The schnitzel sucks pizzles but Graz at night has moments of sublimity
Are you en route to the Dolomites?
No I’m writing about Styria - the “green heart of Austria” and “Austria’s little Tuscany”
And to be fair it does feel quite Mediterranean. It’s south of the alps so the prevailing climate comes from the Adriatic
It’s very balmy at night. Streets full of outdoor bars and restaurants. And there is a definite dolce far niente
Tomorrow, onto the celebrated wine lands
Problem with Austria is, if you order wine in restaurants, they serve it in teeny tiny portions. Like 100ml. Not like, say, Albania, where a half litre is de rigeueur
I haven’t found that. But then they know I’m a flint knapping hack so they’re ladling it out for free while showering me with gifts
There are, to be brutally honest, worse jobs
At the restaurant just now they seemed actually a bit disappointed that I didn’t want to linger and have more free wine, free puds, free cheese, free pumpkin seed oil on vanilla ice cream etc
The schnitzel sucks pizzles but Graz at night has moments of sublimity
Are you en route to the Dolomites?
No I’m writing about Styria - the “green heart of Austria” and “Austria’s little Tuscany”
And to be fair it does feel quite Mediterranean. It’s south of the alps so the prevailing climate comes from the Adriatic
It’s very balmy at night. Streets full of outdoor bars and restaurants. And there is a definite dolce far niente
Tomorrow, onto the celebrated wine lands
Problem with Austria is, if you order wine in restaurants, they serve it in teeny tiny portions. Like 100ml. Not like, say, Albania, where a half litre is de rigeueur
Christ, I thought that was only the Swiss. 1dl as they like to write it.
The schnitzel sucks pizzles but Graz at night has moments of sublimity
Are you en route to the Dolomites?
No I’m writing about Styria - the “green heart of Austria” and “Austria’s little Tuscany”
And to be fair it does feel quite Mediterranean. It’s south of the alps so the prevailing climate comes from the Adriatic
It’s very balmy at night. Streets full of outdoor bars and restaurants. And there is a definite dolce far niente
Tomorrow, onto the celebrated wine lands
“ Styria is one of those corners of Europe that makes the great metropolitan pieties look faintly ridiculous. Wander through Graz or the vineyards that creep up the hillsides and you notice an absence. There are no sermons on “decolonising” the pumpkin harvest. There are no joyless lectures about microaggressions over a glass of Schilcher. Instead, you encounter a quiet confidence, a sense that life is richer when it’s not filtered through the brittle catechism of the woke.”
The schnitzel sucks pizzles but Graz at night has moments of sublimity
Are you en route to the Dolomites?
No I’m writing about Styria - the “green heart of Austria” and “Austria’s little Tuscany”
And to be fair it does feel quite Mediterranean. It’s south of the alps so the prevailing climate comes from the Adriatic
It’s very balmy at night. Streets full of outdoor bars and restaurants. And there is a definite dolce far niente
Tomorrow, onto the celebrated wine lands
“ Styria is one of those corners of Europe that makes the great metropolitan pieties look faintly ridiculous. Wander through Graz or the vineyards that creep up the hillsides and you notice an absence. There are no sermons on “decolonising” the pumpkin harvest. There are no joyless lectures about microaggressions over a glass of Schilcher. Instead, you encounter a quiet confidence, a sense that life is richer when it’s not filtered through the brittle catechism of the woke.”
I loved Chicago. It's walkable, and American. New York is walkable, but more an international city than an American one. Plus, the elevated train lines and wooden stations in Chicago are wonderful.
The schnitzel sucks pizzles but Graz at night has moments of sublimity
Are you en route to the Dolomites?
No I’m writing about Styria - the “green heart of Austria” and “Austria’s little Tuscany”
And to be fair it does feel quite Mediterranean. It’s south of the alps so the prevailing climate comes from the Adriatic
It’s very balmy at night. Streets full of outdoor bars and restaurants. And there is a definite dolce far niente
Tomorrow, onto the celebrated wine lands
“ Styria is one of those corners of Europe that makes the great metropolitan pieties look faintly ridiculous. Wander through Graz or the vineyards that creep up the hillsides and you notice an absence. There are no sermons on “decolonising” the pumpkin harvest. There are no joyless lectures about microaggressions over a glass of Schilcher. Instead, you encounter a quiet confidence, a sense that life is richer when it’s not filtered through the brittle catechism of the woke.”
I think I detect the hand of my friend Claude.
Obvs
A much better stylist than ChatGPT, and a much better coder.
But worse at finding information on the Internet, and daily how, what, why tasks.
The schnitzel sucks pizzles but Graz at night has moments of sublimity
Are you en route to the Dolomites?
No I’m writing about Styria - the “green heart of Austria” and “Austria’s little Tuscany”
And to be fair it does feel quite Mediterranean. It’s south of the alps so the prevailing climate comes from the Adriatic
It’s very balmy at night. Streets full of outdoor bars and restaurants. And there is a definite dolce far niente
Tomorrow, onto the celebrated wine lands
“ Styria is one of those corners of Europe that makes the great metropolitan pieties look faintly ridiculous. Wander through Graz or the vineyards that creep up the hillsides and you notice an absence. There are no sermons on “decolonising” the pumpkin harvest. There are no joyless lectures about microaggressions over a glass of Schilcher. Instead, you encounter a quiet confidence, a sense that life is richer when it’s not filtered through the brittle catechism of the woke.”
I loved Chicago. It's walkable, and American. New York is walkable, but more an international city than an American one. Plus, the elevated train lines and wooden stations in Chicago are wonderful.
I love Chicago as well. An infernal climate and unpleasantly violent but nonetheless a great city. The most American of American cities
I find its architecture often more inspiring than New York. Especially that famous view down the river
The schnitzel sucks pizzles but Graz at night has moments of sublimity
Are you en route to the Dolomites?
No I’m writing about Styria - the “green heart of Austria” and “Austria’s little Tuscany”
And to be fair it does feel quite Mediterranean. It’s south of the alps so the prevailing climate comes from the Adriatic
It’s very balmy at night. Streets full of outdoor bars and restaurants. And there is a definite dolce far niente
Tomorrow, onto the celebrated wine lands
“ Styria is one of those corners of Europe that makes the great metropolitan pieties look faintly ridiculous. Wander through Graz or the vineyards that creep up the hillsides and you notice an absence. There are no sermons on “decolonising” the pumpkin harvest. There are no joyless lectures about microaggressions over a glass of Schilcher. Instead, you encounter a quiet confidence, a sense that life is richer when it’s not filtered through the brittle catechism of the woke.”
I think I detect the hand of my friend Claude.
Obvs
A much better stylist than ChatGPT, and a much better coder.
But worse at finding information on the Internet, and daily how, what, why tasks.
Boring old ChatGPT I’m afraid. I took out the em dashes and split a sentence in two.
The schnitzel sucks pizzles but Graz at night has moments of sublimity
Are you en route to the Dolomites?
No I’m writing about Styria - the “green heart of Austria” and “Austria’s little Tuscany”
And to be fair it does feel quite Mediterranean. It’s south of the alps so the prevailing climate comes from the Adriatic
It’s very balmy at night. Streets full of outdoor bars and restaurants. And there is a definite dolce far niente
Tomorrow, onto the celebrated wine lands
“ Styria is one of those corners of Europe that makes the great metropolitan pieties look faintly ridiculous. Wander through Graz or the vineyards that creep up the hillsides and you notice an absence. There are no sermons on “decolonising” the pumpkin harvest. There are no joyless lectures about microaggressions over a glass of Schilcher. Instead, you encounter a quiet confidence, a sense that life is richer when it’s not filtered through the brittle catechism of the woke.”
I think I detect the hand of my friend Claude.
Obvs
A much better stylist than ChatGPT, and a much better coder.
But worse at finding information on the Internet, and daily how, what, why tasks.
Boring old ChatGPT I’m afraid. I took out the em dashes and split a sentence in two.
Gosh that was really good. I really thought it was @Leon
a Reform government will immediately ABOLISH the moronic IR35 rules.
We will clear all the obstacles to allow you to increase your earnings and grow our British economy! 🇬🇧
Good, it was imposed by the last Labour government and persisted, to their discredit, through 14 years of nominally 'conservative' rule.
I hope Reform have factored in the revenue losses from income tax as a result.
There’s a reason IR35 was introduced. People who were actually employees pretending to be self employed. They’re still at it.
If they really wanted to help small owner owned businesses raising the VAT threshold to say - £400,000 turnover would be a good start.
Gordon Bennett! You are doing OK on an annualised turnover of £399,999.
Well, you will understand I have a reputation for awesomeness on five continents. That sort of thing comes with a price tag
But in all seriousness, anything over that threshold is likely to be a larger medium sized enterprise rather than a sole trader - I'm assuming there are not many of those, or even smaller businesses employing say 3-4 other people that would be turning over that much. So self-employed plumbers, builders, small restaurants etc would be able to be exempt while the bigger ones would still pay.
Think what that would do in terms of tilting business away from the big boys, a lot of whom are pretty poor but are squeezing out competitors on price. Think what it would do in terms of reducing cost to people.
It would of course take a hit on VAT receipts, but (a) a lot would come back in tax anyway because it's the bigger firms that find ways to avoid it and (b) VAT's a stupid tax anyway, so fuck it.
The schnitzel sucks pizzles but Graz at night has moments of sublimity
Are you en route to the Dolomites?
No I’m writing about Styria - the “green heart of Austria” and “Austria’s little Tuscany”
And to be fair it does feel quite Mediterranean. It’s south of the alps so the prevailing climate comes from the Adriatic
It’s very balmy at night. Streets full of outdoor bars and restaurants. And there is a definite dolce far niente
Tomorrow, onto the celebrated wine lands
“ Styria is one of those corners of Europe that makes the great metropolitan pieties look faintly ridiculous. Wander through Graz or the vineyards that creep up the hillsides and you notice an absence. There are no sermons on “decolonising” the pumpkin harvest. There are no joyless lectures about microaggressions over a glass of Schilcher. Instead, you encounter a quiet confidence, a sense that life is richer when it’s not filtered through the brittle catechism of the woke.”
The schnitzel sucks pizzles but Graz at night has moments of sublimity
Are you en route to the Dolomites?
No I’m writing about Styria - the “green heart of Austria” and “Austria’s little Tuscany”
And to be fair it does feel quite Mediterranean. It’s south of the alps so the prevailing climate comes from the Adriatic
It’s very balmy at night. Streets full of outdoor bars and restaurants. And there is a definite dolce far niente
Tomorrow, onto the celebrated wine lands
“ Styria is one of those corners of Europe that makes the great metropolitan pieties look faintly ridiculous. Wander through Graz or the vineyards that creep up the hillsides and you notice an absence. There are no sermons on “decolonising” the pumpkin harvest. There are no joyless lectures about microaggressions over a glass of Schilcher. Instead, you encounter a quiet confidence, a sense that life is richer when it’s not filtered through the brittle catechism of the woke.”
a Reform government will immediately ABOLISH the moronic IR35 rules.
We will clear all the obstacles to allow you to increase your earnings and grow our British economy! 🇬🇧
Good, it was imposed by the last Labour government and persisted, to their discredit, through 14 years of nominally 'conservative' rule.
I hope Reform have factored in the revenue losses from income tax as a result.
There’s a reason IR35 was introduced. People who were actually employees pretending to be self employed. They’re still at it.
Also employers insisting contractors, who were to all intent employees, doing it, to avoid taking them on as employees.
Not sure why @Concanvasser thinks this is a good thing. It is tax evasion and a means whereby employers can evade their employment responsibilities.
IR35 was designed to quash the entrepreneurial spirit (killing the incentive) of individual contractors who were willing to take on the risk of not being an employee for the return of higher wages. It suited all parties, but most of all the economy. Moves like this are exactly what is needed if the economy is ever to start growing again.
a Reform government will immediately ABOLISH the moronic IR35 rules.
We will clear all the obstacles to allow you to increase your earnings and grow our British economy! 🇬🇧
Good, it was imposed by the last Labour government and persisted, to their discredit, through 14 years of nominally 'conservative' rule.
I hope Reform have factored in the revenue losses from income tax as a result.
There’s a reason IR35 was introduced. People who were actually employees pretending to be self employed. They’re still at it.
If they really wanted to help small owner owned businesses raising the VAT threshold to say - £400,000 turnover would be a good start.
Gordon Bennett! You are doing OK on an annualised turnover of £399,999.
Huge variation in profit margins. Take £100k selling software as a sole trader: £90k profit. Take £100k selling sandwiches: £15k profit.
One of the nice things about being an online tutor is that the overheads are ridiculously low. Much my largest outlay is to tutoring websites, but it only amounts to about 20% of gross earnings. On top of that you have insurance, DBS update and computer kit, plus the allowance for using your home and electricity. But that amounts to barely £100 per year.
Edit - you could of course do VAT on profits rather than on turnover, but just thinking how many public schools in my own field have colossal turnover while running at a headline loss I can see how that might not work.
Hilarious watching the Trump Cabinet going round the table each outdoing the next in sycophancy. It apparently went on for three hous and Trump showed no signs of boredom.
It must have been like this with Stalin's purges. Enjoy it because the world may never see the like again.
Hilarious watching the Trump Cabinet going round the table each outdoing the next in sycophancy. It apparently went on for three hous and Trump showed no signs of boredom.
It must have been like this with Stalin's purges. Enjoy it because the world may never see the like again.
..........Oh ....and pass the sick bucket Alice
Pretty sure this is going to win in the Best Deepthroat category at next year’s AVN Awards
The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, will boycott King Charles’s state banquet held in honour of Donald Trump to protest against the US president’s failure to intervene decisively to end the war in Gaza.
Davey, who is invited to the dinner for Trump’s state visit to the UK, said to turn down an invitation from the king went against all his instincts and that it was a deeply serious move to refuse to attend.
I’m sure the king and Trump will be devastated at this.
A ‘deeply serious’ move from a deeply unserious politician.
Good evening
Davey may think it is good politics, but frankly demonstrates why he is not statesperson material
From Starmer to Macron, UVDL to Merz, from Zelensky to Carney and many other leaders, not engaging with Trump is not an option no matter how distasteful that may be
He is the POTUS and as such is involved in multiple important and epoch defining decisions, and world's leaders are essential in attempting to influence these decisions wherever possible, not turning their backs
The real test for Davey is, would he boycott this event if he was Prime Minister ?
He's not, though is he ? I think you're quite wrong on this, BigG.
Turning up to a banquet will give him approximately zero opportunity to "engage" with Trump. That would, of course, be entirely different if he were PM, as you know.
He is a senior opposition leader but then he chooses to boycott an invite from the King ?
In practice, it is an invite from Starmer who invited Trump to a State visit, embarrassing the King and upsetting a majority of the population.
The invitation stands in the King's name no matter how distasteful
I'm not sure this is important.
Ceausescu and all kind of strange characters have been invited.
Grit your teeth and think of ... the UK.
Ceaucescu was knighted by the Callaghan government.
Romania built a few BAC 1-11 airliners as well as a few Class 56 diesel locos.
a Reform government will immediately ABOLISH the moronic IR35 rules.
We will clear all the obstacles to allow you to increase your earnings and grow our British economy! 🇬🇧
Good, it was imposed by the last Labour government and persisted, to their discredit, through 14 years of nominally 'conservative' rule.
I hope Reform have factored in the revenue losses from income tax as a result.
There’s a reason IR35 was introduced. People who were actually employees pretending to be self employed. They’re still at it.
If they really wanted to help small owner owned businesses raising the VAT threshold to say - £400,000 turnover would be a good start.
Gordon Bennett! You are doing OK on an annualised turnover of £399,999.
Huge variation in profit margins. Take £100k selling software as a sole trader: £90k profit. Take £100k selling sandwiches: £15k profit.
One of the nice things about being an online tutor is that the overheads are ridiculously low. Much my largest outlay is to tutoring websites, but it only amounts to about 20% of gross earnings. On top of that you have insurance, DBS update and computer kit, plus the allowance for using your home and electricity. But that amounts to barely £100 per year.
Edit - you could of course do VAT on profits rather than on turnover, but just thinking how many public schools in my own field have colossal turnover while running at a headline loss I can see how that might not work.
Plus, if your earnings are foreign they don't count. About 10% of my sales are UK. So I could get to £800000 sales without registering. Sadly, I have not reached those heights.
(An overlooked Brexit benefit: previously EU sales would count towards the threshold.)
Hilarious watching the Trump Cabinet going round the table each outdoing the next in sycophancy. It apparently went on for three hous and Trump showed no signs of boredom.
It must have been like this with Stalin's purges. Enjoy it because the world may never see the like again.
..........Oh ....and pass the sick bucket Alice
Stalin would at least have had the decency to already have started purging the first few by the time it was halfway round the table. Total pro that he was.
The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, will boycott King Charles’s state banquet held in honour of Donald Trump to protest against the US president’s failure to intervene decisively to end the war in Gaza.
Davey, who is invited to the dinner for Trump’s state visit to the UK, said to turn down an invitation from the king went against all his instincts and that it was a deeply serious move to refuse to attend.
I’m sure the king and Trump will be devastated at this.
A ‘deeply serious’ move from a deeply unserious politician.
Good evening
Davey may think it is good politics, but frankly demonstrates why he is not statesperson material
From Starmer to Macron, UVDL to Merz, from Zelensky to Carney and many other leaders, not engaging with Trump is not an option no matter how distasteful that may be
He is the POTUS and as such is involved in multiple important and epoch defining decisions, and world's leaders are essential in attempting to influence these decisions wherever possible, not turning their backs
The real test for Davey is, would he boycott this event if he was Prime Minister ?
He's not, though is he ? I think you're quite wrong on this, BigG.
Turning up to a banquet will give him approximately zero opportunity to "engage" with Trump. That would, of course, be entirely different if he were PM, as you know.
He is a senior opposition leader but then he chooses to boycott an invite from the King ?
In practice, it is an invite from Starmer who invited Trump to a State visit, embarrassing the King and upsetting a majority of the population.
The invitation stands in the King's name no matter how distasteful
I'm not sure this is important.
Ceausescu and all kind of strange characters have been invited.
Grit your teeth and think of ... the UK.
Ceaucescu was knighted by the Callaghan government.
Romania built a few BAC 1-11 airliners as well as a few Class 56 diesel locos.
Hilarious watching the Trump Cabinet going round the table each outdoing the next in sycophancy. It apparently went on for three hous and Trump showed no signs of boredom.
It must have been like this with Stalin's purges. Enjoy it because the world may never see the like again.
..........Oh ....and pass the sick bucket Alice
Trump's boredom threshold is an interesting question. In general I find these high-energy people unfathomable. See also: couples who argue all day. Where do they get the energy?
a Reform government will immediately ABOLISH the moronic IR35 rules.
We will clear all the obstacles to allow you to increase your earnings and grow our British economy! 🇬🇧
Good, it was imposed by the last Labour government and persisted, to their discredit, through 14 years of nominally 'conservative' rule.
I hope Reform have factored in the revenue losses from income tax as a result.
There’s a reason IR35 was introduced. People who were actually employees pretending to be self employed. They’re still at it.
Also employers insisting contractors, who were to all intent employees, doing it, to avoid taking them on as employees.
Not sure why @Concanvasser thinks this is a good thing. It is tax evasion and a means whereby employers can evade their employment responsibilities.
IR35 was designed to quash the entrepreneurial spirit (killing the incentive) of individual contractors who were willing to take on the risk of not being an employee for the return of higher wages. It suited all parties, but most of all the economy. Moves like this are exactly what is needed if the economy is ever to start growing again.
Actually it was mostly people who had been employees, left, and then pretended to be contractors to make more money. You are not self-employed unless you are prepared to take the risk of your business becoming insolvent and losing the shirt off your back
So Sir Nigel got his knickers in a twist over sending lady asylum seekers back to the Taliban.
The good news is Radio 4 PM ignored Nigel's travails completely and talked about how Trump manages a cabinet of sycophants. His cabinet love him.
That Saddam style Trump "cabinet meeting" was one nauseating sinister spectacle. WTF is going on over there? It's like they all fear being disappeared to a basement torture cell if they don't debase themselves before him.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
a Reform government will immediately ABOLISH the moronic IR35 rules.
We will clear all the obstacles to allow you to increase your earnings and grow our British economy! 🇬🇧
Good, it was imposed by the last Labour government and persisted, to their discredit, through 14 years of nominally 'conservative' rule.
I hope Reform have factored in the revenue losses from income tax as a result.
There’s a reason IR35 was introduced. People who were actually employees pretending to be self employed. They’re still at it.
Also employers insisting contractors, who were to all intent employees, doing it, to avoid taking them on as employees.
Not sure why @Concanvasser thinks this is a good thing. It is tax evasion and a means whereby employers can evade their employment responsibilities.
IR35 was designed to quash the entrepreneurial spirit (killing the incentive) of individual contractors who were willing to take on the risk of not being an employee for the return of higher wages. It suited all parties, but most of all the economy. Moves like this are exactly what is needed if the economy is ever to start growing again.
Nonsense it is tax evasion plain and simple, because a genuine self employed person has nothing to worry about so it does not impact the entrepreneurial spirit. The only people who have anything to worry about are those who are trying to avoid employment status (both or either the employer or employee). I speak as someone who did have a one man company and who had nothing to worry about IR35 and welcomed it because I got fed up being tainted by the evasion.
You also say 'it was designed to quash the entrepreneurial spirit'. Why on earth would anyone go out of their way to do that? It makes no sense.
a Reform government will immediately ABOLISH the moronic IR35 rules.
We will clear all the obstacles to allow you to increase your earnings and grow our British economy! 🇬🇧
Good, it was imposed by the last Labour government and persisted, to their discredit, through 14 years of nominally 'conservative' rule.
I hope Reform have factored in the revenue losses from income tax as a result.
There’s a reason IR35 was introduced. People who were actually employees pretending to be self employed. They’re still at it.
Also employers insisting contractors, who were to all intent employees, doing it, to avoid taking them on as employees.
Not sure why @Concanvasser thinks this is a good thing. It is tax evasion and a means whereby employers can evade their employment responsibilities.
IR35 was designed to quash the entrepreneurial spirit (killing the incentive) of individual contractors who were willing to take on the risk of not being an employee for the return of higher wages. It suited all parties, but most of all the economy. Moves like this are exactly what is needed if the economy is ever to start growing again.
Lol, sure. I recall all those 'entrepreneurs' working every day 9 to 5 for the same bank for years. The riskiest thing they ever did was move desks occasionally.
The schnitzel sucks pizzles but Graz at night has moments of sublimity
Are you en route to the Dolomites?
No I’m writing about Styria - the “green heart of Austria” and “Austria’s little Tuscany”
And to be fair it does feel quite Mediterranean. It’s south of the alps so the prevailing climate comes from the Adriatic
It’s very balmy at night. Streets full of outdoor bars and restaurants. And there is a definite dolce far niente
Tomorrow, onto the celebrated wine lands
“ Styria is one of those corners of Europe that makes the great metropolitan pieties look faintly ridiculous. Wander through Graz or the vineyards that creep up the hillsides and you notice an absence. There are no sermons on “decolonising” the pumpkin harvest. There are no joyless lectures about microaggressions over a glass of Schilcher. Instead, you encounter a quiet confidence, a sense that life is richer when it’s not filtered through the brittle catechism of the woke.”
I think I detect the hand of my friend Claude.
Obvs
A much better stylist than ChatGPT, and a much better coder.
But worse at finding information on the Internet, and daily how, what, why tasks.
Claude is very prone to over-engineering code in my experience - even with quite direct instructions not to. Also suggesting 'best practices' that don't apply. GPT-5 once you get used to the tweaks you need for prompting is a much better software engineer - though it demos very badly.
Influencer: "I asked claude opus 4.1 for a python script to say 'hello world' and it's given me 10,000 lines of code from ONE PROMPT!!!! And it's in 3D!"
Influencer: "I asked gpt-5 for a python script to say 'hello world' and it just gave me `print('hello world')`. It's ALL OVER for OpenAI!!!!"
So Sir Nigel got his knickers in a twist over sending lady asylum seekers back to the Taliban.
The good news is Radio 4 PM ignored Nigel's travails completely and talked about how Trump manages a cabinet of sycophants. His cabinet love him.
That Saddam style Trump "cabinet meeting" was one nauseating sinister spectacle. WTF is going on over there? It's like they all fear being disappeared to a basement torture cell if they don't debase themselves before him.
"Mr President you are the most gorgeous President ever".
a Reform government will immediately ABOLISH the moronic IR35 rules.
We will clear all the obstacles to allow you to increase your earnings and grow our British economy! 🇬🇧
Good, it was imposed by the last Labour government and persisted, to their discredit, through 14 years of nominally 'conservative' rule.
I hope Reform have factored in the revenue losses from income tax as a result.
There’s a reason IR35 was introduced. People who were actually employees pretending to be self employed. They’re still at it.
Also employers insisting contractors, who were to all intent employees, doing it, to avoid taking them on as employees.
Not sure why @Concanvasser thinks this is a good thing. It is tax evasion and a means whereby employers can evade their employment responsibilities.
IR35 was designed to quash the entrepreneurial spirit (killing the incentive) of individual contractors who were willing to take on the risk of not being an employee for the return of higher wages. It suited all parties, but most of all the economy. Moves like this are exactly what is needed if the economy is ever to start growing again.
Lol, sure. I recall all those 'entrepreneurs' working every day 9 to 5 for the same bank for years. The riskiest thing they ever did was move desks occasionally.
Same, hundreds of in public sector infrastructure programmes until IR35 came in. I failed to spot much entrepreneurial zeal and risk taking tbh.
O/t but Mrs C had, today, a text purporting to be from an official body to do with car-parking to the effect that she had a large number of unresolved parking tickets and if she didn't pay up the authorities would be after her. And indeed, her license...... note the spelling ..... would be in danger.
How many official British organisations spell licence that way?
So the text has been deleted.
I keep getting that message, too.
Not easy to block, is it.
The number of scam texts I get has been increasing. There’s been a data breach somewhere no doubt, or my habit of scrawling my number on the back of toilet doors has come back to haunt me.
There doesn't need to have been a data breach - there just aren't that many phone numbers in the blocks the UK assigns to mobiles.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
a Reform government will immediately ABOLISH the moronic IR35 rules.
We will clear all the obstacles to allow you to increase your earnings and grow our British economy! 🇬🇧
Good, it was imposed by the last Labour government and persisted, to their discredit, through 14 years of nominally 'conservative' rule.
I hope Reform have factored in the revenue losses from income tax as a result.
There’s a reason IR35 was introduced. People who were actually employees pretending to be self employed. They’re still at it.
Also employers insisting contractors, who were to all intent employees, doing it, to avoid taking them on as employees.
Not sure why @Concanvasser thinks this is a good thing. It is tax evasion and a means whereby employers can evade their employment responsibilities.
IR35 was designed to quash the entrepreneurial spirit (killing the incentive) of individual contractors who were willing to take on the risk of not being an employee for the return of higher wages. It suited all parties, but most of all the economy. Moves like this are exactly what is needed if the economy is ever to start growing again.
Nonsense it is tax evasion plain and simple, because a genuine self employed person has nothing to worry about so it does not impact the entrepreneurial spirit. The only people who have anything to worry about are those who are trying to avoid employment status (both or either the employer or employee). I speak as someone who did have a one man company and who had nothing to worry about IR35 and welcomed it because I got fed up being tainted by the evasion.
You also say 'it was designed to quash the entrepreneurial spirit'. Why on earth would anyone go out of their way to do that? It makes no sense.
I worked in engineering and places like Land Rover, where I had the misfortune to work, were full of contract workers who were effectively full time employees.
I absolutely get the need for IR35 and anyone who falls foul of the EBT issue deserves all,they get.
The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, will boycott King Charles’s state banquet held in honour of Donald Trump to protest against the US president’s failure to intervene decisively to end the war in Gaza.
Davey, who is invited to the dinner for Trump’s state visit to the UK, said to turn down an invitation from the king went against all his instincts and that it was a deeply serious move to refuse to attend.
I’m sure the king and Trump will be devastated at this.
A ‘deeply serious’ move from a deeply unserious politician.
Good evening
Davey may think it is good politics, but frankly demonstrates why he is not statesperson material
From Starmer to Macron, UVDL to Merz, from Zelensky to Carney and many other leaders, not engaging with Trump is not an option no matter how distasteful that may be
He is the POTUS and as such is involved in multiple important and epoch defining decisions, and world's leaders are essential in attempting to influence these decisions wherever possible, not turning their backs
The real test for Davey is, would he boycott this event if he was Prime Minister ?
He's not, though is he ? I think you're quite wrong on this, BigG.
Turning up to a banquet will give him approximately zero opportunity to "engage" with Trump. That would, of course, be entirely different if he were PM, as you know.
He is a senior opposition leader but then he chooses to boycott an invite from the King ?
In practice, it is an invite from Starmer who invited Trump to a State visit, embarrassing the King and upsetting a majority of the population.
The invitation stands in the King's name no matter how distasteful
So how much of a hit in the polls do you think the Lib Dems will experience after this snub to the King?
All the best people turn down an invitation from the King.
I'm intrigued, Mr Eagles. Was your invitation so he could pick up fashion tips, or was it specifically to meet a Cambridge educated lawyer who is both modest and subtle?
I have a friend who is a staunch monarchist invited me to a dinner with the King and hundreds of other people, as he reckoned an evening with the King would turn me into a monarchist.
I couldn't go to an event hosted by an alumnus of Trinity College, Cambridge, those fuckers arrogantly think they are the best of the best, real intellectuals.
(Soz Robert)
I was not at Trinity Hall.
Nor, I suspect, was the King.
No the King went to Trinity and briefly Aberystwyth
Therefore following in the footsteps of the two oldest children of OGH.
Although I guess he went to both places before my sister and me.
That sounds like a throw-away-yet-disturbing line from a David Lynch film.
a Reform government will immediately ABOLISH the moronic IR35 rules.
We will clear all the obstacles to allow you to increase your earnings and grow our British economy! 🇬🇧
Good, it was imposed by the last Labour government and persisted, to their discredit, through 14 years of nominally 'conservative' rule.
I hope Reform have factored in the revenue losses from income tax as a result.
There’s a reason IR35 was introduced. People who were actually employees pretending to be self employed. They’re still at it.
Also employers insisting contractors, who were to all intent employees, doing it, to avoid taking them on as employees.
Not sure why @Concanvasser thinks this is a good thing. It is tax evasion and a means whereby employers can evade their employment responsibilities.
IR35 was designed to quash the entrepreneurial spirit (killing the incentive) of individual contractors who were willing to take on the risk of not being an employee for the return of higher wages. It suited all parties, but most of all the economy. Moves like this are exactly what is needed if the economy is ever to start growing again.
Lol, sure. I recall all those 'entrepreneurs' working every day 9 to 5 for the same bank for years. The riskiest thing they ever did was move desks occasionally.
Yes. As someone who ran a genuine one man company, those abusing the system really irritated me. It also threw suspicion on those that were genuine, that maybe they weren't. IR35 was NOT designed to kill off the entrepreneurial spirit, because not only would that be a bizarre thing to do, but a genuine entrepreneur wouldn't be affected anyway. The only ones impacted were those who were really employees pretending to be self employed.
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct and different haircuts for the time.
It is called acting, if you can act well you should be able to convince in the part regardless of skin colour.
Otherwise if you demand historical figures are represented by actors of the same skin colour that has to apply across the board
I agree on this but it should apply equally. You don’t need to be gay to play a gay person or have killed people and put them under the patio to play Fred West, yet the trans loon lobby, of course, dunked on casting of non ‘trans’ actors in trans roles even getting a Scarlett Johansson show pulled as she backed out due to the furore from the perma-offended brigade. There was also Eddie Redmaye in that film, the Danish Girl IIRC, who got a load of flak for being in it.
I'm half and half here. I think that having had the actual experience makes a big difference, as does challenging the perceptions and assumptions of an audience around skin colour. Though an actor's skill is to understand and portray.
I would struggle to work my way into the head of someone around something as simple as tobacco addiction, for example. Or being an out gay professional footballer - aiui in the UK game we still only have one, following on from Justin Fashanu in 1990. Fashanu hanged himself in a garage in Shoreditch after he was accused of sexual assault.
With all due respect you’re not a professional actor. They immerse themselves in their roles. They inhabit the character and the role.
What you seem to imply would simply narrow the available cast. RTD selected actors on their merit for Queer as Folk, and it works fine.
I think it’s nonsensical to say only a trans actor can play a trans role or only,a straight actor can play a straight role.
It is literally the entire point of acting, to play a role that is not your own.
Sheldon: You can't be Professor Proton. You're not a scientist. Wil Wheaton: Well, I was never on a starship, but pretending I was bought me this house. And if I'd pretended a little longer, it would have a swimming pool
Isn’t it a conversation Sir John Gielgud had with Dustin Hoffman? “ it’s called acting dear boy”
But you can't act yourself a different colour.
I believe in complete freedom for casting. If someone wants to create a quasi-historical drama that uses a cast of all different ethnic backgrounds, good for them. I probably won't watch it because it snaps me out of the historical era and setting.
As an aside, poorly written dialogue has the same effect - if a period drama uses modern language in a way that fails to seem like a plausible approximation of language of that era, again I'll be pulled out of the drama and it won't be entertaining to me. I don't actually want the middle English of Chaucer, but I don't want something that sounds like it was written using ChatGPT either.
Where Isam's comment is absurd is to say that it is 'completely wrong' to create a historically accurate drama that uses a cast that could plausibly belong to the time and space in which the drama is set. That's an unwelcome and frankly fairly shocking encroachment on artistic freedom.
I don't understand your last paragraph. What did I say that was absurd?
You said it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the right to be cast in a period drama.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
So Sir Nigel got his knickers in a twist over sending lady asylum seekers back to the Taliban.
The good news is Radio 4 PM ignored Nigel's travails completely and talked about how Trump manages a cabinet of sycophants. His cabinet love him.
That Saddam style Trump "cabinet meeting" was one nauseating sinister spectacle. WTF is going on over there? It's like they all fear being disappeared to a basement torture cell if they don't debase themselves before him.
"Mr President you are the most gorgeous President ever".
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Does anyone know if Rangers get another 4 men sent off, if the game has to be abandoned due to lack of players are Brugge awarded a default 3-0 win? A chance to save face for Russell Martin
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
HMI (His Majesty's Inspectors) are direct Ofsted employees, salaried civil servants, and number around 300 across all education age ranges (3-adult). They are the Ofsted 'cream'. Additional Inspectors, a much larger number, make up the rest. Many of these are serving school/college leaders, though some are retired and/or educational consultants of various kinds.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
How did she thus become a Conservative peer?
Tell me Kemi Badenoch, what did you see in the millionaire Amanda ...?
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave? (Again, AIUI their schools are paid when they are out on inspections.)
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days' work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave?
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
I am getting a lot of ads asking me to consider a career in teaching.
The only thing stopping is me is I cannot decide which subject I should teach, history, mathematics, physics, or latin?
Does anyone know if Rangers get another 4 men sent off, if the game has to be abandoned due to lack of players are Brugge awarded a default 3-0 win? A chance to save face for Russell Martin
Do European red cards carry on to league match suspensions? Old Firm match on Sunday which are the ones the fans really care about. Barry Ferguson may be in charge by then so Rangers will need all the squad they can get.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave?
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
I am getting a lot of ads asking me to consider a career in teaching.
The only thing stopping is me is I cannot decide which subject I should teach, history, mathematics, physics, or latin?
This is something I have changed my mind on to a certain extent; in the past I’d agree that using non white actors in British period pieces was ‘PC gone max’, but now I think it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the chance to be cast in one. A multi racial school doing a play about the 1966 World Cup Final would cast all kids as players, even though all 22 on the pitch were white, and a production of Shakespeare with an entirely non white cast would be just as legitimate as any other.
Where it does seem provocative is casting title characters; you can’t have a white Mandela or black Henry VIII, although I’d probably be more ok with the latter
BBC series ‘King and Conqueror’ branded ‘woke’ and ‘historically inaccurate’ for featuring black actors playing Anglo-Saxons.
The series portrays the historical Battle of Hastings in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and King Harold Godwinson of England.
If you can have actors as black Anglo Saxons you can have an actor as a white Mandela
A nicely thoughtful post there by @isam. I need to watch this as it is the 2nd one of yours I have liked today.
I disagree with you @HYUFD on Nelson Mandela and agree with @isam. Mandela being black is rather fundamental to the whole point of the story. Normans and Anglo Saxons being white is not. OK they clearly weren't black. They also have the wrong haircuts*, and speak the wrong language for the time, but we overlook that. We can overlook (with difficulty I grant you as it is obvious) black Anglo Saxons. It is a bit more difficult to overlook a white Mandela.
* A review I read said it was confusing flipping between the Norman and the Anglo Saxon locations and would have been a lot easy if they had the correct and different haircuts for the time.
It is called acting, if you can act well you should be able to convince in the part regardless of skin colour.
Otherwise if you demand historical figures are represented by actors of the same skin colour that has to apply across the board
I agree on this but it should apply equally. You don’t need to be gay to play a gay person or have killed people and put them under the patio to play Fred West, yet the trans loon lobby, of course, dunked on casting of non ‘trans’ actors in trans roles even getting a Scarlett Johansson show pulled as she backed out due to the furore from the perma-offended brigade. There was also Eddie Redmaye in that film, the Danish Girl IIRC, who got a load of flak for being in it.
I'm half and half here. I think that having had the actual experience makes a big difference, as does challenging the perceptions and assumptions of an audience around skin colour. Though an actor's skill is to understand and portray.
I would struggle to work my way into the head of someone around something as simple as tobacco addiction, for example. Or being an out gay professional footballer - aiui in the UK game we still only have one, following on from Justin Fashanu in 1990. Fashanu hanged himself in a garage in Shoreditch after he was accused of sexual assault.
With all due respect you’re not a professional actor. They immerse themselves in their roles. They inhabit the character and the role.
What you seem to imply would simply narrow the available cast. RTD selected actors on their merit for Queer as Folk, and it works fine.
I think it’s nonsensical to say only a trans actor can play a trans role or only,a straight actor can play a straight role.
It is literally the entire point of acting, to play a role that is not your own.
Sheldon: You can't be Professor Proton. You're not a scientist. Wil Wheaton: Well, I was never on a starship, but pretending I was bought me this house. And if I'd pretended a little longer, it would have a swimming pool
Isn’t it a conversation Sir John Gielgud had with Dustin Hoffman? “ it’s called acting dear boy”
But you can't act yourself a different colour.
I believe in complete freedom for casting. If someone wants to create a quasi-historical drama that uses a cast of all different ethnic backgrounds, good for them. I probably won't watch it because it snaps me out of the historical era and setting.
As an aside, poorly written dialogue has the same effect - if a period drama uses modern language in a way that fails to seem like a plausible approximation of language of that era, again I'll be pulled out of the drama and it won't be entertaining to me. I don't actually want the middle English of Chaucer, but I don't want something that sounds like it was written using ChatGPT either.
Where Isam's comment is absurd is to say that it is 'completely wrong' to create a historically accurate drama that uses a cast that could plausibly belong to the time and space in which the drama is set. That's an unwelcome and frankly fairly shocking encroachment on artistic freedom.
I don't understand your last paragraph. What did I say that was absurd?
You said it would be completely wrong to deny a black actor the right to be cast in a period drama.
I don't know. I can see your point actually; it's not long ago I would have railed against what I am now saying is completely ok, so maybe I am coming to a middle ground by way of holding one opinion then the other! But period pieces are pretty much the directors version of the past rather than documentaries, so I think we can suspend belief a little
On topic, I almost don't think it's the 37% that's damning for Davey, it's the 60% of LD voters not recognising the leader of the part they're voting for compared to >90% for Reform/Labour.
a Reform government will immediately ABOLISH the moronic IR35 rules.
We will clear all the obstacles to allow you to increase your earnings and grow our British economy! 🇬🇧
Good, it was imposed by the last Labour government and persisted, to their discredit, through 14 years of nominally 'conservative' rule.
I hope Reform have factored in the revenue losses from income tax as a result.
There’s a reason IR35 was introduced. People who were actually employees pretending to be self employed. They’re still at it.
Merge National Insurance and Income Tax, get rid of things like Employers NICs that encourage employers to shift people off books and there'd be no reason to have IR35 or any of that other bullshit. Those perversions are created by taxing people inconsistently, meaning they'll seek to have their finances arranged optimally which is rational behaviour within an irrational system.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave? (Again, AIUI their schools are paid when they are out on inspections.)
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days' work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
27.5 hours is four Saturdays. Suck it up. Yes, charge more for your time if necessary. If the purchaser won't pay, don't do it.
Surely you charge for a job in the basis you are qualified and trained to do it. As a contractor, it is your responsibility to be qualified and trained. IT people generally pay for their own training.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave?
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
I am getting a lot of ads asking me to consider a career in teaching.
The only thing stopping is me is I cannot decide which subject I should teach, history, mathematics, physics, or latin?
Be original TSE. Say you will teach History, but you can also teach Maths and Physics GCSE.
That way you will get heads practically willing to perform oral sex on you to come and work in their school.
One of the challenges/highlights in coding this was the use of autocorrect, which memorably converted one respondent's answer for Kemi into Kevin Basingstoke.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave? (Again, AIUI their schools are paid when they are out on inspections.)
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days' work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
27.5 hours is four Saturdays. Suck it up.
The retired ones may well do so.
The serving ones may not actually have the time to do it at the weekends, given the deadlines, especially at the start of term when things are frantic anyway.
Again, though, my question - who discharges the necessary functions (and with all its faults they are necessary functions) of OFSTED if it implodes?
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave? (Again, AIUI their schools are paid when they are out on inspections.)
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days' work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
27.5 hours is four Saturdays. Suck it up.
The retired ones may well do so.
The serving ones may not actually have the time to do it at the weekends, given the deadlines, especially at the start of term when things are frantic anyway.
Again, though, my question - who discharges the necessary functions (and with all its faults they are necessary functions) of OFSTED if it implodes?
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave?
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
I am getting a lot of ads asking me to consider a career in teaching.
The only thing stopping is me is I cannot decide which subject I should teach, history, mathematics, physics, or latin?
Be original TSE. Say you will teach History, but you can also teach Maths and Physics GCSE.
That way you will get heads practically willing to perform oral sex on you to come and work in their school.
Given the ones I've encountered, that's unlikely to provide much of an incentive .
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave?
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
I am getting a lot of ads asking me to consider a career in teaching.
The only thing stopping is me is I cannot decide which subject I should teach, history, mathematics, physics, or latin?
Modesty. Or footwear.
You cannot teach modesty, it is entirely genuine or entirely fake.
I actually thought my colleagues some physics the other day, including a physics graduates.
I explained to them that karma isn't mumbo jumbo but is underpinned by Newton's third law of physics that everything has an equal and opposite reaction.
Question of @ydoethur or any other cricket fans who might know. Why are Hampshirevplaying their quarter final away tomorrow despite finishing second in the group. Seems odd. Clash with the hundred?
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
HMI (His Majesty's Inspectors) are full-time, directly employed by Ofsted, and are civil servants, numbering around 300, covering education from age 1-adult, with most inspecting schools and colleges, but a few in prisons, childcare etc.. A much larger number are Additional Inspectors (AIs), and these are essentially contractors. Many are self-employed, maybe current school leaders; or retired, consultants. Many of the serving school leaders are in effect 'sponsored' by their school/college - they get the time off, but the pay goes to the school rather than the 'inspector'. Sort of glorified staff development. AIs vary in quality.
French industry wants sole leadership in joint fighter jet - document
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/french-industry-wants-sole-leadership-joint-fighter-jet-document-2025-08-26/ French industry is blocking entry into the next phase in the development of the Franco-German fighter jet FCAS by demanding sole leadership of the project, the German defence ministry says in a document seen by Reuters on Tuesday. In the document, sent to members of the German parliament's budget committee on Friday, the ministry warns of severe consequences for the capabilities of the future fighter jet and the participation of German industry if concessions are granted to French industry...
Question of @ydoethur or any other cricket fans who might know. Why are Hampshirevplaying their quarter final away tomorrow despite finishing second in the group. Seems odd. Clash with the hundred?
The Rose Bowl is being used by the Southern Brave in The Hundred tomorrow.
One of the challenges/highlights in coding this was the use of autocorrect, which memorably converted one respondent's answer for Kemi into Kevin Basingstoke.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave?
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
I am getting a lot of ads asking me to consider a career in teaching.
The only thing stopping is me is I cannot decide which subject I should teach, history, mathematics, physics, or latin?
Modesty. Or footwear.
You cannot teach modesty, it is entirely genuine or entirely fake.
I actually thought my colleagues some physics the other day, including a physics graduates.
I explained to them that karma isn't mumbo jumbo but is underpinned by Newton's third law of physics that everything has an equal and opposite reaction.
Motion (subject of the laws) is a synonym for s***
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave? (Again, AIUI their schools are paid when they are out on inspections.)
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days' work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
27.5 hours is four Saturdays. Suck it up.
The retired ones may well do so.
The serving ones may not actually have the time to do it at the weekends, given the deadlines, especially at the start of term when things are frantic anyway.
Again, though, my question - who discharges the necessary functions (and with all its faults they are necessary functions) of OFSTED if it implodes?
Why are things frantic at the start of term? You know when it is going to happen. It happens at the same time every year. Plan.
Reminds me of Finance where I used to work, the tax year end seemed to take them on the hop every year.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
Are Ofsted inspectors employees or contractors?
@Northern_Al would probably be in a better position to answer but AIUI HMIs (i.e. senior inspectors) are employed by OFSTED while the rest of them are essentially headteachers and deputy headteachers who do it in their spare time, so contractors.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything.
The crises at OFSTED continue to mount, as inspectors threaten to walk out over the rushed training regime for the new inspection system which is being implemented earlier than planned (and for which training they will not be paid).
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
If he fails as miserably as Spielman, does he become a Conservative peer too?
He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
If you are a contractor, you pay for your own training.
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
Er - 27.5 hours? In term time? For which they would either have to fit it around a more than full time job or take unpaid leave? (Again, AIUI their schools are paid when they are out on inspections.)
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days' work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
27.5 hours is four Saturdays. Suck it up.
The retired ones may well do so.
The serving ones may not actually have the time to do it at the weekends, given the deadlines, especially at the start of term when things are frantic anyway.
Again, though, my question - who discharges the necessary functions (and with all its faults they are necessary functions) of OFSTED if it implodes?
In any case, why learn some procedure for free if it might only get needed once, if Ofsted goes all supine later this year?
Comments
There are, to be brutally honest, worse jobs
At the restaurant just now they seemed actually a bit disappointed that I didn’t want to linger and have more free wine, free puds, free cheese, free pumpkin seed oil on vanilla ice cream etc
But I’ve an early start
A city earmarked for takeover by the Federalised National Guard, or so I am hearing.
Not sure why @Concanvasser thinks this is a good thing. It is tax evasion and a means whereby employers can evade their employment responsibilities.
But worse at finding information on the Internet, and daily how, what, why tasks.
I find its architecture often more inspiring than New York. Especially that famous view down the river
But in all seriousness, anything over that threshold is likely to be a larger medium sized enterprise rather than a sole trader - I'm assuming there are not many of those, or even smaller businesses employing say 3-4 other people that would be turning over that much. So self-employed plumbers, builders, small restaurants etc would be able to be exempt while the bigger ones would still pay.
Think what that would do in terms of tilting business away from the big boys, a lot of whom are pretty poor but are squeezing out competitors on price. Think what it would do in terms of reducing cost to people.
It would of course take a hit on VAT receipts, but (a) a lot would come back in tax anyway because it's the bigger firms that find ways to avoid it and (b) VAT's a stupid tax anyway, so fuck it.
New York is an international melange with hints of London and Paris
DC is a terrible version of Paris crossed with Tashkent
Miami is South America/spanish
Boston tries to be English
New Orleans is a nice take on French
LA is Barcelona meets crime
San Francisco is Vladivostok on acid
Seattle is a sunny gusty prosperous Liverpool
Chicago is absolutely 100% American
Well, actually, his name was Eric Bottom. But he once tried a lion tamer's job, for a dare, and wasn't exactly a success (although he survived).
So forever after, he has been Claude Bottom.
Edit - you could of course do VAT on profits rather than on turnover, but just thinking how many public schools in my own field have colossal turnover while running at a headline loss I can see how that might not work.
https://x.com/WSJ/status/1960427904296226911
It must have been like this with Stalin's purges. Enjoy it because the world may never see the like again.
..........Oh ....and pass the sick bucket Alice
https://bsky.app/profile/chriswarcraft.bsky.social/post/3lxd5cddqv22e
2 nil to Grimsby.
Manchester United all at sea at Grimsby.
(An overlooked Brexit benefit: previously EU sales would count towards the threshold.)
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/inspectors-criticise-ofsteds-ridiculous-training-regime/
You have to feel sorry for Sir Martyn Oliver. None of this is his fault. He inherited a fundamentally broken system from a predecessor who was outrageously stupid and arrogant, at the same moment as a political change meant he was forced to push things along faster than he would like.
The greatest irony of all is that of course he was one of Spielman's fiercest critics - yet he will get blamed for the fallout from her mess if OFSTED implodes in the coming year.
You also say 'it was designed to quash the entrepreneurial spirit'. Why on earth would anyone go out of their way to do that? It makes no sense.
Influencer: "I asked claude opus 4.1 for a python script to say 'hello world' and it's given me 10,000 lines of code from ONE PROMPT!!!! And it's in 3D!"
Influencer: "I asked gpt-5 for a python script to say 'hello world' and it just gave me `print('hello world')`. It's ALL OVER for OpenAI!!!!"
I absolutely get the need for IR35 and anyone who falls foul of the EBT issue deserves all,they get.
And they are very fucking furious right now about everything. He can't, so he won't. Even if OFSTED actually collapses - and from here that looks a serious possibility - it will be her failure, not his, even if he is blamed.
‘But at least we’re not Rangers’
If this makes your business unviable, you just don't do it.
If this makes Ofsted unviable, don't whine about it just let it go tits up.
This sounds like a load of heads and deputy heads who think they are guaranteed some extra bunce.
"Tommy Robinson will not face charges over alleged assault at railway station"
Railway station. Top marks to Sky.
Tell me Kemi Badenoch, what did you see in the millionaire Amanda ...?
I am a contractor. If you want me to do more than one hour of training for any given job, I am sending you a bill. For 27.5 hours (three solid days' work) I am sending you a very large bill.
The point is - and here I think you are overlooking the issue - if OFSTED goes tits up, well, in some ways probably good riddance. But its statutory duties will not disappear. Who discharges them? And how?
The only thing stopping is me is I cannot decide which subject I should teach, history, mathematics, physics, or latin?
Surely you charge for a job in the basis you are qualified and trained to do it. As a contractor, it is your responsibility to be qualified and trained. IT people generally pay for their own training.
That way you will get heads practically willing to perform oral sex on you to come and work in their school.
One of the challenges/highlights in coding this was the use of autocorrect, which memorably converted one respondent's answer for Kemi into Kevin Basingstoke.
https://bsky.app/profile/dylandifford.bsky.social/post/3lxfqgrot722w
At least, we hope it was an autocorrect artefact.
The serving ones may not actually have the time to do it at the weekends, given the deadlines, especially at the start of term when things are frantic anyway.
Again, though, my question - who discharges the necessary functions (and with all its faults they are necessary functions) of OFSTED if it implodes?
I actually thought my colleagues some physics the other day, including a physics graduates.
I explained to them that karma isn't mumbo jumbo but is underpinned by Newton's third law of physics that everything has an equal and opposite reaction.
French industry wants sole leadership in joint fighter jet - document
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/french-industry-wants-sole-leadership-joint-fighter-jet-document-2025-08-26/
French industry is blocking entry into the next phase in the development of the Franco-German fighter jet FCAS by demanding sole leadership of the project, the German defence ministry says in a document seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
In the document, sent to members of the German parliament's budget committee on Friday, the ministry warns of severe consequences for the capabilities of the future fighter jet and the participation of German industry if concessions are granted to French industry...
Reminds me of Finance where I used to work, the tax year end seemed to take them on the hop every year.
https://x.com/braidengb/status/1960799851572253051?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q