MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
An observation: England have more players than you would expect who have names like Lord of the Rings characters. Henry Arundel. Ellis Genge. Tom Curry. Henry Pollock. Ollie Chessum. N9t that it appears to be doing them any good, mind.
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I'm surprised Overlord succeeded anyway what with the Nazi zombie experiements and whatnot, as per this excellent documentary.
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I have always been fascinated by both by airborne/parachute operations (hence my username) and D-Day (which I consider the greatest military feat in history.)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I have always been fascinated by both by airborne/parachute operations (hence my username) and D-Day (which I consider the greatest military feat in history.)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
At least on d-day they landed at night. Market Garden was daytime drops. You’d surely feel very exposed drifting down.
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
Borthwick got England a third place in the only World Cup he has been manager for. It’s arguable that a better manager for England football would have done better than Southgate given the players he had and their successes at club level in England and Europe.
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
Borthwick got England a third place in the only World Cup he has been manager for. It’s arguable that a better manager for England football would have done better than Southgate given the players he had and their successes at club level in England and Europe.
Far more nations are in a soccer world cup than rugby union world cup so getting to a semi final there is more significant.
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I have always been fascinated by both by airborne/parachute operations (hence my username) and D-Day (which I consider the greatest military feat in history.)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
At least on d-day they landed at night. Market Garden was daytime drops. You’d surely feel very exposed drifting down.
True but the initial waves of drops were almost unopposed. It was only after the troops were on the ground that they started to encounter serious opposition.
Of course the same doesn't apply to some of the later waves when the Germans were aware of what was happening.
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I have always been fascinated by both by airborne/parachute operations (hence my username) and D-Day (which I consider the greatest military feat in history.)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
I did love the quote used in Band of Brothers and ascribed to Winters - though it might have been apocryphal.
When the 101st were being sent in to Bastogne they encountered retreating US soldiers, one of whom told them "You don't want to go in there., you're going to be surrounded".
Winters' reply after a moment's consideration? "We're paratroopers. We're supposed to be surrounded".
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I have always been fascinated by both by airborne/parachute operations (hence my username) and D-Day (which I consider the greatest military feat in history.)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
That's an interesting detail. Is it now banned to shoot attacking parachute troops in the air? I would be surprised.
IIRC the German Fallshirmjaeger were so devastated in Crete that there were not actually very many left. Was it 30-40% casualties?
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
Borthwick got England a third place in the only World Cup he has been manager for. It’s arguable that a better manager for England football would have done better than Southgate given the players he had and their successes at club level in England and Europe.
Far more nations are in a soccer world cup than rugby union world cup so getting to a semi final there is more significant.
You don’t play all the other teams, similar numbers of group and knockout rounds. Teams that were ranked higher than England were No, SA, France and Ireland whereas in the football we have consistently been ranked in the top four for a long time. Also we played most of our matches in 2020 at home unlike in the rugby.
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
Wow. That’s an absurd take. Perhaps he should invite all purveyors of leaflets in for a cuppa !
The householder made is clear he doesn’t want junk delivered. Respect that.
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
Borthwick got England a third place in the only World Cup he has been manager for. It’s arguable that a better manager for England football would have done better than Southgate given the players he had and their successes at club level in England and Europe.
Sven got the 'golden generation' to two quarter finals.
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
Sorry but I disagree. If I was canvassing (as I have in the past for independents) and saw a sign saying no junk mail then I would certainly not put a leaflet through that door. You may not like it but for the vast majority of people political flyers are indeed junk mail. Something we then have to dispose of on your behalf. Every flyer from a commercial firm contains information they think you would want to read but it is still junk. The same applies to the brand you are selling.
It is strange that if I drop paper in the street I can be done for littering. If I stick it through someones letterbox unwanted then it is supposedly fine.
If someone has gone to the courtesy of putting up a sign then you should have the decency to accept that and move on.
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I have always been fascinated by both by airborne/parachute operations (hence my username) and D-Day (which I consider the greatest military feat in history.)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
I did love the quote used in Band of Brothers and ascribed to Winters - though it might have been apocryphal.
When the 101st were being sent in to Bastogne they encountered retreating US soldiers, one of whom told them "You don't want to go in there., you're going to be surrounded".
Winters' reply after a moment's consideration? "We're paratroopers. We're supposed to be surrounded".
I’m wary of a lot of what was shown on screen - there is a nonsense about a British tanker not firing at a house unless he can see Germans there. Utter garbage writing, and utterly a historical. Read James Hollands book on the Sherwood Forester Yeomanry for what they really did. (Clue - lots of empty houses got blown up by tank shells just in case…)
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
The Fallschirmjäger (dismounted?disparachuted?) were still effective troops. Years ago a 4th Division vet was a Lib Dem leafleter in Brixton. Further up the road we had an ex-RA gunner also putting out Focuses, who had been shelling him at Casino. Unfortunately we were never able to get them both together to compare notes.
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
I tend to just enjoy having fun with canvassers by finding incredibly obscure or entirely made up reasons I wouldnt be voting for their party. 'Not after the Falconsgate thing mate, no' It was the poor old Greens before i moved, they were the only ones who bothered. Clive Lewis lot just used to leaflet and run and the Tories snd LD gave up long ago. Im expecting Ref and Con to come calling here. The Tory might get a cuppa if Im in a good mood, Reform will be told not until Nigel addresses that whole Fishing farrago.
If you're canvassing, the ones to watch are the women who invite you in to discuss further, offer you a glass of wine and sit next to you on the sofa. Happened to me a couple of times.
You lucky bastard.
It's not luck. It's that magical LibDemmery.
The magical rising Libdem barchart column..
You have an enormous bar chart?
Hmm... Are you sure it's almost as big as that? It looks a lot smaller in real life.
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I have always been fascinated by both by airborne/parachute operations (hence my username) and D-Day (which I consider the greatest military feat in history.)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
At least on d-day they landed at night. Market Garden was daytime drops. You’d surely feel very exposed drifting down.
Weren’t the initial parachute drops (unlike say Crete) relatively casualty free? The killing came from having to dig in next to a couple of Panzer divisions.
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I have always been fascinated by both by airborne/parachute operations (hence my username) and D-Day (which I consider the greatest military feat in history.)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
I did love the quote used in Band of Brothers and ascribed to Winters - though it might have been apocryphal.
When the 101st were being sent in to Bastogne they encountered retreating US soldiers, one of whom told them "You don't want to go in there., you're going to be surrounded".
Winters' reply after a moment's consideration? "We're paratroopers. We're supposed to be surrounded".
I’m wary of a lot of what was shown on screen - there is a nonsense about a British tanker not firing at a house unless he can see Germans there. Utter garbage writing, and utterly a historical. Read James Hollands book on the Sherwood Forester Yeomanry for what they really did. (Clue - lots of empty houses got blown up by tank shells just in case…)
Agreed. Hence the possibly apocryphal. Although the quote is also in the book on which the TV series is based.
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I have always been fascinated by both by airborne/parachute operations (hence my username) and D-Day (which I consider the greatest military feat in history.)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
That's an interesting detail. Is it now banned to shoot attacking parachute troops in the air? I would be surprised.
IIRC the German Fallshirmjaeger were so devastated in Crete that there were not actually very many left. Was it 30-40% casualties?
It's a bit more nuanced.
Attacks on parachutists, as defined by the law of war, occur when pilots, aircrew, and passengers are attacked while descending by parachute from disabled aircraft during wartime. Such parachutists are considered hors de combat and it is made a war crime to attack them in an interstate armed conflict under Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. However, firing on airborne forces who are descending by parachute (i.e. paratroopers) is not prohibited.
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
Sorry but I disagree. If I was canvassing (as I have in the past for independents) and saw a sign saying no junk mail then I would certainly not put a leaflet through that door. You may not like it but for the vast majority of people political flyers are indeed junk mail. Something we then have to dispose of on your behalf. Every flyer from a commercial firm contains information they think you would want to read but it is still junk. The same applies to the brand you are selling.
It is strange that if I drop paper in the street I can be done for littering. If I stick it through someones letterbox unwanted then it is supposedly fine.
If someone has gone to the courtesy of putting up a sign then you should have the decency to accept that and move on.
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
Borthwick got England a third place in the only World Cup he has been manager for. It’s arguable that a better manager for England football would have done better than Southgate given the players he had and their successes at club level in England and Europe.
Sven got the 'golden generation' to two quarter finals.
At football, England, to be operating at par, really oufht to be getting to the last eight. As often as not you'll get there by struggling past Panama, Algeria and Iceland. From there it's essentially a lottery whether you get beyond that: to hit par, given the size of England's footbal economy, you oufht to be getting to one final in four on average. Southgate was a poor manager but so were all the others. Sven was awful. Pick the same side every sibgle game regardless of their refusal to play well together, then bring on Phul Neville to shore up the defence with 20 minutea to go regardlesa of the same situation. But England's problem is surely the Premier League, and the dearth of English players playing at the top level.
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I have always been fascinated by both by airborne/parachute operations (hence my username) and D-Day (which I consider the greatest military feat in history.)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
That's an interesting detail. Is it now banned to shoot attacking parachute troops in the air? I would be surprised.
IIRC the German Fallshirmjaeger were so devastated in Crete that there were not actually very many left. Was it 30-40% casualties?
It's a bit more nuanced.
Attacks on parachutists, as defined by the law of war, occur when pilots, aircrew, and passengers are attacked while descending by parachute from disabled aircraft during wartime. Such parachutists are considered hors de combat and it is made a war crime to attack them in an interstate armed conflict under Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. However, firing on airborne forces who are descending by parachute (i.e. paratroopers) is not prohibited.
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
It is debatable whether Operation Overlord would have succeeded without the parachute/glider element. Same for the invasion of Sicily. And whilst Market Garden was overstretch, the seizure of the bridges prior to Arnhem was pretty successful.
I have always been fascinated by both by airborne/parachute operations (hence my username) and D-Day (which I consider the greatest military feat in history.)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
That's an interesting detail. Is it now banned to shoot attacking parachute troops in the air? I would be surprised.
IIRC the German Fallshirmjaeger were so devastated in Crete that there were not actually very many left. Was it 30-40% casualties?
No, it isn’t banned to shoot at paratroopers. They are considered armed combatants on their way to battle. See the Taiwanese adaption of anti-aircraft guns to shoot at paratroopers - which are far from unique, I believe.
In Crete, the Germans were dropped armed only with pistols. Due to the design of the parachutes, they couldn’t carry anything heavier. The locals swarmed over them and killed many before they could get to the weapon containers.
One reason (of many) that the allied commander was such an arse, was that he was given the details of this weakness, the German plan of attack (from ULTRA) and their resupply plans. He had exact locations for the para drops. Even after the first drops landed exactly where intelligence had told him they would, he refused to reinforce the next targets!
For comedy value - the details of the attack, revealed by intelligence, included the exact loading of the paratroops and their containers. Which meant that Freiburg knew how many spare socks the Germans had. And how many spare pairs of underpants.
Der Spiegel reports that in the spring of 2022, the CIA met with Ukrainian specialists who floated the idea of attacking the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline. The CIA officials liked the idea.
In a comment, the CIA called the story “completely and utterly false.”
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
I find myself in the unusual situation of supporting Wales. It's not so much that I want yo see them win; I just don't want them to be terminally awful.
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
Borthwick got England a third place in the only World Cup he has been manager for. It’s arguable that a better manager for England football would have done better than Southgate given the players he had and their successes at club level in England and Europe.
Sven got the 'golden generation' to two quarter finals.
At football, England, to be operating at par, really oufht to be getting to the last eight. As often as not you'll get there by struggling past Panama, Algeria and Iceland. From there it's essentially a lottery whether you get beyond that: to hit par, given the size of England's footbal economy, you oufht to be getting to one final in four on average. Southgate was a poor manager but so were all the others. Sven was awful. Pick the same side every sibgle game regardless of their refusal to play well together, then bring on Phul Neville to shore up the defence with 20 minutea to go regardlesa of the same situation. But England's problem is surely the Premier League, and the dearth of English players playing at the top level.
It’s the same in rugby but worse
England now have more player quality than any team in the world with the exception of France and South Africa - who are about the same level
They should be regularly winning grand slams and winning world cups every 3 or 4 goes
Their six nations record is utterly woeful and they’ve only won one World Cup
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
You may have heard about it because you’re a terminal geek
But
1. You’ve never been here because you live in Sheffield with your mum
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
The Fallschirmjäger (dismounted?disparachuted?) were still effective troops. Years ago a 4th Division vet was a Lib Dem leafleter in Brixton. Further up the road we had an ex-RA gunner also putting out Focuses, who had been shelling him at Casino. Unfortunately we were never able to get them both together to compare notes.
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
You may have heard about it because you’re a terminal geek
But
1. You’ve never been here because you live in Sheffield with your mum
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
Wait. You thought I was referring to TaiWan didn’t you?
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
You may have heard about it because you’re a terminal geek
But
1. You’ve never been here because you live in Sheffield with your mum
And
2. 99.7% of the world has NOT heard of it
I've been to Taiwan.
Fair enough. I hope you enjoyed the scallion pancakes
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
The Fallschirmjäger (dismounted?disparachuted?) were still effective troops. Years ago a 4th Division vet was a Lib Dem leafleter in Brixton. Further up the road we had an ex-RA gunner also putting out Focuses, who had been shelling him at Casino. Unfortunately we were never able to get them both together to compare notes.
Parachuting in leafleteers is new one for the LibDems.
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
Borthwick got England a third place in the only World Cup he has been manager for. It’s arguable that a better manager for England football would have done better than Southgate given the players he had and their successes at club level in England and Europe.
Sven got the 'golden generation' to two quarter finals.
At football, England, to be operating at par, really oufht to be getting to the last eight. As often as not you'll get there by struggling past Panama, Algeria and Iceland. From there it's essentially a lottery whether you get beyond that: to hit par, given the size of England's footbal economy, you oufht to be getting to one final in four on average. Southgate was a poor manager but so were all the others. Sven was awful. Pick the same side every sibgle game regardless of their refusal to play well together, then bring on Phul Neville to shore up the defence with 20 minutea to go regardlesa of the same situation. But England's problem is surely the Premier League, and the dearth of English players playing at the top level.
It’s the same in rugby but worse
England now have more player quality than any team in the world with the exception of France and South Africa - who are about the same level
They should be regularly winning grand slams and winning world cups every 3 or 4 goes
Their six nations record is utterly woeful and they’ve only won one World Cup
Do you think? I'd say France and South Africa are streets ahead at present in terms of players, as are New Zealand. And even in a good year it is very hard to win away in rugby. That's not to say England haven't underperformed terribly for the last two games. But in general I'd say England have underperformed less in rugby than in football.
I’m going to go there. Monday. The South Taiwan Science Park. Where TSMC make the world’s best silicon chips
I reckon if I just act a bit dumb (yes yes) and look like a nerd with a box of tuna sandwiches made by his mum they’ll let me in to the factory and wander around taking photos. Can’t see any likely issues there
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
You may have heard about it because you’re a terminal geek
But
1. You’ve never been here because you live in Sheffield with your mum
And
2. 99.7% of the world has NOT heard of it
I've been to Taiwan.
Fair enough. I hope you enjoyed the scallion pancakes
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
Borthwick got England a third place in the only World Cup he has been manager for. It’s arguable that a better manager for England football would have done better than Southgate given the players he had and their successes at club level in England and Europe.
Sven got the 'golden generation' to two quarter finals.
At football, England, to be operating at par, really oufht to be getting to the last eight. As often as not you'll get there by struggling past Panama, Algeria and Iceland. From there it's essentially a lottery whether you get beyond that: to hit par, given the size of England's footbal economy, you oufht to be getting to one final in four on average. Southgate was a poor manager but so were all the others. Sven was awful. Pick the same side every sibgle game regardless of their refusal to play well together, then bring on Phul Neville to shore up the defence with 20 minutea to go regardlesa of the same situation. But England's problem is surely the Premier League, and the dearth of English players playing at the top level.
It’s the same in rugby but worse
England now have more player quality than any team in the world with the exception of France and South Africa - who are about the same level
They should be regularly winning grand slams and winning world cups every 3 or 4 goes
Their six nations record is utterly woeful and they’ve only won one World Cup
Do you think? I'd say France and South Africa are streets ahead at present in terms of players, as are New Zealand. And even in a good year it is very hard to win away in rugby. That's not to say England haven't underperformed terribly for the last two games. But in general I'd say England have underperformed less in rugby than in football.
There's "not bad, not good enough", and there's "bad, and painful to watch". The (genuine) achievement of Sven and Southgate was to move England football from the second of those to the first.
Today's England performance felt more like the second. Obviously, Romford u14 girls, who were there today, aren't a national adult team. But they know how to run fast and sound scary.
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
Sorry but I disagree. If I was canvassing (as I have in the past for independents) and saw a sign saying no junk mail then I would certainly not put a leaflet through that door. You may not like it but for the vast majority of people political flyers are indeed junk mail. Something we then have to dispose of on your behalf. Every flyer from a commercial firm contains information they think you would want to read but it is still junk. The same applies to the brand you are selling.
It is strange that if I drop paper in the street I can be done for littering. If I stick it through someones letterbox unwanted then it is supposedly fine.
If someone has gone to the courtesy of putting up a sign then you should have the decency to accept that and move on.
This small issue is clearly unresolvable.
I think the meaning of junk mail is fairly clearly unsolicited mail, so anything you haven't requested yourself, from an existing supplier, or from a government agency with the authority to contact you. A political leaflet is just as much junk mail as a leaflet from your local Fried Chicken shop, which equally may contain useful information.
Why people get so exercised about it I have no idea. Most of mine goes straight in the recycling, occasionally I get something interesting. I certainly don't regard it as a breach of privacy as many seem to do.
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
Why do you (@Leon) think that the US decided that maintaining their Pacific fleet was much more important than having a standing army in Europe? The US has a major strategic weakness in their dependency on Taiwanese chips and Biden's Chips and Science Act was designed to address that. They are still somewhat short of addressing the weakness but it has to be said that they are a lot further down the road than Europe.
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
Borthwick got England a third place in the only World Cup he has been manager for. It’s arguable that a better manager for England football would have done better than Southgate given the players he had and their successes at club level in England and Europe.
Sven got the 'golden generation' to two quarter finals.
At football, England, to be operating at par, really oufht to be getting to the last eight. As often as not you'll get there by struggling past Panama, Algeria and Iceland. From there it's essentially a lottery whether you get beyond that: to hit par, given the size of England's footbal economy, you oufht to be getting to one final in four on average. Southgate was a poor manager but so were all the others. Sven was awful. Pick the same side every sibgle game regardless of their refusal to play well together, then bring on Phul Neville to shore up the defence with 20 minutea to go regardlesa of the same situation. But England's problem is surely the Premier League, and the dearth of English players playing at the top level.
Yes par is QF. Agreed. Less than that, boo hiss gutted sick as a parrot. Beyond, good job, chance of glory. For Southgate in major comps, QF was his worst result and there was a semi and two finals. Better than par for sure esp relative to what we'd got used to for so long since that glorious 66 afternoon at Wembley with the Hurst hat-trick, they think it's all over, trophy held aloft, and Nobby doing his ecstatic toothless jig despite being dying for a fag.
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
You may have heard about it because you’re a terminal geek
But
1. You’ve never been here because you live in Sheffield with your mum
And
2. 99.7% of the world has NOT heard of it
I've been to Taiwan.
Fair enough. I hope you enjoyed the scallion pancakes
Did you have chips with that?
It gets better and better
The South Taiwan Science Park (quite near my hotel, where they now make the ultra-advanced silicon chips that could lead to WW3) is built on the Nanke Plain. When they were preparing the site to build the STS park they found the largest site of mass decapitations in the Neolithic world - mainly women and children beheaded in ancient head hunting rituals…. that continued in Taiwan into the early 20th century
5000 years of sadistic headhunting. And now that’s the exact place we make the semiconductors birthing a new future
Honestly, sometimes I just doff my cap to the scriptwriters of The Simulation
MAGA is so often performative. It’s about generating social media headlines. A big increase in military spending sounds good. They don’t care that there’s no actual plan what to do with money.
Reform or Restore would be the same here.
What do you think Britain is doing at the moment? We are touting a big increase in the headline figure military spend, and planning to use it to pay for Chagos. Presumably we can deter the enemy parachute regiments by waving the Chagos agreement at them.
Parachute regiments are becoming less of a thing - certainly in the UK. We are reducing to one battalion iirc.
And afaics military people (real military people, not brass hatters) seem to think there are higher priorities.
Quick delurk to issue a pedantic correction: according to my Para acquaintance, we are not reducing the number of Para battalions, just confirming the status quo that only one battalion is on immediate readiness at any time.
The emphasis I am picking up is that other methods of deployment are preferred, and that in an age of drones everywhere floating down by parachute may be more risky - so the opportunities would be less common.
But I'm being pedantic back.
Massed parachute assaults would be interesting…
A number of years back a friend who went to work in the California defence industry described how the Taiwanese wanted a special mode for a SPAAG system.
Instead of firing a burst, look, fire another burst etc at fast moving aircraft, they wanted the system to fire one round each, at hundreds of practically stationary targets.
Yes, as option if the Chinese tried a mass parachute drop.
It's a dramatic and boys own method but has always been a remarkably shit way of fighting.
Paratroopers are good for about 24-48 hours against only other light infantry, and rapidly fall intro trouble with armour.
The Paras went fifty years between combat jumps.
It has always amused me that after The Battle of Crete Adolf Hitler concluded that parachute infantry should no longer be used whilst we and later the Yanks decided parachute/airborne infantry was the way to go.
The Fallschirmjäger (dismounted?disparachuted?) were still effective troops. Years ago a 4th Division vet was a Lib Dem leafleter in Brixton. Further up the road we had an ex-RA gunner also putting out Focuses, who had been shelling him at Casino. Unfortunately we were never able to get them both together to compare notes.
Parachuting in leafleteers is new one for the LibDems.
Just remember you can shoot them in the air. PB has all the answers.
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
Borthwick got England a third place in the only World Cup he has been manager for. It’s arguable that a better manager for England football would have done better than Southgate given the players he had and their successes at club level in England and Europe.
Sven got the 'golden generation' to two quarter finals.
At football, England, to be operating at par, really oufht to be getting to the last eight. As often as not you'll get there by struggling past Panama, Algeria and Iceland. From there it's essentially a lottery whether you get beyond that: to hit par, given the size of England's footbal economy, you oufht to be getting to one final in four on average. Southgate was a poor manager but so were all the others. Sven was awful. Pick the same side every sibgle game regardless of their refusal to play well together, then bring on Phul Neville to shore up the defence with 20 minutea to go regardlesa of the same situation. But England's problem is surely the Premier League, and the dearth of English players playing at the top level.
It’s the same in rugby but worse
England now have more player quality than any team in the world with the exception of France and South Africa - who are about the same level
They should be regularly winning grand slams and winning world cups every 3 or 4 goes
Their six nations record is utterly woeful and they’ve only won one World Cup
Do you think? I'd say France and South Africa are streets ahead at present in terms of players, as are New Zealand. And even in a good year it is very hard to win away in rugby. That's not to say England haven't underperformed terribly for the last two games. But in general I'd say England have underperformed less in rugby than in football.
I was generalising. Yes SA and France are ahead of us now (but not massively so), NZ are now behind - I was taking the last decade in toto
But overall we should be doing as well as SA and France and we’re nowhere near. SA have won 2 WCs on the trot and France’s recent 6N record is way better than ours
Something is wrong. It must be the coaches. What else?
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
Sorry but I disagree. If I was canvassing (as I have in the past for independents) and saw a sign saying no junk mail then I would certainly not put a leaflet through that door. You may not like it but for the vast majority of people political flyers are indeed junk mail. Something we then have to dispose of on your behalf. Every flyer from a commercial firm contains information they think you would want to read but it is still junk. The same applies to the brand you are selling.
It is strange that if I drop paper in the street I can be done for littering. If I stick it through someones letterbox unwanted then it is supposedly fine.
If someone has gone to the courtesy of putting up a sign then you should have the decency to accept that and move on.
This small issue is clearly unresolvable.
I think the meaning of junk mail is fairly clearly unsolicited mail, so anything you haven't requested yourself, from an existing supplier, or from a government agency with the authority to contact you. A political leaflet is just as much junk mail as a leaflet from your local Fried Chicken shop, which equally may contain useful information.
Why people get so exercised about it I have no idea. Most of mine goes straight in the recycling, occasionally I get something interesting. I certainly don't regard it as a breach of privacy as many seem to do.
To me it means by hand unstamped and unrequested. Anything stamped, requested or not, isn't junk.
Fwiw I'd never put a 'no junk' sign up. I find it a bit precious. But if it is up I'd comply (if I was leafleting).
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
Yes, I was very unsure about this too. I dont want to annoy anyone, but how are you supposed to know what exactly the householder means by junk mail? They probably mean advertising and may well mean political literature too, but there's no way to know for sure. In the end I opted to post a leaflet unless the letterbox was explicitly labelled with "no political leaflets" or similar, or "addressed mail only".
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
You may have heard about it because you’re a terminal geek
But
1. You’ve never been here because you live in Sheffield with your mum
And
2. 99.7% of the world has NOT heard of it
I've been to Taiwan.
Fair enough. I hope you enjoyed the scallion pancakes
Did you have chips with that?
It gets better and better
The South Taiwan Science Park (quite near my hotel, where they now make the ultra-advanced silicon chips that could lead to WW3) is built on the Nanke Plain. When they were preparing the site to build the STS park they found the largest site of mass decapitations in the Neolithic world - mainly women and children beheaded in ancient head hunting rituals…. that continued in Taiwan into the early 20th century
5000 years of sadistic headhunting. And now that’s the exact place we make the semiconductors birthing a new future
Honestly, sometimes I just doff my cap to the scriptwriters of The Simulation
I'm tempted to make a quip about headhunting silicon chip designers but I think we've heard enough from me this afternoon on the 'humour' front.
Can u get a tour of one of these silicon factories? They are ground zero of the modern world but also weird super clean places full of strange dutch machines - so gotta be interesting.
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
Sorry but I disagree. If I was canvassing (as I have in the past for independents) and saw a sign saying no junk mail then I would certainly not put a leaflet through that door. You may not like it but for the vast majority of people political flyers are indeed junk mail. Something we then have to dispose of on your behalf. Every flyer from a commercial firm contains information they think you would want to read but it is still junk. The same applies to the brand you are selling.
It is strange that if I drop paper in the street I can be done for littering. If I stick it through someones letterbox unwanted then it is supposedly fine.
If someone has gone to the courtesy of putting up a sign then you should have the decency to accept that and move on.
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
Why do you (@Leon) think that the US decided that maintaining their Pacific fleet was much more important than having a standing army in Europe? The US has a major strategic weakness in their dependency on Taiwanese chips and Biden's Chips and Science Act was designed to address that. They are still somewhat short of addressing the weakness but it has to be said that they are a lot further down the road than Europe.
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
Why do you (@Leon) think that the US decided that maintaining their Pacific fleet was much more important than having a standing army in Europe? The US has a major strategic weakness in their dependency on Taiwanese chips and Biden's Chips and Science Act was designed to address that. They are still somewhat short of addressing the weakness but it has to be said that they are a lot further down the road than Europe.
TaiNan the city not TaiWan the country you stupid moronic dolt
Yes we all know Taiwan is crucial but how many know this small ancient city in southwest Taiwan is so particularly and weirdly pivotal
Probably 0.000001% of the world at best and certainly not “nearly everyone on PB” - I sincerely doubt you’d heard of TaiNan the city until now
I’m right aren’t I? Of course I’m right. I always am
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
Why do you (@Leon) think that the US decided that maintaining their Pacific fleet was much more important than having a standing army in Europe? The US has a major strategic weakness in their dependency on Taiwanese chips and Biden's Chips and Science Act was designed to address that. They are still somewhat short of addressing the weakness but it has to be said that they are a lot further down the road than Europe.
TaiNan the city not TaiWan the country you stupid moronic dolt
Yes we all know Taiwan is crucial but how many know this small ancient city in southwest Taiwan is so particularly and weirdly pivotal
Probably 0.000001% of the world at best and certainly not “nearly everyone on PB” - I sincerely doubt you’d heard of TaiNan the city until now
I’m right aren’t I? Of course I’m right. I always am
This is like the time you 'discovered' slash fiction.
For my latest poke about the upcoming local elections ive been loo,ing at my patch and East Anglia more generally and Reforms performance. There seems to be an assumption Ref gain Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, but i think their performance has been underwhelming in Norfolk and Suffolk. They did very well in Pakefield with a well known local candidate in a favourable area and in Kings Lynn but in both of those (the 2 in Kings Lynn) the Tories failed to put up a candidate in areas they should expect 20% even in current malaise.
So, how habe they performed since LE 2025? Essex - avg 43% over 6 battles Suffolk - avg 35% over 4 and failed to field a candidate in a further 1 Norfolk - avg 36% over 6
They look good for Essex but nothing in Norfolk or Suffolk screams 'council majoriry'. Largest party, yes (probably)
I’m going to go there. Monday. The South Taiwan Science Park. Where TSMC make the world’s best silicon chips
I reckon if I just act a bit dumb (yes yes) and look like a nerd with a box of tuna sandwiches made by his mum they’ll let me in to the factory and wander around taking photos. Can’t see any likely issues there
Oddly this isn't true any more. At least according to ASML. Intel are so far the only company that has properly delivered high NA EUV chips using their 14A process which goes into volume production towards the end of this year. I'm given to believe that Intel's first 14A manufacturing is in Oregon and half of the production capacity is already sold to Apple for their next generation of Mac chips.
I’m going to go there. Monday. The South Taiwan Science Park. Where TSMC make the world’s best silicon chips
I reckon if I just act a bit dumb (yes yes) and look like a nerd with a box of tuna sandwiches made by his mum they’ll let me in to the factory and wander around taking photos. Can’t see any likely issues there
Oddly this isn't true any more. At least according to ASML. Intel are so far the only company that has properly delivered high NA EUV chips using their 14A process which goes into volume production towards the end of this year. I'm given to believe that Intel's first 14A manufacturing is in Oregon and half of the production capacity is already sold to Apple for their next generation of Mac chips.
I humbly submit the application of Mandy Rice Davies
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
You may have heard about it because you’re a terminal geek
But
1. You’ve never been here because you live in Sheffield with your mum
I’m going to go there. Monday. The South Taiwan Science Park. Where TSMC make the world’s best silicon chips
I reckon if I just act a bit dumb (yes yes) and look like a nerd with a box of tuna sandwiches made by his mum they’ll let me in to the factory and wander around taking photos. Can’t see any likely issues there
Oddly this isn't true any more. At least according to ASML. Intel are so far the only company that has properly delivered high NA EUV chips using their 14A process which goes into volume production towards the end of this year. I'm given to believe that Intel's first 14A manufacturing is in Oregon and half of the production capacity is already sold to Apple for their next generation of Mac chips.
I humbly submit the application of Mandy Rice Davies
It's 10 years doing this for a living, I wouldn't expect other people to know this level of detail!
@PippaCrerar EXCL: Matt Goodwin, Reform UK’s candidate in Gorton & Denton byelection, was accused by woman working at GB News of making inappropriate comments which she viewed as sexually harassing - story by @horton_official & me
Sam Warburton and Alun Wyn Jones always make me lament my inability to keep my woollen coats and jumpers free of cat hair. I wonder if they don't even have cats.
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
Sorry but I disagree. If I was canvassing (as I have in the past for independents) and saw a sign saying no junk mail then I would certainly not put a leaflet through that door. You may not like it but for the vast majority of people political flyers are indeed junk mail. Something we then have to dispose of on your behalf. Every flyer from a commercial firm contains information they think you would want to read but it is still junk. The same applies to the brand you are selling.
It is strange that if I drop paper in the street I can be done for littering. If I stick it through someones letterbox unwanted then it is supposedly fine.
If someone has gone to the courtesy of putting up a sign then you should have the decency to accept that and move on.
This small issue is clearly unresolvable.
I think the meaning of junk mail is fairly clearly unsolicited mail, so anything you haven't requested yourself, from an existing supplier, or from a government agency with the authority to contact you. A political leaflet is just as much junk mail as a leaflet from your local Fried Chicken shop, which equally may contain useful information.
Why people get so exercised about it I have no idea. Most of mine goes straight in the recycling, occasionally I get something interesting. I certainly don't regard it as a breach of privacy as many seem to do.
Quite. It's not a contract or agreement. It's a request, polite or otherwise, that can be ignored. If a householder wants to get upset about it, that's up to them. I react with amusement when a householder runs after me waving the leaflet and shouting. I must confess that it doesn't help the situation - but life's too short to take it seriously.
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
Why do you (@Leon) think that the US decided that maintaining their Pacific fleet was much more important than having a standing army in Europe? The US has a major strategic weakness in their dependency on Taiwanese chips and Biden's Chips and Science Act was designed to address that. They are still somewhat short of addressing the weakness but it has to be said that they are a lot further down the road than Europe.
TaiNan the city not TaiWan the country you stupid moronic dolt
Yes we all know Taiwan is crucial but how many know this small ancient city in southwest Taiwan is so particularly and weirdly pivotal
Probably 0.000001% of the world at best and certainly not “nearly everyone on PB” - I sincerely doubt you’d heard of TaiNan the city until now
I’m right aren’t I? Of course I’m right. I always am
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
Sorry but I disagree. If I was canvassing (as I have in the past for independents) and saw a sign saying no junk mail then I would certainly not put a leaflet through that door. You may not like it but for the vast majority of people political flyers are indeed junk mail. Something we then have to dispose of on your behalf. Every flyer from a commercial firm contains information they think you would want to read but it is still junk. The same applies to the brand you are selling.
It is strange that if I drop paper in the street I can be done for littering. If I stick it through someones letterbox unwanted then it is supposedly fine.
If someone has gone to the courtesy of putting up a sign then you should have the decency to accept that and move on.
This small issue is clearly unresolvable.
I think the meaning of junk mail is fairly clearly unsolicited mail, so anything you haven't requested yourself, from an existing supplier, or from a government agency with the authority to contact you. A political leaflet is just as much junk mail as a leaflet from your local Fried Chicken shop, which equally may contain useful information.
Why people get so exercised about it I have no idea. Most of mine goes straight in the recycling, occasionally I get something interesting. I certainly don't regard it as a breach of privacy as many seem to do.
Quite. It's not a contract or agreement. It's a request, polite or otherwise, that can be ignored. If a householder wants to get upset about it, that's up to them. I react with amusement when a householder runs after me waving the leaflet and shouting. I must confess that it doesn't help the situation - but life's too short to take it seriously.
If it’s a request why ignore it ?
What do you get from setting out to wind up housheholders ?
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
Why do you (@Leon) think that the US decided that maintaining their Pacific fleet was much more important than having a standing army in Europe? The US has a major strategic weakness in their dependency on Taiwanese chips and Biden's Chips and Science Act was designed to address that. They are still somewhat short of addressing the weakness but it has to be said that they are a lot further down the road than Europe.
TaiNan the city not TaiWan the country you stupid moronic dolt
Yes we all know Taiwan is crucial but how many know this small ancient city in southwest Taiwan is so particularly and weirdly pivotal
Probably 0.000001% of the world at best and certainly not “nearly everyone on PB” - I sincerely doubt you’d heard of TaiNan the city until now
I’m right aren’t I? Of course I’m right. I always am
I’m going to go there. Monday. The South Taiwan Science Park. Where TSMC make the world’s best silicon chips
I reckon if I just act a bit dumb (yes yes) and look like a nerd with a box of tuna sandwiches made by his mum they’ll let me in to the factory and wander around taking photos. Can’t see any likely issues there
Oddly this isn't true any more. At least according to ASML. Intel are so far the only company that has properly delivered high NA EUV chips using their 14A process which goes into volume production towards the end of this year. I'm given to believe that Intel's first 14A manufacturing is in Oregon and half of the production capacity is already sold to Apple for their next generation of Mac chips.
I humbly submit the application of Mandy Rice Davies
It's 10 years doing this for a living, I wouldn't expect other people to know this level of detail!
Intel used to have an edge on the process side, because they were building fabrication plants just to build their own CPUs, rather than doing foundry for anyone.
But I'm ten years out of date on this, and I know Intel now both does foundry itself and utilizes foundries, so I might well be wildly off base with what is current.
I mean it's a model hardcoded into silicon (and a small and an out of date one at that), but at the same time... it's 17,000 tokens per second. That's literally instant.
I have just discovered that the world’s most ultra advanced silicon chips - the very best, the infinitely superb, the chips hurtling us into a terrifyingly new future - are made about 25 minutes’ moped ride from my hotel
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
Oh mate, I've heard about it and so have most PBers.
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
You may have heard about it because you’re a terminal geek
But
1. You’ve never been here because you live in Sheffield with your mum
And
2. 99.7% of the world has NOT heard of it
I've been to Taiwan.
As have I.
Great place, lot of fun.
When you think about it, we should do a wide-ranging military partnership with Taiwan. We need the same things. We are both islands looking to defend ourselves from sea and airborne attacks. We need missile defence, the ability to sink ships etc. We still (I think) have a decent defence sector, and there's a lot each side could bring.
What an absolute steaming pile of shit. How can we go from world beaters in the autumn to an indisciplined rabble a few months later. I feel that so much of it is the unnecessary kicking away. Mistakes from kicks last week and this keep putting us on the back foot - when we were playing well in the autumn we were playing a lot more running rugby and we have the runners to do it.
It’s Borthwick. A desperately average, inherently conservative coach given a pretty good crop of attacking players. So this is what you get
The more time he has to coach them, the worse it gets
Yet Borthwick was there in the Autumn and against Wales, when England were playing with flair. And it's j9t that they haven't been attempting to play with flair today. They just haven't been very good.
Fragile confidence. Popped by the Scot’s, then down again today. No plan either. And much as some will say no, both Scotland and Ireland have had their best game for a long time against England.
Nah. It’s Borthwick. He’s the rugby equivalent of Gareth Southgate but even worse
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Southgate won most of his matches and got to the semi finals and a final of big tournaments, after Sir Alf Ramsay and Sir Bobby Robson he was the best England football manager.
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
Borthwick got England a third place in the only World Cup he has been manager for. It’s arguable that a better manager for England football would have done better than Southgate given the players he had and their successes at club level in England and Europe.
Sven got the 'golden generation' to two quarter finals.
At football, England, to be operating at par, really oufht to be getting to the last eight. As often as not you'll get there by struggling past Panama, Algeria and Iceland. From there it's essentially a lottery whether you get beyond that: to hit par, given the size of England's footbal economy, you oufht to be getting to one final in four on average. Southgate was a poor manager but so were all the others. Sven was awful. Pick the same side every sibgle game regardless of their refusal to play well together, then bring on Phul Neville to shore up the defence with 20 minutea to go regardlesa of the same situation. But England's problem is surely the Premier League, and the dearth of English players playing at the top level.
Yes par is QF. Agreed. Less than that, boo hiss gutted sick as a parrot. Beyond, good job, chance of glory. For Southgate in major comps, QF was his worst result and there was a semi and two finals. Better than par for sure esp relative to what we'd got used to for so long since that glorious 66 afternoon at Wembley with the Hurst hat-trick, they think it's all over, trophy held aloft, and Nobby doing his ecstatic toothless jig despite being dying for a fag.
I will agree that Southgate is no worse than a par manager and what came before was worse. Also he runs a less dislikeable team, which I think may be partly to his credit.
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
Sorry but I disagree. If I was canvassing (as I have in the past for independents) and saw a sign saying no junk mail then I would certainly not put a leaflet through that door. You may not like it but for the vast majority of people political flyers are indeed junk mail. Something we then have to dispose of on your behalf. Every flyer from a commercial firm contains information they think you would want to read but it is still junk. The same applies to the brand you are selling.
It is strange that if I drop paper in the street I can be done for littering. If I stick it through someones letterbox unwanted then it is supposedly fine.
If someone has gone to the courtesy of putting up a sign then you should have the decency to accept that and move on.
This small issue is clearly unresolvable.
I think the meaning of junk mail is fairly clearly unsolicited mail, so anything you haven't requested yourself, from an existing supplier, or from a government agency with the authority to contact you. A political leaflet is just as much junk mail as a leaflet from your local Fried Chicken shop, which equally may contain useful information.
Why people get so exercised about it I have no idea. Most of mine goes straight in the recycling, occasionally I get something interesting. I certainly don't regard it as a breach of privacy as many seem to do.
Quite. It's not a contract or agreement. It's a request, polite or otherwise, that can be ignored. If a householder wants to get upset about it, that's up to them. I react with amusement when a householder runs after me waving the leaflet and shouting. I must confess that it doesn't help the situation - but life's too short to take it seriously.
If it’s a request why ignore it ?
What do you get from setting out to wind up housheholders ?
I don't set out to wind up householders. That would negate the purpose of the leafleting and be politically foolish. But very few are wound up enough to remonstrate.
At each door, I'm making a political judgement of the potential value of them seeing the leaflet and registering our presence even if they don't read it, versus upsetting a potential supporter. Almost all those who complain are not supporters anyway. Sometimes, if it's in big bold red letters, very tidy garden, I don't deliver. No point. Probably Reform. Why waste a leaflet. If it's in faded small green lettering that been up for years, with a pram outside and kids toys and a tatty garden, I deliver. Probably Green. Might even read it. Possibly squeezable. Do you have a tidy garden, or a tatty one? If you've watched Small Prophets, you'll appreciate the difference.
I mean it's a model hardcoded into silicon (and a small and an out of date one at that), but at the same time... it's 17,000 tokens per second. That's literally instant.
Speed is impressive. But its embarrassingly wrong a lot of the time.
Despite the theme of white man's rage being at least tangentially on-topic, it was a case of blink and you'll have missed it for this Saturday morning's visitor. A measly four posts only - poorest performance in a long while - and while TSE was on holiday too.
In the last week I have twice had run-ins with crazy angry people while out and about. The first case was at our local railway station, where I misunderstood where someone was going and inadvertently blocked them (or they blocked me) and was shouted at to look where I was going, the second in our local supermarket carpark where I accidentally tapped the door of the car next to mine while opening my car door, way too lightly to leave any kind of mark but the person in the car got out and remonstrated with me about it like I had done it deliberately. Both these people were middle aged women so it seems that rage is well distributed across the sexes.
Yesterday a youngish man ran after me after I'd posted a leaflet through his door that had "No Junk Mail" on his letterbox. I said that it had info in it he might find useful. He tore the leaflet into pieces and threw it at me. Next he took out his phone and took my picture. I suspect it'll go up in the street WhatsApp Group!
Some people are wired, on a trigger. Perhaps the long run of dull rainy days has got to them. Or the news.
You shouldn't have put it through his door, and thoroughly deserved the response, though the picture is a bit much. It's exceedingly pompous to imagine that there was an exception for your junk mail.
Mine wasn't junk mail. It had useful information on it. He thought it was junk mail but I wasn't to know that and didn't want to deny him the choice.
If he requested no junk mail, which generally means unsolicited, it’s poor form to post it in his box
The householder's mistake was the use of the vague pejorative term of "junk mail", whose interpretation is open to question and indeed is almost guaranteed to breed confusion since who is going to be giving up their free time to deliver something they consider to be junk? As with all good writing it is better to be more specific, eg "no leaflets, menus or estate agents materials, please" (the "please" because it always pays to be polite).
Oh please. The mistake was posting unwanted crap. The householder was not the one in the wrong.
Yes he was. It's obvious that the householder thinks that he is the judge of junk, and isn't going to tell the person putting it through the box in advance how he judges it.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
Sorry but I disagree. If I was canvassing (as I have in the past for independents) and saw a sign saying no junk mail then I would certainly not put a leaflet through that door. You may not like it but for the vast majority of people political flyers are indeed junk mail. Something we then have to dispose of on your behalf. Every flyer from a commercial firm contains information they think you would want to read but it is still junk. The same applies to the brand you are selling.
It is strange that if I drop paper in the street I can be done for littering. If I stick it through someones letterbox unwanted then it is supposedly fine.
If someone has gone to the courtesy of putting up a sign then you should have the decency to accept that and move on.
This small issue is clearly unresolvable.
I think the meaning of junk mail is fairly clearly unsolicited mail, so anything you haven't requested yourself, from an existing supplier, or from a government agency with the authority to contact you. A political leaflet is just as much junk mail as a leaflet from your local Fried Chicken shop, which equally may contain useful information.
Why people get so exercised about it I have no idea. Most of mine goes straight in the recycling, occasionally I get something interesting. I certainly don't regard it as a breach of privacy as many seem to do.
Quite. It's not a contract or agreement. It's a request, polite or otherwise, that can be ignored. If a householder wants to get upset about it, that's up to them. I react with amusement when a householder runs after me waving the leaflet and shouting. I must confess that it doesn't help the situation - but life's too short to take it seriously.
If it’s a request why ignore it ?
What do you get from setting out to wind up housheholders ?
I don't set out to wind up householders. That would negate the purpose of the leafleting and be politically foolish. But very few are wound up enough to remonstrate.
At each door, I'm making a political judgement of the potential value of them seeing the leaflet and registering our presence even if they don't read it, versus upsetting a potential supporter. Almost all those who complain are not supporters anyway. Sometimes, if it's in big bold red letters, very tidy garden, I don't deliver. No point. Probably Reform. Why waste a leaflet. If it's in faded small green lettering that been up for years, with a pram outside and kids toys and a tatty garden, I deliver. Probably Green. Might even read it. Possibly squeezable. Do you have a tidy garden, or a tatty one? If you've watched Small Prophets, you'll appreciate the difference.
I think if you've watched Small Prophets you'd be pretty sure there is no difference and you should knock on every door.
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlord_(2018_film)
TACO.
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was worried the casualties on D-Day for the airborne ops would be anywhere from 40% to 75%, such was the newness of the parachute infantryman that there were no Geneva Convention rules about not shooting parachutists whilst they were in the air.
Quintessentially a loser, with pedestrian ideas. Given some great players
Borthwick is not in Southgate's league
https://nitter.poast.org/LondonNewLibs/status/2025141628093292621#m
@annmarie
Trump says he will increase the global 10% tariff he announced yesterday to 15%.
Omar Yaghi’s invention uses ambient thermal energy and can generate up to 1,000 litres of clean water every day
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/21/nobel-laureate-omar-yaghi-invents-machine-that-harvests-water-from-dry-air
Of course the same doesn't apply to some of the later waves when the Germans were aware of what was happening.
Such notices lead people (literally) up the garden path and then leave them with an unresolvable ambiguity. Volunteers who post political leaflets deserve better.
It is also unfair on postmen/women who have no choice as to what they do, but it tries to put them in the wrong.
It's trivial, but still wrong.
When the 101st were being sent in to Bastogne they encountered retreating US soldiers, one of whom told them "You don't want to go in there., you're going to be surrounded".
Winters' reply after a moment's consideration? "We're paratroopers. We're supposed to be surrounded".
IIRC the German Fallshirmjaeger were so devastated in Crete that there were not actually very many left. Was it 30-40% casualties?
The householder made is clear he doesn’t want junk delivered. Respect that.
It is strange that if I drop paper in the street I can be done for littering. If I stick it through someones letterbox unwanted then it is supposedly fine.
If someone has gone to the courtesy of putting up a sign then you should have the decency to accept that and move on.
Hmm... Are you sure it's almost as big as that? It looks a lot smaller in real life.
Attacks on parachutists, as defined by the law of war, occur when pilots, aircrew, and passengers are attacked while descending by parachute from disabled aircraft during wartime. Such parachutists are considered hors de combat and it is made a war crime to attack them in an interstate armed conflict under Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. However, firing on airborne forces who are descending by parachute (i.e. paratroopers) is not prohibited.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_parachutists
How do you know if they are combat troops or escaping passengers?
In the same city once seized by the Dutch and the British and various pirates and the Ming Dynasty and various pirates again and then the Japanese empire who built a torture garden and a great department store and then the quasi fascist nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek and now its home to the worlds best oyster omelettes and hot squid buns and weird stinky tofu. It’s all here. Tainan
TAINAN
The most important city in the world of which you’ve never heard. It’s here. And so is my next knappers gazette article
Superb!
But England's problem is surely the Premier League, and the dearth of English players playing at the top level.
In Crete, the Germans were dropped armed only with pistols. Due to the design of the parachutes, they couldn’t carry anything heavier. The locals swarmed over them and killed many before they could get to the weapon containers.
One reason (of many) that the allied commander was such an arse, was that he was given the details of this weakness, the German plan of attack (from ULTRA) and their resupply plans. He had exact locations for the para drops. Even after the first drops landed exactly where intelligence had told him they would, he refused to reinforce the next targets!
For comedy value - the details of the attack, revealed by intelligence, included the exact loading of the paratroops and their containers. Which meant that Freiburg knew how many spare socks the Germans had. And how many spare pairs of underpants.
Der Spiegel reports that in the spring of 2022, the CIA met with Ukrainian specialists who floated the idea of attacking the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline. The CIA officials liked the idea.
In a comment, the CIA called the story “completely and utterly false.”
Why do you think people say a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will lead to a huge chip shortage which could take the world years to recover from.
You didn't mention the temples.
England now have more player quality than any team in the world with the exception of France and South Africa - who are about the same level
They should be regularly winning grand slams and winning world cups every 3 or 4 goes
Their six nations record is utterly woeful and they’ve only won one World Cup
But
1. You’ve never been here because you live in Sheffield with your mum
And
2. 99.7% of the world has NOT heard of it
Not TaiNan and the South Taiwan Science Park
That's not to say England haven't underperformed terribly for the last two games.
But in general I'd say England have underperformed less in rugby than in football.
I reckon if I just act a bit dumb (yes yes) and look like a nerd with a box of tuna sandwiches made by his mum they’ll let me in to the factory and wander around taking photos. Can’t see any likely issues there
Today's England performance felt more like the second. Obviously, Romford u14 girls, who were there today, aren't a national adult team. But they know how to run fast and sound scary.
Boy, they are good at sounding scary.
Why people get so exercised about it I have no idea. Most of mine goes straight in the recycling, occasionally I get something interesting. I certainly don't regard it as a breach of privacy as many seem to do.
The South Taiwan Science Park (quite near my hotel, where they now make the ultra-advanced silicon chips that could lead to WW3) is built on the Nanke Plain. When they were preparing the site to build the STS park they found the largest site of mass decapitations in the Neolithic world - mainly women and children beheaded in ancient head hunting rituals…. that continued in Taiwan into the early 20th century
5000 years of sadistic headhunting. And now that’s the exact place we make the semiconductors birthing a new future
Honestly, sometimes I just doff my cap to the scriptwriters of The Simulation
But overall we should be doing as well as SA and France and we’re nowhere near. SA have won 2 WCs on the trot and France’s recent 6N record is way better than ours
Something is wrong. It must be the coaches. What else?
Look what Andy Farrell has achieved with Ireland
Fwiw I'd never put a 'no junk' sign up. I find it a bit precious. But if it is up I'd comply (if I was leafleting).
Can u get a tour of one of these silicon factories? They are ground zero of the modern world but also weird super clean places full of strange dutch machines - so gotta be interesting.
Yes we all know Taiwan is crucial but how many know this small ancient city in southwest Taiwan is so particularly and weirdly pivotal
Probably 0.000001% of the world at best and certainly not “nearly everyone on PB” - I sincerely doubt you’d heard of TaiNan the city until now
I’m right aren’t I? Of course I’m right. I always am
They did very well in Pakefield with a well known local candidate in a favourable area and in Kings Lynn but in both of those (the 2 in Kings Lynn) the Tories failed to put up a candidate in areas they should expect 20% even in current malaise.
So, how habe they performed since LE 2025?
Essex - avg 43% over 6 battles
Suffolk - avg 35% over 4 and failed to field a candidate in a further 1
Norfolk - avg 36% over 6
They look good for Essex but nothing in Norfolk or Suffolk screams 'council majoriry'. Largest party, yes (probably)
Great place, lot of fun.
https://x.com/PippaCrerar/status/2025252726406348838
@PippaCrerar
EXCL: Matt Goodwin, Reform UK’s candidate in Gorton & Denton byelection, was accused by woman working at GB News of making inappropriate comments which she viewed as sexually harassing - story by
@horton_official & me
If a householder wants to get upset about it, that's up to them.
I react with amusement when a householder runs after me waving the leaflet and shouting.
I must confess that it doesn't help the situation - but life's too short to take it seriously.
What do you get from setting out to wind up housheholders ?
But I'm ten years out of date on this, and I know Intel now both does foundry itself and utilizes foundries, so I might well be wildly off base with what is current.
ChatJimmy. Wow.
I mean it's a model hardcoded into silicon (and a small and an out of date one at that), but at the same time... it's 17,000 tokens per second. That's literally instant.
At each door, I'm making a political judgement of the potential value of them seeing the leaflet and registering our presence even if they don't read it, versus upsetting a potential supporter.
Almost all those who complain are not supporters anyway.
Sometimes, if it's in big bold red letters, very tidy garden, I don't deliver. No point. Probably Reform. Why waste a leaflet.
If it's in faded small green lettering that been up for years, with a pram outside and kids toys and a tatty garden, I deliver. Probably Green. Might even read it. Possibly squeezable.
Do you have a tidy garden, or a tatty one?
If you've watched Small Prophets, you'll appreciate the difference.