstein and what that meant is so stupid they ought to be President themselves.
Mental incapacity? The sharks wave hello.
Corruption? He appointed Pete Fucking Hegseth to a post.
So what could they have? That he was a paid agent of the KGB? Frankly seems unlikely.
Andrew Lownie's recent book on the odious Duke and Duchess of York alleges that Epstein sold incriminating tapes on key individuals to both the Russians and Israelis before being jailed. It would certainly explain Trump's total subservience to both Putin and Netanyahu but will the truth ever emerge, I doubt it.
I don't want to be cynical about the apparently novel new 'bibliotherapy', but I am a little surprised we are having to relearn the idea that reading fiction can be relaxing, good for your mental health, and help you deal with real world issues by taking lessons from it.
Was that something society no longer realised you could do with books?
I just was blown away," Russell recalls. Learning from the lessons and mistakes of fictional characters helped her process what she was going through and made her feel less alone. "It opened up something in me that needed to be opened and needed to heal," she says. ...
While the benefits of self-help literature are well documented, advocates of fiction-based or "creative bibliotherapy" claim similar advantages. They argue that immersing oneself in rich, simulated worlds – often reflective of real-life experiences – can help readers process emotions, discover coping strategies, or simply provide momentary escape from their everyday woes. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250616-how-bibliotherapy-can-both-help-and-harm-your-mental-health
Never too late to learn I suppose, and maybe those brought up digitally never had the chance. Currently on A Dance to the Music of Time, third time around, which gets better and better (it's either 2500 pages of posh gossip or the finest novel sequence of the 20th century - not much opinion in the middle). Now which fictional character who posts on PB is strangely reminiscent of Charles Stringham?
I've (only) read it twice, so far. It's a pretty cold-eyed look at how people operate, and how the world works. And how sheer ambition can get you to the top regardless of apparently disabling characteristics - Widmerpool is an immortal creation. In practice, it's a very addictive read. And greatly lauded by folk you wouldn't necessarily think would warm to a novel sequence by an Old Etonian with Tory inclinations such as Simon Barnes and Tariq Ali. My introduction to The Dance was a chance purchase of a second-hand copy of Temporary King (11th of the 12 volumes) which I picked up in a bookshop in Dunoon. Read it in a single sitting on a flight to Beijing. So impressed that I bought the entire series, beginning with A Question of Upbringing.
The UK’s net zero plan targets zero emissions by 2050, despite its <1% global emissions compared to China’s >30%. I can’t help but critique the economic cost to agriculture and industry. Subsidies must balance sustainability and rural livelihoods.
What are your thoughts?
My thoughts. Given China's population is twenty times the size of the UK, Clarkson doesn't do maths.
Well if China’s much poorer population is 20x that of the UK, and China’s carbon footprint is 30x of the UK, that we are doing really well and them badly when it comes to carbon targets. Sending our factories to China not only costs the government money in forgone taxes and unemployment benefits, but makes the carbon ‘gap’ between the two countries even worse.
I don't want to be cynical about the apparently novel new 'bibliotherapy', but I am a little surprised we are having to relearn the idea that reading fiction can be relaxing, good for your mental health, and help you deal with real world issues by taking lessons from it.
Was that something society no longer realised you could do with books?
I just was blown away," Russell recalls. Learning from the lessons and mistakes of fictional characters helped her process what she was going through and made her feel less alone. "It opened up something in me that needed to be opened and needed to heal," she says. ...
While the benefits of self-help literature are well documented, advocates of fiction-based or "creative bibliotherapy" claim similar advantages. They argue that immersing oneself in rich, simulated worlds – often reflective of real-life experiences – can help readers process emotions, discover coping strategies, or simply provide momentary escape from their everyday woes. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250616-how-bibliotherapy-can-both-help-and-harm-your-mental-health
Never too late to learn I suppose, and maybe those brought up digitally never had the chance. Currently on A Dance to the Music of Time, third time around, which gets better and better (it's either 2500 pages of posh gossip or the finest novel sequence of the 20th century - not much opinion in the middle). Now which fictional character who posts on PB is strangely reminiscent of Charles Stringham?
I don't want to be cynical about the apparently novel new 'bibliotherapy', but I am a little surprised we are having to relearn the idea that reading fiction can be relaxing, good for your mental health, and help you deal with real world issues by taking lessons from it.
Was that something society no longer realised you could do with books?
I just was blown away," Russell recalls. Learning from the lessons and mistakes of fictional characters helped her process what she was going through and made her feel less alone. "It opened up something in me that needed to be opened and needed to heal," she says. ...
While the benefits of self-help literature are well documented, advocates of fiction-based or "creative bibliotherapy" claim similar advantages. They argue that immersing oneself in rich, simulated worlds – often reflective of real-life experiences – can help readers process emotions, discover coping strategies, or simply provide momentary escape from their everyday woes. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250616-how-bibliotherapy-can-both-help-and-harm-your-mental-health
Never too late to learn I suppose, and maybe those brought up digitally never had the chance. Currently on A Dance to the Music of Time, third time around, which gets better and better (it's either 2500 pages of posh gossip or the finest novel sequence of the 20th century - not much opinion in the middle). Now which fictional character who posts on PB is strangely reminiscent of Charles Stringham?
Who then is our Widmerpool ?
And who X Trapnel ?
The Widmerpool question is a bit too dark to ask. It's like asking who is Gollum.
Ashcroft has been a partisan figure when it comes to his support for the Tories, but the effort he’s put into this collection is just brilliant. I think he’s picked up every single VC that a family decided to publically sell or auction in the last couple of decades, with the explicit intention of keeping them on display and the stories of these extraordinary people told.
Ashcroft has been a partisan figure when it comes to his support for the Tories, but the effort he’s put into this collection is just brilliant. I think he’s picked up every single VC that a family decided to publically sell or auction in the last couple of decades, with the explicit intention of keeping them on display and the stories of these extraordinary people told.
I remember seeing his VC collection in the Imperial War Museum. A multitude of astonishing stories and heroism.
I've had a lot of time to reflect, these last months of relative stablity - of quietness, reclusion, solitude, introspection. I've mulled over my assumptions, and often found them forlornly wanting - I now recognise that I've made far too many glib pronouncements, and facile statements over the PB years. And for these I apologise. I likewise apologise for those times - so many they make me wince - when I have been gracelessly offensive or needlessly abusive. I apologise for those moments, as well
On top of that, I have learned one other thing: everyone on the left is a wanker
Ashcroft has been a partisan figure when it comes to his support for the Tories, but the effort he’s put into this collection is just brilliant. I think he’s picked up every single VC that a family decided to publically sell or auction in the last couple of decades, with the explicit intention of keeping them on display and the stories of these extraordinary people told.
I remember seeing his VC collection in the Imperial War Museum. A multitude of astonishing stories and heroism.
This one is pretty remarkable. Died a few days ago aged 105.
Breaking news: The Justice Department will begin sharing records related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, the House Oversight Committee chairman said in a statement.
I've had a lot of time to reflect, these last months of relative stablity - of quietness, reclusion, solitude, introspection. I've mulled over my assumptions, and often found them forlornly wanting - I now recognise that I've made far too many glib pronouncements, and facile statements over the PB years. And for these I apologise. I likewise apologise for those times - so many they make me wince - when I have been gracelessly offensive or needlessly abusive. I apologise for those moments, as well
On top of that, I have learned one other thing: everyone on the left is a wanker
It was dripping nicely with mellifluous insincerity until the last sentence.
Soho House bought for £2bn as Ashton Kutcher joins board
It's lost a 1/3 of it's 2021 value...
I met a pleasant lady in Shoreditch Soho House the other day, on biz. Compared to the very very multiracial streets inside, it was like entering a Johannesburg tennis club in about 1978. Pure white, with the odd exception, and so different to the streets outside it was surreal
Also a very agreeable space. They really know how to make a members club look chic, even if they can feel generic
However there is no question they have over extended their membership, they have properties everywhere, how can an exclusive "private members club" have 250,000 members?
Oh well. Ukraine is Ukraine, and Russia has and will continue to have no say in how that country conducts itself in international relations.
I'd say the best response would be for a number of NATO countries to send something non front line to eastern Ukraine, say logistics or medics. With AD of course. Call Putin's bluff. Don't announce it in advance, just casually mention it once it has happened.
I've had a lot of time to reflect, these last months of relative stablity - of quietness, reclusion, solitude, introspection. I've mulled over my assumptions, and often found them forlornly wanting - I now recognise that I've made far too many glib pronouncements, and facile statements over the PB years. And for these I apologise. I likewise apologise for those times - so many they make me wince - when I have been gracelessly offensive or needlessly abusive. I apologise for those moments, as well
On top of that, I have learned one other thing: everyone on the left is a wanker
Breaking news: The Justice Department will begin sharing records related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, the House Oversight Committee chairman said in a statement.
Just the ones that look bad for everyone bar Trump .
Soho House bought for £2bn as Ashton Kutcher joins board
It's lost a 1/3 of it's 2021 value...
I met a pleasant lady in Shoreditch Soho House the other day, on biz. Compared to the very very multiracial streets inside, it was like entering a Johannesburg tennis club in about 1978. Pure white, with the odd exception, and so different to the streets outside it was surreal
Also a very agreeable space. They really know how to make a members club look chic, even if they can feel generic
However there is no question they have over extended their membership, they have properties everywhere, how can an exclusive "private members club" have 250,000 members?
You can't.
That said, I had a fun trip to Soho Farmhouse this year.
Soho House bought for £2bn as Ashton Kutcher joins board
It's lost a 1/3 of it's 2021 value...
I met a pleasant lady in Shoreditch Soho House the other day, on biz. Compared to the very very multiracial streets inside, it was like entering a Johannesburg tennis club in about 1978. Pure white, with the odd exception, and so different to the streets outside it was surreal
Also a very agreeable space. They really know how to make a members club look chic, even if they can feel generic
However there is no question they have over extended their membership, they have properties everywhere, how can an exclusive "private members club" have 250,000 members?
You can't.
That said, I had a fun trip to Soho Farmhouse this year.
On top of that, I have learned one other thing: everyone on the left is a wanker
Whereas you just pay for it
I pity the girls. Can you imagine how desperate for money you must be, to be sealed away in a seedy room with @Leon, ,as he creakily undresses to his socks, forlornly pops another blue pill into his mouth, and then starts talking about a chat he just had with an Albanian taxi driver, how all lefties are ****'s, and the wonders of whatever press release he's just read on Twix. He would drone on and on, as the girl scrabbles at the door to escape.
Soho House bought for £2bn as Ashton Kutcher joins board
It's lost a 1/3 of it's 2021 value...
I met a pleasant lady in Shoreditch Soho House the other day, on biz. Compared to the very very multiracial streets inside, it was like entering a Johannesburg tennis club in about 1978. Pure white, with the odd exception, and so different to the streets outside it was surreal
Also a very agreeable space. They really know how to make a members club look chic, even if they can feel generic
However there is no question they have over extended their membership, they have properties everywhere, how can an exclusive "private members club" have 250,000 members?
You can't.
That said, I had a fun trip to Soho Farmhouse this year.
Soho House bought for £2bn as Ashton Kutcher joins board
It's lost a 1/3 of it's 2021 value...
I met a pleasant lady in Shoreditch Soho House the other day, on biz. Compared to the very very multiracial streets inside, it was like entering a Johannesburg tennis club in about 1978. Pure white, with the odd exception, and so different to the streets outside it was surreal
Also a very agreeable space. They really know how to make a members club look chic, even if they can feel generic
However there is no question they have over extended their membership, they have properties everywhere, how can an exclusive "private members club" have 250,000 members?
You can't.
That said, I had a fun trip to Soho Farmhouse this year.
Is every PBer a member?
Never heard of it until today IIRC. Research shows that I live several thousand light years from the nearest emanation of it. Groucho Marx doctrine to apply here.
Soho House bought for £2bn as Ashton Kutcher joins board
It's lost a 1/3 of it's 2021 value...
I met a pleasant lady in Shoreditch Soho House the other day, on biz. Compared to the very very multiracial streets inside, it was like entering a Johannesburg tennis club in about 1978. Pure white, with the odd exception, and so different to the streets outside it was surreal
Also a very agreeable space. They really know how to make a members club look chic, even if they can feel generic
However there is no question they have over extended their membership, they have properties everywhere, how can an exclusive "private members club" have 250,000 members?
Has a lot to do with the number of people they're excluding.
Soho House bought for £2bn as Ashton Kutcher joins board
It's lost a 1/3 of it's 2021 value...
I met a pleasant lady in Shoreditch Soho House the other day, on biz. Compared to the very very multiracial streets inside, it was like entering a Johannesburg tennis club in about 1978. Pure white, with the odd exception, and so different to the streets outside it was surreal
Also a very agreeable space. They really know how to make a members club look chic, even if they can feel generic
However there is no question they have over extended their membership, they have properties everywhere, how can an exclusive "private members club" have 250,000 members?
You can't.
That said, I had a fun trip to Soho Farmhouse this year.
Is every PBer a member?
I became a member 2 years ago when fees were cheap - still a reasonable way to meet people in the capital when down in a bit of a more exclusive atmosphere - bit like a casino
Soho House bought for £2bn as Ashton Kutcher joins board
It's lost a 1/3 of it's 2021 value...
I met a pleasant lady in Shoreditch Soho House the other day, on biz. Compared to the very very multiracial streets inside, it was like entering a Johannesburg tennis club in about 1978. Pure white, with the odd exception, and so different to the streets outside it was surreal
Also a very agreeable space. They really know how to make a members club look chic, even if they can feel generic
However there is no question they have over extended their membership, they have properties everywhere, how can an exclusive "private members club" have 250,000 members?
You can't.
That said, I had a fun trip to Soho Farmhouse this year.
They do have some spectacular properties. The view of London from the one in Aldwych is phenomenal
I quite like Soho Mews House in Mayfair, the way it is tucked away off Brooke Street. My agent swears it is the best place to make deals
The UK’s net zero plan targets zero emissions by 2050, despite its <1% global emissions compared to China’s >30%. I can’t help but critique the economic cost to agriculture and industry. Subsidies must balance sustainability and rural livelihoods.
What are your thoughts?
My thoughts. Given China's population is twenty times the size of the UK, Clarkson doesn't do maths.
Err the maths would indicate that China is producing more than 150% more emissions than the UK per UK population on that basis.
What they need is an Ed Miliband so that they stop making things and import them from somewhere else instead. But I think they would just shoot him and invoice his family for the bullet.
50% more maybe. China's carbon emissions are probably falling quite fast due to rapid electrification using renewable sources, albeit it's a very recent trend.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TKnBIW5UQKQ
It honestly makes me want to scream.
JD Vance barely spoke
Don't forget about how Fox freaked out when their viewers got mad that they didn't fully buy into election stealing claims, tried to win them back, and it ended up costing them hundreds of millions in legal settlements. The messages between executives was blatant, they were angry at any actual journalism which did not deliver the message their viewers wanted to hear, as it was bad for business.
And probably a few others.
You can see the reality behind these horrifying statistics in the huge memorials all over the town to the victims of that war - hundreds or thousands of names of all ages with death dates of 1992-95. I also read about the 1992 exodus of around 40,000 Muslim and Croat civilians from the town (mostly refugees from elsewhere) when it looked like the town was about to fall to the Serbs under Serbian sniping. Of course when the Croats retook the town the Serbs had to leave. All the religious buildings that had survived centuries of conflict, two world wars and forty years of Communism were destroyed.
Why do I bring this up, given it was just one of thousands of incidents of ethnic cleansing during the last century? It's I think a particularly good example of the reality behind terms like "population exchange" which Trump and Netanyahu glibly proposed for Gaza, or which Putin wants for parts of Ukraine. That the area still hasn't recovered decades later, still being full of abandoned houses and with an economy entirely dependent on tourism, surely shows that even the "victors" don't really win. And the cemeteries and the memorials all around town show exactly what happens to the losers.
https://x.com/UKikaski/status/1957168846109913586
Job done by Trump 2.0 team.
Freddie Sayers
@freddiesayers
"Republic of the Condo" is a particularly Trumpian freudian slip 😂
Eesh. As 'family photos' go, that one was a bit 'Dad's just revealed he has a secret second family during Christmas Dinner'.
Europe knows this as should most sentient beings and yet here we are .
What they need is an Ed Miliband so that they stop making things and import them from somewhere else instead. But I think they would just shoot him and invoice his family for the bullet.
In practice, it's a very addictive read. And greatly lauded by folk you wouldn't necessarily think would warm to a novel sequence by an Old Etonian with Tory inclinations such as Simon Barnes and Tariq Ali.
My introduction to The Dance was a chance purchase of a second-hand copy of Temporary King (11th of the 12 volumes) which I picked up in a bookshop in Dunoon. Read it in a single sitting on a flight to Beijing. So impressed that I bought the entire series, beginning with A Question of Upbringing.
I was half wondering about going for a day - this year's main event is over August Bank, and I haven't been for a loooong time.
And who X Trapnel ?
The Kremlin is negatively reacting to the US proposal that Ukraine receive "Article V-like" security guarantees.
Russian Foreign Ministry "categorically rejects" NATO countries sending a military contingents to Ukraine.
https://x.com/georgewbarros/status/1957525001739141290
In the year 2000 China's population was around 21.5 times that of the UK.
In 2025 China's population is around 20.3 times that of the UK.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgjy4d01jwo
Soho House bought for £2bn as Ashton Kutcher joins board
The Russians have been fighting this line for 12 years and have got precisely nowhere at a cost of half a million soldiers.
https://x.com/clement_molin/status/1957482529570639920
https://x.com/bohuslavskakate/status/1957528131713237378
https://x.com/bohuslavskakate/status/1957528131713237378
New game?
Akworth, Budd, Moreland, Deacon, Templer, Uncle Giles, Tolland, Mornington Crescent.
European leaders take the day to babysit the US president
https://x.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1957519809333325982
https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/1mt2zqy/police_scotland_detain_a_man_wearing_an_antial/
Police Scotland detain a man wearing an anti-Al shirt because it sounds similar to "Palestine Action"
https://x.com/lordashcroft/status/1957430122916589988
Ashcroft has been a partisan figure when it comes to his support for the Tories, but the effort he’s put into this collection is just brilliant. I think he’s picked up every single VC that a family decided to publically sell or auction in the last couple of decades, with the explicit intention of keeping them on display and the stories of these extraordinary people told.
On top of that, I have learned one other thing: everyone on the left is a wanker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cruickshank
@washingtonpost
Breaking news: The Justice Department will begin sharing records related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, the House Oversight Committee chairman said in a statement.
Also a very agreeable space. They really know how to make a members club look chic, even if they can feel generic
However there is no question they have over extended their membership, they have properties everywhere, how can an exclusive "private members club" have 250,000 members?
‘If the bride wasn’t my daughter I’d be dating her!
https://x.com/nypost/status/1957511959458287970?s=61
That said, I had a fun trip to Soho Farmhouse this year.
The sex would be a welcome relief. And shorter...
@BestForBritain
Did you spot JD Vance in thew background HATING every minute of progress being made? ~AA
https://x.com/BestForBritain/status/1957523924872491247
I quite like Soho Mews House in Mayfair, the way it is tucked away off Brooke Street. My agent swears it is the best place to make deals