I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I fear you are correct. This is about 1932. The parallels are uncanny
Much of it, however, is being driven by an insane left wing in the west (equivalent to the fellow traveling Stalinist Fabians of the 30s?) who do not understand how they are driving despairing voters to the hard or far right
Look at the asylum discourse this weekend. The rights of 23 year old Syrian men in free four star hotels which we pay for, and who still hate Britain, must come first, in Britain, over the rights of British girls not to be raped
In this light, Brits may as well vote Nazi
Britain has a wonderful history of peaceful change coming when needed. The glorious revolution. The industrial revolution. The Great Reform Act. This era is just the same. We are just lucky like that.
"The nations not so blessed as thee, must in their turn to tyrants fall, while thou shalt flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all"
Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, as they say. David Cameron was phenomenally lucky until he wasn't.
With great respect, I am not sure how David Cameron being a cocky little git undermines the argument of Britain being continually blessed with the ability to evolve and turn toward prosperity and away from turmoil. We didn't do this out of design or because of a constitution - it just happened. For reasons far more complex than we can fathom.
We've been lucky and luck can run out. As David Cameron found.
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I fear you are correct. This is about 1932. The parallels are uncanny
Much of it, however, is being driven by an insane left wing in the west (equivalent to the fellow traveling Stalinist Fabians of the 30s?) who do not understand how they are driving despairing voters to the hard or far right
Look at the asylum discourse this weekend. The rights of 23 year old Syrian men in free four star hotels which we pay for, and who still hate Britain, must come first, in Britain, over the rights of British girls not to be raped
In this light, Brits may as well vote Nazi
Britain has a wonderful history of peaceful change coming when needed. The glorious revolution. The industrial revolution. The Great Reform Act. This era is just the same. We are just lucky like that.
"The nations not so blessed as thee, must in their turn to tyrants fall, while thou shalt flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all"
Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, as they say. David Cameron was phenomenally lucky until he wasn't.
Our past performance also includes the long anarchy following the death of Henry I, John, the violence and deposition of Edward II and Richard II, the Wars of the Roses, the violence and deposition of Richard III, the Civil Wars to name a few.
Also, LG's 'Britain' excludes 'Ireland'. Which was very much seen as de facto part of the UK for centuries even if not formally till 1800.
“Trump to offer $5000 to every gazan to move away from Gaza for ten years”
It’s entirely mad but it’s less mad than any other “solution” to this problem. There aren’t going to be two states. Israel will not stop. Israel will never peacefully live alongside Palestinians determined to kill every Jew between the river and the sea
And no one can disarm Israel because it has nukes and is prepared to use them, like it or not
Let’s hope trumps madness works
Where are they going to move away to? Would your approval of Trump's mad plan include them coming to the UK for the ten years?
Of course not. No way they come here
But if you have a better plan than Trump’s, or a version of it, do tell. Because every “plan” I’ve seen is some ludicrous painful continuation of the status quo which sees Israel tormenting Palestine for eternity and Palestinians constantly trying to invade Israel again so they can rape and murder thousands of Jews
So where do they go then? You think this brilliant plan's okay, but you wouldn't want them? Why should other people went them?
There are apparently around 700,000 Israeli settlers in The West Bank and East Jerusalem. There are 2.1 million Palestinians living in Gaza. Given that Gazans are currently packed into a very small space, so used to dense conditions, I think the space vacated by 700,000 settlers would be more than adequate for 2.1 million of them to start with.
I'm not in favour of the settlers in any way, and the vast majority should f-off into Israel proper.
But the Gazans in this so-called 'plan' are *not* going to go there. Israel would not allow it, for obvious reasons. So the question is, where will they go?
We need to be very careful not to inadvertently create a new version of the Madagascar Plan.
Israel would not want to allow it, but it is an important component in the plan that Israel must not have everything its own way. You are effectively removing a big security headache for Israel, and adding a big landmass to Israel, but to do that, they have to get out of the West Bank. That is fair, and the only ones who lose out are the settlers, who nobody likes anyway. If Israel strongly opposes resettling the settlers, it would appear grotesquely obstructive, and potentially create a wedge issue for America.
I would support that: but Netanyahu cannot.
He is utterly dependent on the Settler vote to keep him in power. Were he to attempt to dismantle the setttlements, and/or to force Israelis out of the West Bank then he would go. (And go to prison, almost certainly.)
Now, that sounds -and is- pretty unfair on the Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority. But that is the reality of where we are. If Netanyahu were to fall, maybe that could change, but realistically, I think the only way it could work would be if the borders of Israel were extended into the West Bank somewhat, so that the biggest of the settlements would not need dismantlng.
The problem is that many in Israel are punch drunk with victory right now. They don't feel they need to give up anything. It's an unfortunate situation that is likely to result in serious problems down the line. And many, many dead Israelis and Palestinians.
Indeed - I agree with you completely, however, remember that Israel is also wholly dependent on US support. I didn't follow the conflict with Iran closely, but I understand that had the US stopped military aid, the situation would have rapidly deteriorated for Israel, with Iran still having plenty of rockets to pelt them with.
And the emptying of Gaza would be a huge victory for Israel. To reject that for some settlers would seem mad to me. However, I am not an expert (or even a novice) on Israel's electoral dynamics.
What drives the Your Party/Corbyn figures in the 16-17 year olds? i.e. presumably they were too young/too not paying attention when Corbyn was at his peak for them to really have gained "brand loyalty" from that period.
Is Corbyn big on the socials these days?
Opposition to tuition fees is not irrelevant to 16/17 keenness for parties of the far left.
And in all honesty if all parties to the right of the greens were proposing to charge me £50k for my entry ticket to adulthood I might be flirting with the far left too.
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I think, and hope, that Canada could do enough with European help to deter the US from launching an SMO by ensuring there would be consequences. The US and its allies couldn’t fully control Iraq or Afghanistan after all. I don’t think the Americans are yet in the zone of accepting hundreds of thousands of war dead, Russia style.
European Military training grounds coming to Greenland, and returning to Canada real soon now.
What drives the Your Party/Corbyn figures in the 16-17 year olds? i.e. presumably they were too young/too not paying attention when Corbyn was at his peak for them to really have gained "brand loyalty" from that period.
Is Corbyn big on the socials these days?
20% for Corbyn is nothing special really. I thought and feared they'd be much higher. 16/17 years olds are obviously a lot more sensible than some people believed.
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I fear you are correct. This is about 1932. The parallels are uncanny
Much of it, however, is being driven by an insane left wing in the west (equivalent to the fellow traveling Stalinist Fabians of the 30s?) who do not understand how they are driving despairing voters to the hard or far right
Look at the asylum discourse this weekend. The rights of 23 year old Syrian men in free four star hotels which we pay for, and who still hate Britain, must come first, in Britain, over the rights of British girls not to be raped
In this light, Brits may as well vote Nazi
Britain has a wonderful history of peaceful change coming when needed. The glorious revolution. The industrial revolution. The Great Reform Act. This era is just the same. We are just lucky like that.
"The nations not so blessed as thee, must in their turn to tyrants fall, while thou shalt flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all"
Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, as they say. David Cameron was phenomenally lucky until he wasn't.
Our past performance also includes the long anarchy following the death of Henry I, John, the violence and deposition of Edward II and Richard II, the Wars of the Roses, the violence and deposition of Richard III, the Civil Wars to name a few.
Also, LG's 'Britain' excludes 'Ireland'. Which was very much seen as de facto part of the UK for centuries even if not formally till 1800.
It is not a part of Britain.
And if you take the Civil War, it established the supremacy of parliament, before the peaceful restoration of the monarchy, but with its powers curtailed. All great for the progress of the nation.
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I fear you are correct. This is about 1932. The parallels are uncanny
Much of it, however, is being driven by an insane left wing in the west (equivalent to the fellow traveling Stalinist Fabians of the 30s?) who do not understand how they are driving despairing voters to the hard or far right
Look at the asylum discourse this weekend. The rights of 23 year old Syrian men in free four star hotels which we pay for, and who still hate Britain, must come first, in Britain, over the rights of British girls not to be raped
In this light, Brits may as well vote Nazi
The lucky thing is they won't vote anything like Nazi. They'll vote Farage instead.
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I fear you are correct. This is about 1932. The parallels are uncanny
Much of it, however, is being driven by an insane left wing in the west (equivalent to the fellow traveling Stalinist Fabians of the 30s?) who do not understand how they are driving despairing voters to the hard or far right
Look at the asylum discourse this weekend. The rights of 23 year old Syrian men in free four star hotels which we pay for, and who still hate Britain, must come first, in Britain, over the rights of British girls not to be raped
In this light, Brits may as well vote Nazi
Britain has a wonderful history of peaceful change coming when needed. The glorious revolution. The industrial revolution. The Great Reform Act. This era is just the same. We are just lucky like that.
"The nations not so blessed as thee, must in their turn to tyrants fall, while thou shalt flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all"
Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, as they say. David Cameron was phenomenally lucky until he wasn't.
With great respect, I am not sure how David Cameron being a cocky little git undermines the argument of Britain being continually blessed with the ability to evolve and turn toward prosperity and away from turmoil. We didn't do this out of design or because of a constitution - it just happened. For reasons far more complex than we can fathom.
We've been lucky and luck can run out. As David Cameron found.
Not lucky, fortunate (I know I said lucky before). The two concepts are very different. Fortunate with our island location, with our resources, with our climate, with our institutions, with our temperament. Fortunate in a way that other countries, through no fault of their own, can never be.
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I fear you are correct. This is about 1932. The parallels are uncanny
Much of it, however, is being driven by an insane left wing in the west (equivalent to the fellow traveling Stalinist Fabians of the 30s?) who do not understand how they are driving despairing voters to the hard or far right
Look at the asylum discourse this weekend. The rights of 23 year old Syrian men in free four star hotels which we pay for, and who still hate Britain, must come first, in Britain, over the rights of British girls not to be raped
In this light, Brits may as well vote Nazi
Britain has a wonderful history of peaceful change coming when needed. The glorious revolution. The industrial revolution. The Great Reform Act. This era is just the same. We are just lucky like that.
"The nations not so blessed as thee, must in their turn to tyrants fall, while thou shalt flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all"
Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, as they say. David Cameron was phenomenally lucky until he wasn't.
Our past performance also includes the long anarchy following the death of Henry I, John, the violence and deposition of Edward II and Richard II, the Wars of the Roses, the violence and deposition of Richard III, the Civil Wars to name a few.
Also, LG's 'Britain' excludes 'Ireland'. Which was very much seen as de facto part of the UK for centuries even if not formally till 1800.
It is not a part of Britain.
And if you take the Civil War, it established the supremacy of parliament, before the peaceful restoration of the monarchy, but with its powers curtailed. All great for the progress of the nation.
Didn't.
(a) Affected 3 nations. (b) There were several, from 1638 to 1746.
Ireland was very much a formal part of the state from 1800 and still is in part.
In any case, any state that, for example, showed the levels of malnutdrition, industrial and social unrest, and social inequality - as well as mutiny by its army officer class - in the UK in the 1900s was neither a happy nor a blessed one. And that was just before the small matter of the Great War.
She’s the Norma Desmond of UK politics , no one’s interested anymore Kemi . Time to get yourself over to the USA and parade yourself around to the Maga morons bemoaning how the UK didn’t understand what a political genius you were!
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I fear you are correct. This is about 1932. The parallels are uncanny
Much of it, however, is being driven by an insane left wing in the west (equivalent to the fellow traveling Stalinist Fabians of the 30s?) who do not understand how they are driving despairing voters to the hard or far right
Look at the asylum discourse this weekend. The rights of 23 year old Syrian men in free four star hotels which we pay for, and who still hate Britain, must come first, in Britain, over the rights of British girls not to be raped
In this light, Brits may as well vote Nazi
Britain has a wonderful history of peaceful change coming when needed. The glorious revolution. The industrial revolution. The Great Reform Act. This era is just the same. We are just lucky like that.
"The nations not so blessed as thee, must in their turn to tyrants fall, while thou shalt flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all"
Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, as they say. David Cameron was phenomenally lucky until he wasn't.
Our past performance also includes the long anarchy following the death of Henry I, John, the violence and deposition of Edward II and Richard II, the Wars of the Roses, the violence and deposition of Richard III, the Civil Wars to name a few.
Also, LG's 'Britain' excludes 'Ireland'. Which was very much seen as de facto part of the UK for centuries even if not formally till 1800.
It is not a part of Britain.
And if you take the Civil War, it established the supremacy of parliament, before the peaceful restoration of the monarchy, but with its powers curtailed. All great for the progress of the nation.
Didn't.
(a) Affected 3 nations. (b) There were several, from 1638 to 1746.
Ireland was very much a formal part of the state from 1800 and still is in part.
In any case, any state that, for example, showed the levels of malnutdrition, industrial and social unrest, and social inequality - as well as mutiny by its army officer class - in the UK in the 1900s was neither a happy nor a blessed one. And that was just before the small matter of the Great War.
Utter twaddle. I am not talking about a fantasy shangri-la with no problems - I am talking about a nation that has a consistent record of falling forward and falling on its feet. And it will be so again with the current challenges.
She’s the Norma Desmond of UK politics , no one’s interested anymore Kemi . Time to get yourself over to the USA and parade yourself around to the Maga morons bemoaning how the UK didn’t understand what a political genius you were!
Her story is perhaps like my ‘I had county trials at 14’ one. I was on a cricket coaching course and we ALL got trials for Wiltshire at the end. So I can legitamately claim to have had a county trial, but the truth is a bit more prosaic. Perhaps Kemi had people tell her she might be able to do X and has embellished/misremembered? Still, Reeves seems to have got away with it…
She’s the Norma Desmond of UK politics , no one’s interested anymore Kemi . Time to get yourself over to the USA and parade yourself around to the Maga morons bemoaning how the UK didn’t understand what a political genius you were!
A man and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault after a video of a confrontation in a Yorkshire park circulated online.
The video, seen by the BBC, shows a man and a woman making racial comments towards a woman and child as they walk through Manor Heath Park in Halifax on Thursday.
A man is seen throwing water at the woman and appears to ask her if she arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel in a boat.
She’s the Norma Desmond of UK politics , no one’s interested anymore Kemi . Time to get yourself over to the USA and parade yourself around to the Maga morons bemoaning how the UK didn’t understand what a political genius you were!
On one hand, the Grauniad running a disobliging story about the Conservatives isn't news. On the other, why this story now? (That she blames the English post-16 education system for her not being a doctor is well-known as her political origin story. And the flakiness of her narrative would have been pretty obvious for ages, had anyone bothered to check.)
So why now? When does her immunity amulet definitively lose its power?
How Clement Attlee's government viewed human rights legislation.
"William Jowitt, who served as Clement Attlee’s Lord Chancellor from 1945 to 1951, expressed revulsion towards the Convention. “Any student of our legal institutions”, he said, “must recoil from this document with a feeling of horror”. According to Jowitt, the Convention’s provisions were “so vague and woolly that it may mean almost anything”.
As the Labour Government debated whether to sign the Convention in 1950, a ministerial brief warned that the ECHR could be used as a “blank cheque” which would “allow Governments to become the objects of such potentially vague charges by crooks and cranks of every type”.
Cabinet minutes report that the Attlee Government felt “it was intolerable that the code of common law and statute law which had been built up in this country over many years should be made subject to review by an international court”. Labour ministers were even worried that the ECHR’s protections for “free elections” and “political opposition” could be used by rapacious judges to invalidate the entire British electoral system."
And we all know that Kristi Noem is insane, so we ignore her.
That’s a bit harsh on insane people.
Our local Crumbling Michael, who camps outside the local Sainsbury’s, has never praised Donald Trump, supported semi-semi-fascism etc.
He shouts at pigeons, but don’t we all. And he’s quite polite to the PCSO lady who checks on him and asks him in a stern voice if he’s been taking his pills.
She’s the Norma Desmond of UK politics , no one’s interested anymore Kemi . Time to get yourself over to the USA and parade yourself around to the Maga morons bemoaning how the UK didn’t understand what a political genius you were!
On one hand, the Grauniad running a disobliging story about the Conservatives isn't news. On the other, why this story now? (That she blames the English post-16 education system for her not being a doctor is well-known as her political origin story. And the flakiness of her narrative would have been pretty obvious for ages, had anyone bothered to check.)
So why now? When does her immunity amulet definitively lose its power?
It seems fairly clear to me that she's not seen as cutting the mustard by the Govite Osbornite nexus that put her in place. And they will try to get rid of her. Conference being her chance to make a big positive splash and turn it around for herself.
The dark forces within the Tory party have become something of a joke to me. Their toxic gameplaying, mismanagement and wet ideology got the Tories here, now all they control is a parliamentary rump about to become an even tinier parliamentary rump.
A man and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault after a video of a confrontation in a Yorkshire park circulated online.
The video, seen by the BBC, shows a man and a woman making racial comments towards a woman and child as they walk through Manor Heath Park in Halifax on Thursday.
A man is seen throwing water at the woman and appears to ask her if she arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel in a boat.
i'm not really surprised that this is happening. Racists were driven underground with their views after the NF and BNP were vanquished. Now with Reform and the foul Farage and Tice back on the scene the gammons have achieved a kind of legitimacy. There was this foul woman on Sky News being interviewed. Hiding behind allegations of sexual assault so her racism came to the fore. I notice it's very quiet about Lord Brocket and the 10 white guys in Bolton. Why arent there gammon demos outside the house of lords?
A man and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault after a video of a confrontation in a Yorkshire park circulated online.
The video, seen by the BBC, shows a man and a woman making racial comments towards a woman and child as they walk through Manor Heath Park in Halifax on Thursday.
A man is seen throwing water at the woman and appears to ask her if she arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel in a boat.
i'm not really surprised that this is happening. Racists were driven underground with their views after the NF and BNP were vanquished. Now with Reform and the foul Farage and Tice back on the scene the gammons have achieved a kind of legitimacy. There was this foul woman on Sky News being interviewed. Hiding behind allegations of sexual assault so her racism came to the fore. I notice it's very quiet about Lord Brocket and the 10 white guys in Bolton. Why arent there gammon demos outside the house of lords?
Sadly we’ve seen this playbook before . Farage and co are just repeating their vile EU ref campaign and don’t care who gets caught up in their scorched earth policy.
A man and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault after a video of a confrontation in a Yorkshire park circulated online.
The video, seen by the BBC, shows a man and a woman making racial comments towards a woman and child as they walk through Manor Heath Park in Halifax on Thursday.
A man is seen throwing water at the woman and appears to ask her if she arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel in a boat.
Just worried parents with legitimate concerns surely?
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
A man and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault after a video of a confrontation in a Yorkshire park circulated online.
The video, seen by the BBC, shows a man and a woman making racial comments towards a woman and child as they walk through Manor Heath Park in Halifax on Thursday.
A man is seen throwing water at the woman and appears to ask her if she arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel in a boat.
Just worried parents with legitimate concerns surely?
“Trump to offer $5000 to every gazan to move away from Gaza for ten years”
It’s entirely mad but it’s less mad than any other “solution” to this problem. There aren’t going to be two states. Israel will not stop. Israel will never peacefully live alongside Palestinians determined to kill every Jew between the river and the sea
And no one can disarm Israel because it has nukes and is prepared to use them, like it or not
Let’s hope trumps madness works
Where are they going to move away to? Would your approval of Trump's mad plan include them coming to the UK for the ten years?
Of course not. No way they come here
But if you have a better plan than Trump’s, or a version of it, do tell. Because every “plan” I’ve seen is some ludicrous painful continuation of the status quo which sees Israel tormenting Palestine for eternity and Palestinians constantly trying to invade Israel again so they can rape and murder thousands of Jews
So where do they go then? You think this brilliant plan's okay, but you wouldn't want them? Why should other people went them?
I have absolutely no idea, and I’m glad it’s not my job to sort it out
BUT, I do believe some version of this - population movements - is now the only viable long term solution, given how much both sides genocidally loathe each other. If it wasn’t so globally destabilising I’d be quite happy for them both to fight each other to the death, because: who cares
What’s clear is the current situation is not sustainable. The balance of power is massively skewed in favour of Israel. The west support Israel. Neither party wants a two state solution. The world would be a better place without Hamas.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
Why are you expected to always be available 24/7? I don't understand it at all.
“Trump to offer $5000 to every gazan to move away from Gaza for ten years”
It’s entirely mad but it’s less mad than any other “solution” to this problem. There aren’t going to be two states. Israel will not stop. Israel will never peacefully live alongside Palestinians determined to kill every Jew between the river and the sea
And no one can disarm Israel because it has nukes and is prepared to use them, like it or not
Let’s hope trumps madness works
Where are they going to move away to? Would your approval of Trump's mad plan include them coming to the UK for the ten years?
Ukraine is really huge, has seen a severe population decrease and its continued viability as an independent country depends on them being able to find people prepared to take money to live in a hole in ground for 3 months at a time.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I think, and hope, that Canada could do enough with European help to deter the US from launching an SMO by ensuring there would be consequences. The US and its allies couldn’t fully control Iraq or Afghanistan after all. I don’t think the Americans are yet in the zone of accepting hundreds of thousands of war dead, Russia style.
European Military training grounds coming to Greenland, and returning to Canada real soon now.
Does the British Army Medicine Hat faculty no longer exist?
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I fear you are correct. This is about 1932. The parallels are uncanny
Much of it, however, is being driven by an insane left wing in the west (equivalent to the fellow traveling Stalinist Fabians of the 30s?) who do not understand how they are driving despairing voters to the hard or far right
Look at the asylum discourse this weekend. The rights of 23 year old Syrian men in free four star hotels which we pay for, and who still hate Britain, must come first, in Britain, over the rights of British girls not to be raped
In this light, Brits may as well vote Nazi
Britain has a wonderful history of peaceful change coming when needed. The glorious revolution. The industrial revolution. The Great Reform Act. This era is just the same. We are just lucky like that.
"The nations not so blessed as thee, must in their turn to tyrants fall, while thou shalt flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all"
Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, as they say. David Cameron was phenomenally lucky until he wasn't.
Our past performance also includes the long anarchy following the death of Henry I, John, the violence and deposition of Edward II and Richard II, the Wars of the Roses, the violence and deposition of Richard III, the Civil Wars to name a few.
Also, LG's 'Britain' excludes 'Ireland'. Which was very much seen as de facto part of the UK for centuries even if not formally till 1800.
It is not a part of Britain.
And if you take the Civil War, it established the supremacy of parliament, before the peaceful restoration of the monarchy, but with its powers curtailed. All great for the progress of the nation.
Didn't.
(a) Affected 3 nations. (b) There were several, from 1638 to 1746.
Ireland was very much a formal part of the state from 1800 and still is in part.
In any case, any state that, for example, showed the levels of malnutdrition, industrial and social unrest, and social inequality - as well as mutiny by its army officer class - in the UK in the 1900s was neither a happy nor a blessed one. And that was just before the small matter of the Great War.
Utter twaddle. I am not talking about a fantasy shangri-la with no problems - I am talking about a nation that has a consistent record of falling forward and falling on its feet. And it will be so again with the current challenges.
The way in which Britain bounced back from the loss of the thirteen colonies to reach the height of its global power was certainly remarkable, as an example of your thesis.
But was that still true in the 20th, and now the 21st centuries?
One of my gripes against the Norman Conquest is that England really hit its stride as a country once the last vestige of Norman possessions on the European mainland were lost (Calais, 1558). Just imagine how great England might have been without the five hundred year distraction of Crown lands in France?
A man and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault after a video of a confrontation in a Yorkshire park circulated online.
The video, seen by the BBC, shows a man and a woman making racial comments towards a woman and child as they walk through Manor Heath Park in Halifax on Thursday.
A man is seen throwing water at the woman and appears to ask her if she arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel in a boat.
Just worried parents with legitimate concerns surely?
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I fear you are correct. This is about 1932. The parallels are uncanny
Much of it, however, is being driven by an insane left wing in the west (equivalent to the fellow traveling Stalinist Fabians of the 30s?) who do not understand how they are driving despairing voters to the hard or far right
Look at the asylum discourse this weekend. The rights of 23 year old Syrian men in free four star hotels which we pay for, and who still hate Britain, must come first, in Britain, over the rights of British girls not to be raped
In this light, Brits may as well vote Nazi
Britain has a wonderful history of peaceful change coming when needed. The glorious revolution. The industrial revolution. The Great Reform Act. This era is just the same. We are just lucky like that.
"The nations not so blessed as thee, must in their turn to tyrants fall, while thou shalt flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all"
Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, as they say. David Cameron was phenomenally lucky until he wasn't.
Our past performance also includes the long anarchy following the death of Henry I, John, the violence and deposition of Edward II and Richard II, the Wars of the Roses, the violence and deposition of Richard III, the Civil Wars to name a few.
Also, LG's 'Britain' excludes 'Ireland'. Which was very much seen as de facto part of the UK for centuries even if not formally till 1800.
It was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - so explicitly Ireland and Britain are separate things, regardless of what some confused Nordies will tell you.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
It's ok: he's also on the run for a crime he didn't commit.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
It's ok: he's also on the run for a crime he didn't commit.
I remember of the story of a mother visiting her innocent child in jail:
"But son, you're in prison for a crime you didn't commit." "Would you rather I was in prison for a crime I did commit?"
I visited Norway earlier this year. Leaders told me they had initially favored a US bid for the frigates. Trump's comments about "kill switches" alarmed Norwegians that the US was no longer a trustworthy supplier of equipment to defend Norway against Trump's friends in Russia. https://x.com/davidfrum/status/1962132751609475392
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I think, and hope, that Canada could do enough with European help to deter the US from launching an SMO by ensuring there would be consequences. The US and its allies couldn’t fully control Iraq or Afghanistan after all. I don’t think the Americans are yet in the zone of accepting hundreds of thousands of war dead, Russia style.
European Military training grounds coming to Greenland, and returning to Canada real soon now.
Does the British Army Medicine Hat faculty no longer exist?
I remember when we used to go on exercises with the Marines in the CCF there were loads of different terrains, Sandhurst or on the windy miserable Wiltshire plain, the desolate hills of Warcop in the Lake District, Catterick - Jesus I can’t remember the landscape but the misery oozed into you. One place I loved was a training area called Hawley Lake which was acres and acres of pine forest. Legend was that it had been planted after the war to serve as a training ground to look and feel like Eastern European forest. It definitely felt different to the other areas and required a different approach to things.
My rambling point, I’ve actually forgotten whilst reminiscing in my head about the joy of people opening fire on you in the middle of the night, was something about the vital nature of landscape having an effect on soldiery and so nothing better than having training grounds that are as like, if not in, the places you want people to fight.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
It's ok: he's also on the run for a crime he didn't commit.
I have been making too many off topic posts recently. So, bringing it back on topic, back to politics:
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
Perhaps "an organisation I shall not name" would be closer to the mark...
I've mentioned before that we had a committee that used to sit in the 50's into the 60's to decide where the boundary lay between the UK and Norway. At some point the Norwegians laid on a slap-up lunch and our negotatiators said "OK, you can have it where you think it lies."
Which was a purely academic exercise - until all the massive Norwegian oil fields were found to lay in the bit we had conceded.
Norway has a massive wealth fund for the ages - as a result of one slap-up lunch.
Also, because they have a tiny population compared to the UK. In 1970, Norway had about 3.5 million people.
Let's just invade and take the wealth fund. It's ours.
Putin would.
I wonder if we are going to see stuff like this
So many countries are in a terrible debt situation. One way to ease that is…. Invade and conquer a smaller but wealthy country. Take all their resources. Sorted
America could take Canada. Who is going to stop them? China, Taiwan. Britain, Ireland (and Norway). France, Belgium
It would be in keeping with America moving from its Republican phase to its imperial mode
If the more pessimistic view - which I hold for now until proved otherwise - about Trumpism and the gangster kleptocracy that is the USA is right, then in relative terms we are about in 1932, awaiting the method by which future elections will be abandoned or rigged, the military control the streets and the takeover is complete.
From then on it is not possible to say what horrors await, including such impossible things as the occupation of Canada and Greenland, which, as you say, no western power could lift a finger to prevent.
A relative triviality in that scheme of things, if the pessimists are right, is that it isn't really possible to say what effect this would have on UK elections in 2028/9, and in particular on the fate of parties, such as Reform, which sit fairly loosely to the rule of law and international obligation. But by then who would be Quisling, who would be Petain and who would be Churchill is not something I would put money on, not on moral grounds but because my crystal ball clouds over well before then.
I fear you are correct. This is about 1932. The parallels are uncanny
Much of it, however, is being driven by an insane left wing in the west (equivalent to the fellow traveling Stalinist Fabians of the 30s?) who do not understand how they are driving despairing voters to the hard or far right
Look at the asylum discourse this weekend. The rights of 23 year old Syrian men in free four star hotels which we pay for, and who still hate Britain, must come first, in Britain, over the rights of British girls not to be raped
In this light, Brits may as well vote Nazi
Britain has a wonderful history of peaceful change coming when needed. The glorious revolution. The industrial revolution. The Great Reform Act. This era is just the same. We are just lucky like that.
"The nations not so blessed as thee, must in their turn to tyrants fall, while thou shalt flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all"
Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, as they say. David Cameron was phenomenally lucky until he wasn't.
Our past performance also includes the long anarchy following the death of Henry I, John, the violence and deposition of Edward II and Richard II, the Wars of the Roses, the violence and deposition of Richard III, the Civil Wars to name a few.
Also, LG's 'Britain' excludes 'Ireland'. Which was very much seen as de facto part of the UK for centuries even if not formally till 1800.
It is not a part of Britain.
And if you take the Civil War, it established the supremacy of parliament, before the peaceful restoration of the monarchy, but with its powers curtailed. All great for the progress of the nation.
Didn't.
(a) Affected 3 nations. (b) There were several, from 1638 to 1746.
Ireland was very much a formal part of the state from 1800 and still is in part.
In any case, any state that, for example, showed the levels of malnutdrition, industrial and social unrest, and social inequality - as well as mutiny by its army officer class - in the UK in the 1900s was neither a happy nor a blessed one. And that was just before the small matter of the Great War.
Utter twaddle. I am not talking about a fantasy shangri-la with no problems - I am talking about a nation that has a consistent record of falling forward and falling on its feet. And it will be so again with the current challenges.
The way in which Britain bounced back from the loss of the thirteen colonies to reach the height of its global power was certainly remarkable, as an example of your thesis.
But was that still true in the 20th, and now the 21st centuries?
One of my gripes against the Norman Conquest is that England really hit its stride as a country once the last vestige of Norman possessions on the European mainland were lost (Calais, 1558). Just imagine how great England might have been without the five hundred year distraction of Crown lands in France?
The Protectorate briefly held Dunkerque (formerly held by Spain) from 1658 to 1660, it was handed over to France by Charles II in 1662.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
It's ok: he's also on the run for a crime he didn't commit.
Pursued by a dogged journalist I move from town to town, solving crimes with my invisible friend Al but always hoping that the next leap will be the leap home...
(does "ptoosh-cabang!" sound and waves arms around)
A man and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault after a video of a confrontation in a Yorkshire park circulated online.
The video, seen by the BBC, shows a man and a woman making racial comments towards a woman and child as they walk through Manor Heath Park in Halifax on Thursday.
A man is seen throwing water at the woman and appears to ask her if she arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel in a boat.
That couple could make Nick Griffin take the side of an immigrant. The photo of the woman in the Mail on Sunday should be used by Antifa
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
It's ok: he's also on the run for a crime he didn't commit.
I have been making too many off topic posts recently. So, bringing it back on topic, back to politics:
A kiss from Nancy, 1983.
If only that was the worst example of a Mr T embarrassing the republicans that ever happened.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
Perhaps "an organisation I shall not name" would be closer to the mark...
I prefer to think of you working for an organization that you don't know the name of
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
Perhaps "an organisation I shall not name" would be closer to the mark...
I prefer to think of you working for an organization that you don't know the name of
The people in the Caledonian Sleeper dining car just looked at me for giggling.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
Perhaps "an organisation I shall not name" would be closer to the mark...
I prefer to think of you working for an organization that you don't know the name of
The people in the Caledonian Sleeper dining car just looked at me for giggling.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
Why are you expected to always be available 24/7? I don't understand it at all.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
Perhaps "an organisation I shall not name" would be closer to the mark...
I prefer to think of you working for an organization that you don't know the name of
The people in the Caledonian Sleeper dining car just looked at me for giggling.
I hope you've ordered a glass of single malt. That's what I did when I was there.
I do wish Kemi would also stop trashing her old school and teachers, Truss did the same.
Either say you loved your old school like Rishi did or don't say anything at all about it
I remember my secondary school PE teacher insisting we all did 'cross-country' running round a muddy field, then insisted on watching us all shower the mud off. It was probably fine. I'm not sure I should have said nothing about it, in retrospect though.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
Perhaps "an organisation I shall not name" would be closer to the mark...
I prefer to think of you working for an organization that you don't know the name of
The people in the Caledonian Sleeper dining car just looked at me for giggling.
I hope you've ordered a glass of single malt. That's what I did when I was there.
This Bellew/Yaxley-Lennon spat is hilarious. Well. Are Tommeh has seen sense and done a squealing runner. But the imbeciles and bots calling for them to meet Mano a Mano to establish the Alpha are both revealing and sumptuous.
A man and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault after a video of a confrontation in a Yorkshire park circulated online.
The video, seen by the BBC, shows a man and a woman making racial comments towards a woman and child as they walk through Manor Heath Park in Halifax on Thursday.
A man is seen throwing water at the woman and appears to ask her if she arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel in a boat.
That couple could make Nick Griffin take the side of an immigrant. The photo of the woman in the Mail on Sunday should be used by Antifa
If one dwells in the sewers of X it's an understandable reaction to have. Everything that passes you by is a turd.
I hope POTUS is being treated by a doctor recommended by the Head of the Department of Health.
Lots of lovely leeches. None of that “science” shit.
Doctor Leech: You know, the leech comes to us on the highest authority. Blackadder: Yes, I'd heard that. Doctor Hoffmann of Stuttgart, I believe. Doctor Leech: That's right, the great Hoffmann. Blackadder: Owner of the largest leech farm in Europe.
Douglas Carswell has apparently been posting things on Twitter that might possibly get him into trouble if he was living in the UK at the moment, although apparently he's living in the US.
I hope POTUS is being treated by a doctor recommended by the Head of the Department of Health.
Lots of lovely leeches. None of that “science” shit.
Doctor Leech: You know, the leech comes to us on the highest authority. Blackadder: Yes, I'd heard that. Doctor Hoffmann of Stuttgart, I believe. Doctor Leech: That's right, the great Hoffmann. Blackadder: Owner of the largest leech farm in Europe.
Written before Andrew Wakefield - who happened to own the patent on single measle, mumps and rubella vaccines - found out through his research that the MMR jab 'caused' autism.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
Perhaps "an organisation I shall not name" would be closer to the mark...
I prefer to think of you working for an organization that you don't know the name of
The people in the Caledonian Sleeper dining car just looked at me for giggling.
I hope they also tutted.
They're Scottish. They don't do tutting. Although I am going to Edinburgh so some of them may.
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
Perhaps "an organisation I shall not name" would be closer to the mark...
I prefer to think of you working for an organization that you don't know the name of
The people in the Caledonian Sleeper dining car just looked at me for giggling.
I hope you've ordered a glass of single malt. That's what I did when I was there.
One orange juice, one diet coke, and two Tunnock's caramel wafers. 😀
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
That’s tough
You could literally tell your clients “step away for two weeks I’m on a family holiday”
I may be deluded but a lot of people respect that?
Yes...and no. Let me explain.
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
You do work for an unnamed organization? Aren't you a bit suspicious of that?
Perhaps "an organisation I shall not name" would be closer to the mark...
I prefer to think of you working for an organization that you don't know the name of
The people in the Caledonian Sleeper dining car just looked at me for giggling.
I hope you've ordered a glass of single malt. That's what I did when I was there.
One orange juice, one diet coke, and two Tunnock's caramel wafers. 😀
I am on a train heading to LEuston. When I get there I will be tens of miles from my work laptop. Later tonight I will board the Caledonian Sleeper and tomorrow I will be in Edinburgh and hundreds of miles from my work laptop. My usual "ohshitohshit" work worry is being replaced by a more diffuse sense of unhappiness, revolving around the fact that if things go wrong I can't fix it. When I was a kid holidays were done when school broke up, but now work is a 24/7 experience and I can't relax because there is always work coming in. My clients are nice people but contact me at all hours requiring work to be done Right Now Tonight, so if they contact me and I'm On Holiday the work will just pile up until I return. I love my job but damn it is taking its toll. ☹️
Why are you expected to always be available 24/7? I don't understand it at all.
See my long reply to others. Any query posted after 5pm gets a time-scheduled Outlook response for 8am the next day or, if on the weekend, 8am Monday
Douglas Carswell has apparently been posting things on Twitter that might possibly get him into trouble if he was living in the UK at the moment, although apparently he's living in the US.
He sure has changed in the last decade. In 2015 he was holier than thou and reprimanding Farage for any perceived slight on immigrants. Now he’s channeling Roy Chubby Brown!
Comments
And the emptying of Gaza would be a huge victory for Israel. To reject that for some settlers would seem mad to me. However, I am not an expert (or even a novice) on Israel's electoral dynamics.
And in all honesty if all parties to the right of the greens were proposing to charge me £50k for my entry ticket to adulthood I might be flirting with the far left too.
Rudy Giuliani suffered severe injuries in a car accident last night, according to his spokesperson
https://bsky.app/profile/phillewis.bsky.social/post/3lxpu2kf2wk2q
And if you take the Civil War, it established the supremacy of parliament, before the peaceful restoration of the monarchy, but with its powers curtailed. All great for the progress of the nation.
Delighted tonight that the mighty Hampshire have made it to the real one day final.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/31/doubts-cast-on-kemi-badenochs-claim-of-us-medical-school-offer?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uxZ8EEDiK4
(a) Affected 3 nations.
(b) There were several, from 1638 to 1746.
Ireland was very much a formal part of the state from 1800 and still is in part.
In any case, any state that, for example, showed the levels of malnutdrition, industrial and social unrest, and social inequality - as well as mutiny by its army officer class - in the UK in the 1900s was neither a happy nor a blessed one. And that was just before the small matter of the Great War.
She’s the Norma Desmond of UK politics , no one’s interested anymore Kemi . Time to get yourself over to the USA and parade yourself around to the Maga morons bemoaning how the UK didn’t understand what a political genius you were!
(Ted Kennedy was not a gentleman.)
Perhaps Kemi had people tell her she might be able to do X and has embellished/misremembered?
Still, Reeves seems to have got away with it…
"I am big. It's the Tory party that got small!"
(*sneezes* Chappaquiddick).
A man and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault after a video of a confrontation in a Yorkshire park circulated online.
The video, seen by the BBC, shows a man and a woman making racial comments towards a woman and child as they walk through Manor Heath Park in Halifax on Thursday.
A man is seen throwing water at the woman and appears to ask her if she arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel in a boat.
So why now? When does her immunity amulet definitively lose its power?
"William Jowitt, who served as Clement Attlee’s Lord Chancellor from 1945 to 1951, expressed revulsion towards the Convention. “Any student of our legal institutions”, he said, “must recoil from this document with a feeling of horror”. According to Jowitt, the Convention’s provisions were “so vague and woolly that it may mean almost anything”.
As the Labour Government debated whether to sign the Convention in 1950, a ministerial brief warned that the ECHR could be used as a “blank cheque” which would “allow Governments to become the objects of such potentially vague charges by crooks and cranks of every type”.
Cabinet minutes report that the Attlee Government felt “it was intolerable that the code of common law and statute law which had been built up in this country over many years should be made subject to review by an international court”. Labour ministers were even worried that the ECHR’s protections for “free elections” and “political opposition” could be used by rapacious judges to invalidate the entire British electoral system."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/31/labour-the-original-echr-sceptics
The dark forces within the Tory party have become something of a joke to me. Their toxic gameplaying, mismanagement and wet ideology got the Tories here, now all they control is a parliamentary rump about to become an even tinier parliamentary rump.
She is the Jay of Inbetweeners of the political world.
https://bsky.app/profile/doctoryak.bsky.social/post/3lxoi6aovo225
My present employers are an unnamed research and study organisation. They subcontracted their stats out but were being charged thru the nose. In an attempt to get one on the cheap they advertised for a statto who could demonstrate flexibility. Cue me. I'm held as an ad-hoc resource: the work isn't assigned to me via my line management but passed to me by the higher staff as a lure to attract work - "look, we have an in-house statistician who can answer your questions" - and it usually works. But the price of being a free-floating resource is that you can't say no. Some of them are high up (to the extent I have to Google their titles to see which one they use) and their time is *very* precious and you never tell them no. In fairness to them these are extraordinarily accomplished individuals and they have a very exact understanding of the value of time, so it's understandable, especially when the budgets are in the millions, the funding deadlines are tight, and I'm the only statto on staff.
Sometimes it's a pleasure. One of my clients is an expert in her field and has just given birth, so convos take place late at night when feeding the sprog. You can't expect somebody in that position to keep office hours. Sometimes it's a chore: one of my clients gives you five days of work and expects it done in five days, despite only paying me for two days a week and I have other clients to service. I normally end up working weekends to keep the balls in the air.
The stress occurs when the numbers have to be produced fast, or there are lots of them. A study document with fifteen tables, each with several columns and SD/IQR/% will require hundreds of numbers and each one has to be right. It's not a question of getting the computer to do it, since I design the study, write the codes, and write the reports, and if it fucks up there's a big red arrow pointing at my head, especially if somebody might die if I fuck up. So you double check like crazy.
The fun occurs in the learning. I can design a stepped-wedge study and write the code for it. Four years ago I didn't know what a stepped-wedge design was. Technically I am now a subject-matter expert in some of the obscurer conditions. I now have R, SAS and Stata on my CV which is the trifecta for a statto, provided you ignore the Python jobs which I am very pleased to do. So I have no regrets except that I wish I'd had this job twenty years ago...☹️
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/31/police-officer-allegedly-punched-in-face-and-four-arrests-made-at-london-anti-asylum-protest
But was that still true in the 20th, and now the 21st centuries?
One of my gripes against the Norman Conquest is that England really hit its stride as a country once the last vestige of Norman possessions on the European mainland were lost (Calais, 1558). Just imagine how great England might have been without the five hundred year distraction of Crown lands in France?
"But son, you're in prison for a crime you didn't commit."
"Would you rather I was in prison for a crime I did commit?"
https://x.com/davidfrum/status/1962132751609475392
My rambling point, I’ve actually forgotten whilst reminiscing in my head about the joy of people opening fire on you in the middle of the night, was something about the vital nature of landscape having an effect on soldiery and so nothing better than having training grounds that are as like, if not in, the places you want people to fight.
A kiss from Nancy, 1983.
(does "ptoosh-cabang!" sound and waves arms around)
I do wish Kemi would also stop trashing her old school and teachers, Truss did the same.
Either say you loved your old school like Rishi did or don't say anything at all about it
@joncoopertweets
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1h
It has now been SIX DAYS since Donald Trump has delivered any public remarks.
https://x.com/joncoopertweets/status/1962250937516404824
https://x.com/Angry_Staffer/status/1961988696846061913
And use the time to consider whether your obviously high level of skills could be used by an organization with a better attitude to work/life balance.
A Policy Exchange study backed by the former Labour home secretary says the widely used argument to oppose leaving the ECHR is ‘entirely groundless’
https://www.thetimes.com/article/c92b4b35-fd49-46be-968e-327b438f3b6e?shareToken=e547b5e30e95cd323c3cd62b00541738
Well. Are Tommeh has seen sense and done a squealing runner. But the imbeciles and bots calling for them to meet Mano a Mano to establish the Alpha are both revealing and sumptuous.
Everything that passes you by is a turd.
None of that for RFK!!!
Only treatment is some quack vitamin bollocks off the Internet for $300 a bottle plus cold baths.
Nor rate very highly.
https://x.com/DouglasCarswell/with_replies
Is he looking a little bit more vexed than normal?
You mean like Brexit?
It's almost as if simple one idea slogans are ineffective.
So, probably not.