Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Sherrod Brown, victor in Ohio last November, looks increasingl

13

Comments

  • TheJezziahTheJezziah Posts: 3,840
    edited January 2019
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    kinabalu said:

    @ Cyclefree (re Abbott)

    Is that really more disastrous?

    I mean as in my above post neither actually matter that much as the worst that would happen in reality is Hammond or Abbot would leave the interview and find out they were wrong (if the interviewer didn't correct them)

    To take the Hammond example we weren't actually going to be £20B off on funding it, he just got the figure wrong in an interview.

    Whilst there is something to be said for being sharp in interviews I've never been sure it is the key thing.
    Yes. Because it shows it wasn't a slip of memory.
    If you are talking about the first interview on the video you displayed* then she says I think it is about 50 seats he says it is 125 and then she says it was 100 last time I saw but it is an evolving situation.

    Without knowing what she's is actually thinking there could be lots of reasons for this one of which could be a slip of memory, if you have seen a figure (of 100) but can't remember the interviewer giving a figure could trigger your memory.

    *which is quite amusing as this first interview had nothing to do with calculations but for some reason the video had a calculator. These right wing racist types are so thick they don't even understand that, quite amusing they claim Abbot is thick when you think about it....
    The point is she does it too often. Anyone can make a mistake. That's allowed. She simply plucks figures from the air and doesn't even try to reconcile them. (Epitaph for Corbynism?)

    And even Have I Got News For You showed that clip as 'Abbott making another error with numbers.'
    The man asked her for a figure and she said what she said 'I think it is' and then said 'last I saw it was' if the first is a slip of the memory then that is very possible.

    This isn't Rory Stewart style making up of numbers to support her case.

    Edit: And TBH that wasn't exactly intelligence related either.

    She gets laughed at and mocked when she is correct or turns out to be correct. The recent question time where she was laughed at for getting her numbers wrong is the perfect example, it was others who got their numbers wrong. She was also laughed at and mocked for believing Corbyn could turn things around. I think she even said something like within a year and was right when many political watchers included many on PB would have thought she was insane to claim that.

  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,257
    ydoethur said:

    A sensible person knows their own prejudices and works to overcome them.

    I like this line.

    Not if the prejudice is against broccoli or corn on the cob, or swords & sorcery, stuff like that, the more of that sort of prejudice the better, but if it relates to people, yes this line applies.

    And - sorry for returning to Trump - this is what irks me the most about what is going on with him and his ardent supporters. Far from working to overcome their multiple primitive urges they do the opposite - they wallow in them.
  • kingbongokingbongo Posts: 393
    Amazed to see you lot are still posting about Brexit and the idiocy of the political class and not about Denmark's amazing win in the handball world championship -

    unlike brexit the time limit wasn't adjusted due to some players wanting longer for their team to work out how to score and everybody agreed that the result was based on who got the most goals; so far Norway haven't requested a replay.

    On the other hand the Danish coach had a plan his team supported and none of the danes decided to try and score for the Norwegians because they thought his strategy would mean they wouldn't win by as many goals as they wanted.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,732
    In Andrew Roberts' dystopian novel about Britain under the yoke of the United States of Europe, Matthew D'Ancona is a member of the underground resistance along with Iain Duncan Smith.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aachen_Memorandum
  • MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034
    rcs1000 said:

    I think Sherrod Brown is a good outside shot for the nomination. However, I think he would be a poor nominee and a terrible president

    I think following the disastrous outcome of the shutdown for Trump, we should also be upping the odds for non-Trump GOPers to win the White House.

    An interesting name being bandied about a bit locally is Hogan, the GOP governor of deep, deep, deepest blue Maryland. Personally, I don't see how he has a snowball's chance in hell of getting through the GOP primaries, but if he did, and if the Dems end up steering more to the left, it would be a very interesting Presidential election to watch.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,936
    kingbongo said:

    Amazed to see you lot are still posting about Brexit and the idiocy of the political class and not about Denmark's amazing win in the handball world championship -

    unlike brexit the time limit wasn't adjusted due to some players wanting longer for their team to work out how to score and everybody agreed that the result was based on who got the most goals; so far Norway haven't requested a replay.

    On the other hand the Danish coach had a plan his team supported and none of the danes decided to try and score for the Norwegians because they thought his strategy would mean they wouldn't win by as many goals as they wanted.

    Was this the first time handball has been played?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,742
    Endillion said:

    Foxy said:

    Endillion said:

    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    Apologies 'ydoether', I messed up the quotes, but replying to you about RACISM:

    Let me pivot from Diane and take the more general point that you raise.

    If a 'person of colour' gets preferential treatment on account of it, it is not IMO racist to point this out.

    For example(ish), when I watch a TV crime drama and there is just the one prominent black character in it, I know for a fact that he or she will NOT be the murderer.

    Is it racist of me to simply share that with you people on here? No.

    But if I continually go on and on and on about it - how PC diversity is just ruining decent television these days - how it's got to one of the very worst things about modern Britain - if, you know, I come over all rod liddle about it, then there's a very good chance that I am (like him) at least a teeny bit racist.

    Tricky thing, racism, because it is prevalent yet no-one ever admits to it. If we did an 'are you racist?' survey it would return close to 0% yes - we would think the problem had gone away entirely.

    Bit like (with men) 'are you a bad driver?' If we self-assessed that, there would not be any. Not even the Duke.

    And yet, as we know, there are loads. Ditto racists.

    And some of those racists are also bad drivers, I would imagine.

    Any correlation? ... er, steady on! Stop typing now. Don't overdo it.

    I don't think that you are correct.

    As ever, playing the villain is more fun, but surely not the sort of "political correctness" that you cite.
    Interesting. .
    The story of Valjean is one of repentance and redemption, with Inspector Javert as the unforgiving past that keeps re-appearing. In the end Javert cannot cope when Valjean demonstrates his reformed heart by sparing him.
    The villain is the system though surely, not its representative? Hugo is having a go at a system that destroys a man's life for trying to feed his starving family and won't let him back into society even after serving his sentence, continually pushing him back towards crime. The whole point is that all men have good inside them but circumstances force them to behave like animals, ergo something about socialism.
    I don't think Hugo is a socialist, more like Dickens as someone who believes in noblesse oblige.

    I take your point about the system, but Javert is a particularly zealous persecutor, one quite without mercy or understanding. The story is a very Catholic one, with its themes of redemption by a sort of calvary, and the ability of the priests and nuns to see the good in Valjean, and to protect him even when he does not deserve it. In such a Catholic tale, the end of Javert is a mortal sin.

  • MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034
    kinabalu said:

    ydoethur said:

    A sensible person knows their own prejudices and works to overcome them.

    I like this line.

    Not if the prejudice is against broccoli or corn on the cob, or swords & sorcery, stuff like that, the more of that sort of prejudice the better, but if it relates to people, yes this line applies.

    And - sorry for returning to Trump - this is what irks me the most about what is going on with him and his ardent supporters. Far from working to overcome their multiple primitive urges they do the opposite - they wallow in them.
    I believe it is far more sinister than that re Trump (albeit not necessarily for his supporters) - he exploits it and so encourages it.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    edited January 2019


    The man asked her for a figure and she said what she said 'I think it is' and then said 'last I saw it was' if the first is a slip of the memory then that is very possible.

    This isn't Rory Stewart style making up of numbers to support her case.

    Edit: And TBH that wasn't exactly intelligence related either.

    She gets laughed at and mocked when she is correct or turns out to be correct. The recent question time where she was laughed at for getting her numbers wrong is the perfect example, it was others who got their numbers wrong. She was also laughed at and mocked for believing Corbyn could turn things around. I think she even said something like within a year and was right when many political watchers included many on PB would have thought she was insane to claim that.


    Stopped clock syndrome. She gets laughed at because she's got a long history of getting things wrong.

    Also, you can't seriously be suggesting that she's a dispassionate observer with regards to Corbyn. Personally I lost all vestige of respect for her when their prior relationship was revealed after she'd spent months acting as cheerleader for his leadership campaign.
  • kingbongokingbongo Posts: 393
    RobD said:

    kingbongo said:

    Amazed to see you lot are still posting about Brexit and the idiocy of the political class and not about Denmark's amazing win in the handball world championship -

    unlike brexit the time limit wasn't adjusted due to some players wanting longer for their team to work out how to score and everybody agreed that the result was based on who got the most goals; so far Norway haven't requested a replay.

    On the other hand the Danish coach had a plan his team supported and none of the danes decided to try and score for the Norwegians because they thought his strategy would mean they wouldn't win by as many goals as they wanted.

    Was this the first time handball has been played?
    ha! well it was the first time Denmark's men have been in the final and won - so sort of
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,732
    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,257
    Foxy said:

    I don't think that you are correct. In the current excellent colourblind version of Les Mis on Sunday, the two main villains of the story are played by BME actors, Javert and the Innkeeper. Both very well cast and played IMO.

    As ever, playing the villain is more fun, but surely not the sort of "political correctness" that you cite.

    Ah but that is a classic where the plot is already known (if you know it).

    I was about to go on to describe the exact sorts of programmes I'm talking about, but then I remembered my own comment about how people who bang on about this are probably racist, so I had better not :-)
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    edited January 2019
    kinabalu said:

    ydoethur said:

    A sensible person knows their own prejudices and works to overcome them.

    I like this line.

    Not if the prejudice is against broccoli or corn on the cob, or swords & sorcery, stuff like that, the more of that sort of prejudice the better, but if it relates to people, yes this line applies.
    You missed out pineapple on pizza and The Last Jedi :smile:
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    Foxy said:



    I don't think Hugo is a socialist, more like Dickens as someone who believes in noblesse oblige.

    I take your point about the system, but Javert is a particularly zealous persecutor, one quite without mercy or understanding. The story is a very Catholic one, with its themes of redemption by a sort of calvary, and the ability of the priests and nuns to see the good in Valjean, and to protect him even when he does not deserve it. In such a Catholic tale, the end of Javert is a mortal sin.

    Socialist is almost certainly the wrong word, but I'm not sure noblesse oblige covers it either. I suspect Dickens is a tricky comparison point since they were products of very different environments. Certainly Hugo was very much in favour of social reform.

    Happy to accept your point on the Catholicism angle, which I hadn't previously understood - so many thanks.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    edited January 2019

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergents En Marche?
  • TheJezziahTheJezziah Posts: 3,840
    Endillion said:


    The man asked her for a figure and she said what she said 'I think it is' and then said 'last I saw it was' if the first is a slip of the memory then that is very possible.

    This isn't Rory Stewart style making up of numbers to support her case.

    Edit: And TBH that wasn't exactly intelligence related either.

    She gets laughed at and mocked when she is correct or turns out to be correct. The recent question time where she was laughed at for getting her numbers wrong is the perfect example, it was others who got their numbers wrong. She was also laughed at and mocked for believing Corbyn could turn things around. I think she even said something like within a year and was right when many political watchers included many on PB would have thought she was insane to claim that.


    Stopped clock syndrome. She gets laughed at because she's got a long history of getting things wrong.

    Also, you can't seriously be suggesting that she's a dispassionate observer with regards to Corbyn. Personally I lost all vestige of respect for her when their prior relationship was revealed after she'd spent months acting as cheerleader for his leadership campaign.
    She gets laughed at because she gets laughed at, the problem is the right wing morons laughing at her are often wrong, they don't realise this though so keep laughing. She does as every politician get things wrong as well.

    I suppose at least your 2nd paragraph isn't the usual misogynistic/racist line about getting the job because she slept with Corbyn previously.

    She is very left wing herself, her Corbyn and other left wingers are all in the same campaign group and have very similar political beliefs, do you have any reason to believe she wouldn't have supported John McDonnell just as much?

    I don't think many people interesting in politics would deny that her and Corbyn are similar (and Mcdonnell) which is usually enough for people to cheerlead for each other.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,732
    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,257
    edited January 2019
    Sean_F said:

    To be fair, we all have prejudices. That's human. At one end, prejudice is harmless, at the other end, it's murderous.

    True. As a general rule, harmless if not directed against people. Or if done so only joshingly amongst friends.

    Although this latter - joshing - I've sometimes seen that cross the line into murky waters.

    Most people are fine, of course. One does not want to imply otherwise.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426

    She gets laughed at because she gets laughed at, the problem is the right wing morons laughing at her are often wrong, they don't realise this though so keep laughing. She does as every politician get things wrong as well.

    I suppose at least your 2nd paragraph isn't the usual misogynistic/racist line about getting the job because she slept with Corbyn previously.

    She is very left wing herself, her Corbyn and other left wingers are all in the same campaign group and have very similar political beliefs, do you have any reason to believe she wouldn't have supported John McDonnell just as much?

    I don't think many people interesting in politics would deny that her and Corbyn are similar (and Mcdonnell) which is usually enough for people to cheerlead for each other.

    Stewart, Hammond, Boris, Gove, Cummings, May, Letwin, Redwood, all these get laughed at when they make mistakes like this.

    But they don't keep on doing it (well, OK, Gove and Cummings aside) so they don't keep getting laughed at.

    While it is true Abbott does come in for a lot of racist and sexist abuse, she also comes in for a lot of stick because she simply isn't very good at what she does. Yet she does at least sometimes seem to try to hide behind her race and her gender to deflect criticism.

    As with Israel, which we have discussed before, it then becomes difficult to disentangle where one ends and the other begins.
  • TheJezziahTheJezziah Posts: 3,840
    ydoethur said:

    She gets laughed at because she gets laughed at, the problem is the right wing morons laughing at her are often wrong, they don't realise this though so keep laughing. She does as every politician get things wrong as well.

    I suppose at least your 2nd paragraph isn't the usual misogynistic/racist line about getting the job because she slept with Corbyn previously.

    She is very left wing herself, her Corbyn and other left wingers are all in the same campaign group and have very similar political beliefs, do you have any reason to believe she wouldn't have supported John McDonnell just as much?

    I don't think many people interesting in politics would deny that her and Corbyn are similar (and Mcdonnell) which is usually enough for people to cheerlead for each other.

    Stewart, Hammond, Boris, Gove, Cummings, May, Letwin, Redwood, all these get laughed at when they make mistakes like this.

    But they don't keep on doing it (well, OK, Gove and Cummings aside) so they don't keep getting laughed at.

    While it is true Abbott does come in for a lot of racist and sexist abuse, she also comes in for a lot of stick because she simply isn't very good at what she does. Yet she does at least sometimes seem to try to hide behind her race and her gender to deflect criticism.

    As with Israel, which we have discussed before, it then becomes difficult to disentangle where one ends and the other begins.
    TBH you generally regard most of those on the left as not very good, although in fairness I have learnt over time that you just generally give spectacularly bad reviews to everyone, everyone seems to come in for harsher criticism (so there is a fairness to it) but harsher still for the left because that isn't where you are politically, which is fair enough. I'll just have to disagree with you that she stands out as worthy of extra criticism, much like the earliest Black footballers she gets judged to a higher standard.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426

    ydoethur said:

    She gets laughed at because she gets laughed at, the problem is the right wing morons laughing at her are often wrong, they don't realise this though so keep laughing. She does as every politician get things wrong as well.

    I suppose at least your 2nd paragraph isn't the usual misogynistic/racist line about getting the job because she slept with Corbyn previously.

    She is very left wing herself, her Corbyn and other left wingers are all in the same campaign group and have very similar political beliefs, do you have any reason to believe she wouldn't have supported John McDonnell just as much?

    I don't think many people interesting in politics would deny that her and Corbyn are similar (and Mcdonnell) which is usually enough for people to cheerlead for each other.

    Stewart, Hammond, Boris, Gove, Cummings, May, Letwin, Redwood, all these get laughed at when they make mistakes like this.

    But they don't keep on doing it (well, OK, Gove and Cummings aside) so they don't keep getting laughed at.

    While it is true Abbott does come in for a lot of racist and sexist abuse, she also comes in for a lot of stick because she simply isn't very good at what she does. Yet she does at least sometimes seem to try to hide behind her race and her gender to deflect criticism.

    As with Israel, which we have discussed before, it then becomes difficult to disentangle where one ends and the other begins.
    TBH you generally regard most of those on the left as not very good.
    Well, they're not.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,257

    You have had plenty of footballers from the past talking about similar experiences, even aside from the overt racism there was always just extra demands on them and people will to pull them up twice as much over the slightest mistake, the crowd was never as forgiving with the Black players. It is why Diane gets claimed as some kind of moron who doesn't understand numbers and the idea successfully catches when she makes a single mistake on police numbers in the build up to the election.

    I think it was around the same time Hammond underestimated HS2 by about £20B, a far bigger and more serious error than Abbotts.

    The stupid thing is neither of those were actually based on maths ability, neither person was presented sums they had to figure out to get the right answer. The problem was memory. Which is kind of funny that you have some right wingers laughing at her for not being good at numeracy and variations on that when they aren't even smart enough to figure out her memory was the issue in that incident.

    I bet Diane could figure that out, she is a bit smarter than most of her critics in fairness...

    Yes, I remember the Hammond gaffe. Did not bother me one iota.

    Football is an interesting case study in another respect. The playing side is a rare example (these days in this country) of a pure meritocracy.

    No bias whatsoever towards privately educated white people.

    Reason? Because there's no hiding place. It really is about ability.
  • ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergents En Marche?
    Separateurs!
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,257
    MTimT said:

    I believe it is far more sinister than that re Trump (albeit not necessarily for his supporters) - he exploits it and so encourages it.

    Of course you are right. He is playing them for suckers. And succeeding, one has to say, because to a great extent they are. But hopefully not sufficiently so and not in sufficient numbers to get him a 2nd term.
  • A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    My vest is yellower than yours ?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    ydoethur said:

    She gets laughed at because she gets laughed at, the problem is the right wing morons laughing at her are often wrong, they don't realise this though so keep laughing. She does as every politician get things wrong as well.

    I suppose at least your 2nd paragraph isn't the usual misogynistic/racist line about getting the job because she slept with Corbyn previously.

    She is very left wing herself, her Corbyn and other left wingers are all in the same campaign group and have very similar political beliefs, do you have any reason to believe she wouldn't have supported John McDonnell just as much?

    I don't think many people interesting in politics would deny that her and Corbyn are similar (and Mcdonnell) which is usually enough for people to cheerlead for each other.

    Stewart, Hammond, Boris, Gove, Cummings, May, Letwin, Redwood, all these get laughed at when they make mistakes like this.

    But they don't keep on doing it (well, OK, Gove and Cummings aside) so they don't keep getting laughed at.

    While it is true Abbott does come in for a lot of racist and sexist abuse, she also comes in for a lot of stick because she simply isn't very good at what she does. Yet she does at least sometimes seem to try to hide behind her race and her gender to deflect criticism.

    As with Israel, which we have discussed before, it then becomes difficult to disentangle where one ends and the other begins.
    Mostly agree.
    But, in a way, Dianne *is* good at what she does. She has been a prominent public figure for 30 years, that’s very good going.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,138

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,138
    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
    Um...(bluffs it)...oui?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
    Um...(bluffs it)...oui?
    Nous allons kidnapper la femme de Macron, émettre des demandes.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Not new news.
    Actually what he says make sense.
    Until you try to translate it into actual policy.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,163
    And thus will Corbyn also try to avoid facing the actual decision before us now as well. It's why I presume enough will back the Cooper plan, it gives them more time to avoid taking a stance on the actually available options.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,163

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Feels like with all this splitting that Macron has ridden this one out.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,780
    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
    Um...(bluffs it)...oui?
    Nous allons kidnapper la femme de Macron, émettre des demandes.
    Bon!

    Avec frittes?
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976

    ydoethur said:

    She gets laughed at because she gets laughed at, the problem is the right wing morons laughing at her are often wrong, they don't realise this though so keep laughing. She does as every politician get things wrong as well.

    I suppose at least your 2nd paragraph isn't the usual misogynistic/racist line about getting the job because she slept with Corbyn previously.

    She is very left wing herself, her Corbyn and other left wingers are all in the same campaign group and have very similar political beliefs, do you have any reason to believe she wouldn't have supported John McDonnell just as much?

    I don't think many people interesting in politics would deny that her and Corbyn are similar (and Mcdonnell) which is usually enough for people to cheerlead for each other.

    Stewart, Hammond, Boris, Gove, Cummings, May, Letwin, Redwood, all these get laughed at when they make mistakes like this.

    But they don't keep on doing it (well, OK, Gove and Cummings aside) so they don't keep getting laughed at.

    While it is true Abbott does come in for a lot of racist and sexist abuse, she also comes in for a lot of stick because she simply isn't very good at what she does. Yet she does at least sometimes seem to try to hide behind her race and her gender to deflect criticism.

    As with Israel, which we have discussed before, it then becomes difficult to disentangle where one ends and the other begins.
    Mostly agree.
    But, in a way, Dianne *is* good at what she does. She has been a prominent public figure for 30 years, that’s very good going.
    She may well be a fine local MP. I have no confidence in her abilities as a putative Home Secretary.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,705

    In Andrew Roberts' dystopian novel about Britain under the yoke of the United States of Europe, Matthew D'Ancona is a member of the underground resistance along with Iain Duncan Smith.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aachen_Memorandum
    According to Wiki, in the novel Roberts had the 'status quo' side losing a 2015 referendum by 51.86% to 48.14% - incredibly close to the 51.89% to 48.11% result of the actual EU Ref.

    The winning side is later found to have committed fraud apparently - fancy that!

    I am usually a fan of alternative histories but I think I'll give this one a miss, especially as the author himself says of the book "I failed so badly on all levels that I now beg friends not to read it" - which probably shows a level of honesty beyond that which his publisher would wish for.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,138
    Omnium said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
    Um...(bluffs it)...oui?
    Nous allons kidnapper la femme de Macron, émettre des demandes.
    Bon!

    Avec frittes?
    Kidnapping Macron's wife...with chips?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,732

    In Andrew Roberts' dystopian novel about Britain under the yoke of the United States of Europe, Matthew D'Ancona is a member of the underground resistance along with Iain Duncan Smith.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aachen_Memorandum
    According to Wiki, in the novel Roberts had the 'status quo' side losing a 2015 referendum by 51.86% to 48.14% - incredibly close to the 51.89% to 48.11% result of the actual EU Ref.

    The winning side is later found to have committed fraud apparently - fancy that!

    I am usually a fan of alternative histories but I think I'll give this one a miss, especially as the author himself says of the book "I failed so badly on all levels that I now beg friends not to read it" - which probably shows a level of honesty beyond that which his publisher would wish for.
    It's currently 99p on Kindle if you're tempted. (I haven't read it.)
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,138
    Perhaps somebody can enlighten me with McCluskey's salary...
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,389

    Sean_F said:

    notme2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    notme2 said:

    Chris said:

    tpfkar said:


    I'm having more and more moments where I wish we could have no deal for a fortnight, I just wonder whether we have to fall over the cliff edge to believe it's real and to discredit those who've been tempting us over.

    Hmm.

    BuU?
    If we are going to jump off the cliff of a no deal, unless a whole series of mini agreements are put through before hand theres no coming back. The train wreck will unfold, and theres little you can do to stop it.
    ed.
    The WA itself, no, because by definition once we're out, the treaties will cease to apply and wea full ratification by the EU27 member states.
    Yage.
    The EU have said that they’d need to follow article 49 which covers entry. The difficult bits would be how we could rejoin while keeping our opn the EU side would require unanimity, and there would need to be constitutional referenda in several member states in order to ratify.
    We aint going back in if we leave. The best remainers could hope for would be norway model with a swiss style process of step by step opt into different institutions etc.

    If we rejected our membership on the current dreadful deal, how likely are we to re-enter on what would be a punitive deal?
    We are going to rejoin. Why would the terms be punitive? What even is the meaning of punitive in this context? A lot of people on this very forum object to things that others on it regard as benefits.

    We can't to back to 2016, let alone 1971. Our new membership will be different to the one we've left behind. I'm hoping we'll finally start playing a full positive role and reaping the full benefits. I think once we've got the euroskeptics plain sailing.
    The eurosceptics are the root and marrow of the Conservative Party. You might just as well wish for the removal of monarchists or capitalists from the Conservatives.
    So we hear, but it we heard the same about die hard ideological socialists in the Labour Party in the eighties. But it turned out they were flexible enough to shift to a more elector friendly position when the right leader turned up. And try the thought experiment of how a narrow remain win would have affected the Tories under Cameron. I have a feeling a lot of them would have decided that the EU was not so bad after all.

    The Vicar of Bray would be at home in both the main parties.
    In the end, the ideological socialists won.


  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,780
    viewcode said:

    Omnium said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
    Um...(bluffs it)...oui?
    Nous allons kidnapper la femme de Macron, émettre des demandes.
    Bon!

    Avec frittes?
    Kidnapping Macron's wife...with chips?
    You can choose not to have the chips too.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I'm loving the idea that Trump, winning less votes than Romney, has created a massive bulwark for the GOP by barley moving their vote share.

    Let us ignore the elephant in the room of Hillary shedding 10 percentage points of the Dem vote.

    Trump won states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for the first time for the Republicans since 1988 because he brought in the type of blue collar Democrat who had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since the Reagan era.
    He got less votes than Romney. He got less votes.

    Hillary lost the states by moving backwards.
    No he did not get fewer votes, Trump got more votes than Romney in Iowa and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio (fractionally less in Wisconsin) ie the key Midwestern and rustbelt swing states where it mattered in order to win the Electoral College. Even if Romney got a higher voteshare in the popular vote nationwide than Trump (but still fewer votes than Trump nationwide) the popular vote does not determine the Presidency, the Electoral College does
    I was specifically talking about Wisconsin with the less votes comment.
    AAAAAAAARGHHHHH!

    Sir, do you order pineapple on pizza while watching The Last Jedi?
    I hope you are not getting annoyed about any purported breaking of a completely bogus and utterly made up gramatical "rule" that is utterly unsupported by any contemporary analysis.
    No.

    I'm getting annoyed at you using 'less' when it should be 'fewer!' :smile:
    If Alfred the Great can use less in such a situation I feel confident that I can too.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,389

    In Andrew Roberts' dystopian novel about Britain under the yoke of the United States of Europe, Matthew D'Ancona is a member of the underground resistance along with Iain Duncan Smith.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aachen_Memorandum
    Whereas, it turns out that d'Ancona would have been on the other side.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,138
    edited January 2019

    In Andrew Roberts' dystopian novel about Britain under the yoke of the United States of Europe, Matthew D'Ancona is a member of the underground resistance along with Iain Duncan Smith.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aachen_Memorandum
    According to Wiki, in the novel Roberts had the 'status quo' side losing a 2015 referendum by 51.86% to 48.14% - incredibly close to the 51.89% to 48.11% result of the actual EU Ref.

    The winning side is later found to have committed fraud apparently - fancy that!

    I am usually a fan of alternative histories but I think I'll give this one a miss, especially as the author himself says of the book "I failed so badly on all levels that I now beg friends not to read it" - which probably shows a level of honesty beyond that which his publisher would wish for.
    There was a science fiction novel in this decade or thereabouts whose setting was a German dominated European mainland with the UK outside it. Can anybody enlighten me? Not Fatherland nor The Man in the High Castle.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I'm loving the idea that Trump, winning less votes than Romney, has created a massive bulwark for the GOP by barley moving their vote share.

    Let us ignore the elephant in the room of Hillary shedding 10 percentage points of the Dem vote.

    Trump won states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for the first time for the Republicans since 1988 because he brought in the type of blue collar Democrat who had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since the Reagan era.
    He got less votes than Romney. He got less votes.

    Hillary lost the states by moving backwards.
    No he did not get fewer votes, Trump got more votes than Romney in Iowa and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio (fractionally less in Wisconsin) ie the key Midwestern and rustbelt swing states where it mattered in order to win the Electoral College. Even if Romney got a higher voteshare in the popular vote nationwide than Trump (but still fewer votes than Trump nationwide) the popular vote does not determine the Presidency, the Electoral College does
    I was specifically talking about Wisconsin with the less votes comment.
    AAAAAAAARGHHHHH!

    Sir, do you order pineapple on pizza while watching The Last Jedi?
    I hope you are not getting annoyed about any purported breaking of a completely bogus and utterly made up gramatical "rule" that is utterly unsupported by any contemporary analysis.
    No.

    I'm getting annoyed at you using 'less' when it should be 'fewer!' :smile:
    If Alfred the Great can use less in such a situation I feel confident that I can too.
    Aelfred didn't speak English!
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,138
    Omnium said:

    viewcode said:

    Omnium said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
    Um...(bluffs it)...oui?
    Nous allons kidnapper la femme de Macron, émettre des demandes.
    Bon!

    Avec frittes?
    Kidnapping Macron's wife...with chips?
    You can choose not to have the chips too.
    So kidnapping Macron's wife, hold the chips.

    Weirdest French Restaurant Evah.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    Omnium said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
    Um...(bluffs it)...oui?
    Nous allons kidnapper la femme de Macron, émettre des demandes.
    Bon!

    Avec frittes?
    Non - avec le nez de la loutre.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I'm loving the idea that Trump, winning less votes than Romney, has created a massive bulwark for the GOP by barley moving their vote share.

    Let us ignore the elephant in the room of Hillary shedding 10 percentage points of the Dem vote.

    Trump won states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for the first time for the Republicans since 1988 because he brought in the type of blue collar Democrat who had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since the Reagan era.
    He got less votes than Romney. He got less votes.

    Hillary lost the states by moving backwards.
    No he did not get fewer votes, Trump got more votes than Romney in Iowa and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio (fractionally less in Wisconsin) ie the key Midwestern and rustbelt swing states where it mattered in order to win the Electoral College. Even if Romney got a higher voteshare in the popular vote nationwide than Trump (but still fewer votes than Trump nationwide) the popular vote does not determine the Presidency, the Electoral College does
    I was specifically talking about Wisconsin with the less votes comment.
    AAAAAAAARGHHHHH!

    Sir, do you order pineapple on pizza while watching The Last Jedi?
    I hope you are not getting annoyed about any purported breaking of a completely bogus and utterly made up gramatical "rule" that is utterly unsupported by any contemporary analysis.
    No.

    I'm getting annoyed at you using 'less' when it should be 'fewer!' :smile:
    If Alfred the Great can use less in such a situation I feel confident that I can too.
    Aelfred didn't speak English!
    Wait, you are saying the king credited with the promotion of the English language didn't do English? Its a view I suppose.

    On the subject of the ridiculous prescriptive grammar rule the Wikipedia article is actually surprisingly good and well referenced. And shows how utterly bogus it is.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_versus_less
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,012
    edited January 2019
    viewcode said:

    In Andrew Roberts' dystopian novel about Britain under the yoke of the United States of Europe, Matthew D'Ancona is a member of the underground resistance along with Iain Duncan Smith.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aachen_Memorandum
    According to Wiki, in the novel Roberts had the 'status quo' side losing a 2015 referendum by 51.86% to 48.14% - incredibly close to the 51.89% to 48.11% result of the actual EU Ref.

    The winning side is later found to have committed fraud apparently - fancy that!

    I am usually a fan of alternative histories but I think I'll give this one a miss, especially as the author himself says of the book "I failed so badly on all levels that I now beg friends not to read it" - which probably shows a level of honesty beyond that which his publisher would wish for.
    There was a science fiction novel in this decade or thereabouts whose setting was a German dominated European mainland with the UK outside it. Can anybody enlighten me? Not Fatherland nor The Man in the High Castle.
    Not Dominion I guess since in that the UK was in supine vassalage to the greater Reich?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,163
    edited January 2019
    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I'm loving the idea that Trump, winning less votes than Romney, has created a massive bulwark for the GOP by barley moving their vote share.

    Let us ignore the elephant in the room of Hillary shedding 10 percentage points of the Dem vote.

    Trump won states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for the first time for the Republicans since 1988 because he brought in the type of blue collar Democrat who had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since the Reagan era.
    He got less votes than Romney. He got less votes.

    Hillary lost the states by moving backwards.
    No he did not get fewer votes, Trump got more votes than Romney in Iowa and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio (fractionally less in Wisconsin) ie the key Midwestern and rustbelt swing states where it mattered in order to win the Electoral College. Even if Romney got a higher voteshare in the popular vote nationwide than Trump (but still fewer votes than Trump nationwide) the popular vote does not determine the Presidency, the Electoral College does
    I was specifically talking about Wisconsin with the less votes comment.
    AAAAAAAARGHHHHH!

    Sir, do you order pineapple on pizza while watching The Last Jedi?
    I hope you are not getting annoyed about any purported breaking of a completely bogus and utterly made up gramatical "rule" that is utterly unsupported by any contemporary analysis.
    No.

    I'm getting annoyed at you using 'less' when it should be 'fewer!' :smile:
    If Alfred the Great can use less in such a situation I feel confident that I can too.
    Aelfred didn't speak English!
    Wait, you are saying the king credited with the promotion of the English language didn't do English? Its a view I suppose.

    On the subject of the ridiculous prescriptive grammar rule the Wikipedia article is actually surprisingly good and well referenced. And shows how utterly bogus it is.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_versus_less
    I'm always of the view that if the meaning was perfectly well understood what harm is done by using language in a particular way. There are times when the words could not substitute for each other, but most of the time they can. That being the case, why do people get so upset? It's self evidently not about clarity of language, so what is it about?
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,780
    viewcode said:

    Omnium said:

    viewcode said:

    Omnium said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
    Um...(bluffs it)...oui?
    Nous allons kidnapper la femme de Macron, émettre des demandes.
    Bon!

    Avec frittes?
    Kidnapping Macron's wife...with chips?
    You can choose not to have the chips too.
    So kidnapping Macron's wife, hold the chips.

    Weirdest French Restaurant Evah.
    Boite les sugestions ces't pas! Gouverneur!
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,138

    viewcode said:

    In Andrew Roberts' dystopian novel about Britain under the yoke of the United States of Europe, Matthew D'Ancona is a member of the underground resistance along with Iain Duncan Smith.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aachen_Memorandum
    According to Wiki, in the novel Roberts had the 'status quo' side losing a 2015 referendum by 51.86% to 48.14% - incredibly close to the 51.89% to 48.11% result of the actual EU Ref.

    The winning side is later found to have committed fraud apparently - fancy that!

    I am usually a fan of alternative histories but I think I'll give this one a miss, especially as the author himself says of the book "I failed so badly on all levels that I now beg friends not to read it" - which probably shows a level of honesty beyond that which his publisher would wish for.
    There was a science fiction novel in this decade or thereabouts whose setting was a German dominated European mainland with the UK outside it. Can anybody enlighten me? Not Fatherland nor The Man in the High Castle.
    Not Dominion I guess since in that the UK was in supine vassalage to the greater Reich?
    My god, do y'know I think it is! I was leafing thru it in a bookshop some years ago but did not buy it because money. I do remember the map inside the front cover and such a map occurs in Dominion. Well done you!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I'm loving the idea that Trump, winning less votes than Romney, has created a massive bulwark for the GOP by barley moving their vote share.

    Let us ignore the elephant in the room of Hillary shedding 10 percentage points of the Dem vote.

    Trump won states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for the first time for the Republicans since 1988 because he brought in the type of blue collar Democrat who had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since the Reagan era.
    He got less votes than Romney. He got less votes.

    Hillary lost the states by moving backwards.
    No he did not get fewer votes, Trump got more votes than Romney in Iowa and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio (fractionally less in Wisconsin) ie the key Midwestern and rustbelt swing states where it mattered in order to win the Electoral College. Even if Romney got a higher voteshare in the popular vote nationwide than Trump (but still fewer votes than Trump nationwide) the popular vote does not determine the Presidency, the Electoral College does
    I was specifically talking about Wisconsin with the less votes comment.
    AAAAAAAARGHHHHH!

    Sir, do you order pineapple on pizza while watching The Last Jedi?
    I hope you are not getting annoyed about any purported breaking of a completely bogus and utterly made up gramatical "rule" that is utterly unsupported by any contemporary analysis.
    No.

    I'm getting annoyed at you using 'less' when it should be 'fewer!' :smile:
    If Alfred the Great can use less in such a situation I feel confident that I can too.
    Aelfred didn't speak English!
    Wait, you are saying the king credited with the promotion of the English language didn't do English? Its a view I suppose.

    On the subject of the ridiculous prescriptive grammar rule the Wikipedia article is actually surprisingly good and well referenced. And shows how utterly bogus it is.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_versus_less
    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    viewcode said:

    Omnium said:

    viewcode said:

    Omnium said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
    Um...(bluffs it)...oui?
    Nous allons kidnapper la femme de Macron, émettre des demandes.
    Bon!

    Avec frittes?
    Kidnapping Macron's wife...with chips?
    You can choose not to have the chips too.
    So kidnapping Macron's wife, hold the chips.

    Weirdest French Restaurant Evah.
    Kidnapping Macron's wife would doubtless be a burger...
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    edited January 2019
    kle4 said:



    I'm always of the view that if the meaning was perfectly well understood what harm is done by using language in a particular way. There are times when the words could not substitute for each other, but most of the time they can. That being the case, why do people get so upset? It's self evidently not about clarity of language, so what is it about?

    It's about what people think grammar is. Prescritivists think grammar is a Platonic set of rules that sprang from the ether fully formed that language use must adhere to.

    Actual people who study language know that grammar is the study of language as it is used.

    It's about gate keeping and feeling superior
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,138
    Omnium said:

    viewcode said:

    Omnium said:

    viewcode said:

    Omnium said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
    Um...(bluffs it)...oui?
    Nous allons kidnapper la femme de Macron, émettre des demandes.
    Bon!

    Avec frittes?
    Kidnapping Macron's wife...with chips?
    You can choose not to have the chips too.
    So kidnapping Macron's wife, hold the chips.

    Weirdest French Restaurant Evah.
    Boite les sugestions ces't pas! Gouverneur!
    Le sange. Est. Dans. L'arbre.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,163
    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I'm loving the idea that Trump, winning less votes than Romney, has created a massive bulwark for the GOP by barley moving their vote share.

    Let us ignore the elephant in the room of Hillary shedding 10 percentage points of the Dem vote.

    Trump won states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for the first time for the Republicans since 1988 because he brought in the type of blue collar Democrat who had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since the Reagan era.
    He got less votes than Romney. He got less votes.

    Hillary lost the states by moving backwards.
    No he did not get fewer votes, Trump got more votes than Romney in Iowa and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio (fractionally less in Wisconsin) ie the key Midwestern and rustbelt swing states where it mattered in order to win the Electoral College. Even if Romney got a higher voteshare in the popular vote nationwide than Trump (but still fewer votes than Trump nationwide) the popular vote does not determine the Presidency, the Electoral College does
    I was specifically talking about Wisconsin with the less votes comment.
    AAAAAAAARGHHHHH!

    Sir, do you order pineapple on pizza while watching The Last Jedi?
    I hope you are not getting annoyed about any purported breaking of a completely bogus and utterly made up gramatical "rule" that is utterly unsupported by any contemporary analysis.
    No.

    I'm getting annoyed at you using 'less' when it should be 'fewer!' :smile:
    If Alfred the Great can use less in such a situation I feel confident that I can too.
    Aelfred didn't speak English!
    Wait, you are saying the king credited with the promotion of the English language didn't do English? Its a view I suppose.

    On the subject of the ridiculous prescriptive grammar rule the Wikipedia article is actually surprisingly good and well referenced. And shows how utterly bogus it is.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_versus_less
    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...
    Everybody knows from movies that the Romans spoke English, with regional British accents as appropriate.
  • viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    In Andrew Roberts' dystopian novel about Britain under the yoke of the United States of Europe, Matthew D'Ancona is a member of the underground resistance along with Iain Duncan Smith.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aachen_Memorandum
    According to Wiki, in the novel Roberts had the 'status quo' side losing a 2015 referendum by 51.86% to 48.14% - incredibly close to the 51.89% to 48.11% result of the actual EU Ref.

    The winning side is later found to have committed fraud apparently - fancy that!

    I am usually a fan of alternative histories but I think I'll give this one a miss, especially as the author himself says of the book "I failed so badly on all levels that I now beg friends not to read it" - which probably shows a level of honesty beyond that which his publisher would wish for.
    There was a science fiction novel in this decade or thereabouts whose setting was a German dominated European mainland with the UK outside it. Can anybody enlighten me? Not Fatherland nor The Man in the High Castle.
    Not Dominion I guess since in that the UK was in supine vassalage to the greater Reich?
    My god, do y'know I think it is! I was leafing thru it in a bookshop some years ago but did not buy it because money. I do remember the map inside the front cover and such a map occurs in Dominion. Well done you!
    Inferior to Fatherland & SS-GB I thought. I may be prejudiced because of a weird, semi-deranged rant against the SNP at the end of the book, but I don't think that's the reason.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Everybody knows from movies that the Romans spoke English, with regional British accents as appropriate.
    Not that long ago, there was a crank conspiracy theorist called Dorothy Murdoch who claimed that Jesus and Ra were the same person because Ra was the Sun God and Jesus was the Son of God.

    She didn't seem to spot the minor problem that neither culture spoke English...
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,780
    viewcode said:

    Omnium said:

    viewcode said:

    Omnium said:

    viewcode said:

    Omnium said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    ydoethur said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Les Émergens En Marche?
    Les Gilets Jaunes de Judée.
    Non. Les Gilets Jaune aux Judee Populaire. Les splitteurs.
    Campagne Gascogne Libre?
    Um...(bluffs it)...oui?
    Nous allons kidnapper la femme de Macron, émettre des demandes.
    Bon!

    Avec frittes?
    Kidnapping Macron's wife...with chips?
    You can choose not to have the chips too.
    So kidnapping Macron's wife, hold the chips.

    Weirdest French Restaurant Evah.
    Boite les sugestions ces't pas! Gouverneur!
    Le sange. Est. Dans. L'arbre.
    Now you're getting to specialist territory.(As you may have guessed, I don't speak any French. Aber mein Deutsch ist Zuberflutewunderbar!
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,389
    ydoethur said:

    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Everybody knows from movies that the Romans spoke English, with regional British accents as appropriate.
    Not that long ago, there was a crank conspiracy theorist called Dorothy Murdoch who claimed that Jesus and Ra were the same person because Ra was the Sun God and Jesus was the Son of God.

    She didn't seem to spot the minor problem that neither culture spoke English...
    The Jesus Mythicists are very odd.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    edited January 2019
    Sean_F said:

    ydoethur said:

    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Everybody knows from movies that the Romans spoke English, with regional British accents as appropriate.
    Not that long ago, there was a crank conspiracy theorist called Dorothy Murdoch who claimed that Jesus and Ra were the same person because Ra was the Sun God and Jesus was the Son of God.

    She didn't seem to spot the minor problem that neither culture spoke English...
    The Jesus Mythicists are very odd.
    Richard Carrier is the funniest, although in the mythicist field I gather his mathematics (confusing frequency and probability) is his real weakness. In history, his most serious fraud was probably his 2003 work on Hitler, which claimed among other things that Irving was not a Holocaust denier.

    But I loved his libel action. The surreal way he tried to prove he wasn't a serial sexual harasser by publishing emails where he serially sexually harassed a number of different women before the judge accused him of lying to a court anyway was just hilarious.

    I shouldn't laugh I suppose, but the tin-eared nature of that was bizarre.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,732
    ydoethur said:

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    They did the last time I was there.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,138

    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    In Andrew Roberts' dystopian novel about Britain under the yoke of the United States of Europe, Matthew D'Ancona is a member of the underground resistance along with Iain Duncan Smith.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aachen_Memorandum
    According to Wiki, in the novel Roberts had the 'status quo' side losing a 2015 referendum by 51.86% to 48.14% - incredibly close to the 51.89% to 48.11% result of the actual EU Ref.

    The winning side is later found to have committed fraud apparently - fancy that!

    I am usually a fan of alternative histories but I think I'll give this one a miss, especially as the author himself says of the book "I failed so badly on all levels that I now beg friends not to read it" - which probably shows a level of honesty beyond that which his publisher would wish for.
    There was a science fiction novel in this decade or thereabouts whose setting was a German dominated European mainland with the UK outside it. Can anybody enlighten me? Not Fatherland nor The Man in the High Castle.
    Not Dominion I guess since in that the UK was in supine vassalage to the greater Reich?
    My god, do y'know I think it is! I was leafing thru it in a bookshop some years ago but did not buy it because money. I do remember the map inside the front cover and such a map occurs in Dominion. Well done you!
    Inferior to Fatherland & SS-GB I thought. I may be prejudiced because of a weird, semi-deranged rant against the SNP at the end of the book, but I don't think that's the reason.
    Both books have an inherent problem: the status quo postbellum is retained, as neither protagonist can overthrow the established Nazi state. So they both kind of peter out. However I enjoyed both and now I can afford books I'll see if Waterstones can get Dominion for me.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    edited January 2019

    ydoethur said:

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    They did the last time I was there.
    You were in Ancient Rome?

    I'm reminded of a friend who wrote a doctoral thesis on the Roman Army. His Learning Support Worker, in reading through, changed every instance of 'Roman' to 'Italian.'
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,732
    edited January 2019
    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    In Andrew Roberts' dystopian novel about Britain under the yoke of the United States of Europe, Matthew D'Ancona is a member of the underground resistance along with Iain Duncan Smith.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aachen_Memorandum
    According to Wiki, in the novel Roberts had the 'status quo' side losing a 2015 referendum by 51.86% to 48.14% - incredibly close to the 51.89% to 48.11% result of the actual EU Ref.

    The winning side is later found to have committed fraud apparently - fancy that!

    I am usually a fan of alternative histories but I think I'll give this one a miss, especially as the author himself says of the book "I failed so badly on all levels that I now beg friends not to read it" - which probably shows a level of honesty beyond that which his publisher would wish for.
    There was a science fiction novel in this decade or thereabouts whose setting was a German dominated European mainland with the UK outside it. Can anybody enlighten me? Not Fatherland nor The Man in the High Castle.
    Not Dominion I guess since in that the UK was in supine vassalage to the greater Reich?
    My god, do y'know I think it is! I was leafing thru it in a bookshop some years ago but did not buy it because money. I do remember the map inside the front cover and such a map occurs in Dominion. Well done you!
    Inferior to Fatherland & SS-GB I thought. I may be prejudiced because of a weird, semi-deranged rant against the SNP at the end of the book, but I don't think that's the reason.
    Both books have an inherent problem: the status quo postbellum is retained, as neither protagonist can overthrow the established Nazi state. So they both kind of peter out. However I enjoyed both and now I can afford books I'll see if Waterstones can get Dominion for me.
    Fintan O'Toole's book on Brexit, 'Heroic Failure', talks about how the themes of SS-GB and Fatherland play a role in the Brexiteer psyche. Nicholas Ridley said he'd prefer to be invaded than get subsumed into the EU because at least there'd be "the chance to fight back".
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,138
    edited January 2019

    ydoethur said:

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    They did the last time I was there.
    If I recall correctly, when Catholic services were held in Latin, the pronounciation in France was different to the pronounciation in Quebec, as one was pronounced in a similar way to modern Italian and one in what was believed to be how the Romans pronounced it. Happy to be corrected if wrong.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,138

    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    In Andrew Roberts' dystopian novel about Britain under the yoke of the United States of Europe, Matthew D'Ancona is a member of the underground resistance along with Iain Duncan Smith.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aachen_Memorandum
    According to Wiki, in the novel Roberts had the 'status quo' side losing a 2015 referendum by 51.86% to 48.14% - incredibly close to the 51.89% to 48.11% result of the actual EU Ref.

    The winning side is later found to have committed fraud apparently - fancy that!

    I am usually a fan of alternative histories but I think I'll give this one a miss, especially as the author himself says of the book "I failed so badly on all levels that I now beg friends not to read it" - which probably shows a level of honesty beyond that which his publisher would wish for.
    There was a science fiction novel in this decade or thereabouts whose setting was a German dominated European mainland with the UK outside it. Can anybody enlighten me? Not Fatherland nor The Man in the High Castle.
    Not Dominion I guess since in that the UK was in supine vassalage to the greater Reich?
    My god, do y'know I think it is! I was leafing thru it in a bookshop some years ago but did not buy it because money. I do remember the map inside the front cover and such a map occurs in Dominion. Well done you!
    Inferior to Fatherland & SS-GB I thought. I may be prejudiced because of a weird, semi-deranged rant against the SNP at the end of the book, but I don't think that's the reason.
    Both books have an inherent problem: the status quo postbellum is retained, as neither protagonist can overthrow the established Nazi state. So they both kind of peter out. However I enjoyed both and now I can afford books I'll see if Waterstones can get Dominion for me.
    Fintan O'Toole's book on Brexit, 'Heroic Failure', talks how the themes of SS-GB and Fatherland play a role in the Brexiteer psyche. Nicholas Ridley said he'd prefer to be invaded than get subsumed into the EU because at least there'd be "the chance to fight back".
    Indeed.
  • RecidivistRecidivist Posts: 4,679
    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    notme2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    notme2 said:

    Chris said:

    tpfkar said:


    I'm having more and more moments where I wish we could have no deal for a fortnight, I just wonder whether we have to fall over the cliff edge to believe it's real and to discredit those who've been tempting us over.

    Hmm.

    BuU?
    If we are going to jump off the cliff of a no deal, unless a whole series of mini agreements are put through before hand theres no coming back. The train wreck will unfold, and theres little you can do to stop it.
    ed.
    The WA itself, no, because by definition once we're out, the treaties will cease to apply and wea full ratification by the EU27 member states.
    Yage.
    The EU have said that they’d .
    We aint going back in if we leave. The best remainers could hope for would be norway model with a swiss style process of step by step opt into different institutions etc.

    If we rejected our membership on the current dreadful deal, how likely are we to re-enter on what would be a punitive deal?
    We are going to rejoin. Why would the terms be punitive? What even is the meaning of punitive in this context? A lot of people on this very forum object to things that others on it regard as benefits.

    We can't to back to 2016, let alone 1971. Our new membership will be different to the one we've left behind. I'm hoping we'll finally start playing a full positive role and reaping the full benefits. I think once we've got the euroskeptics plain sailing.
    The eurosceptics are the root and marrow of the Conservative Party. You might just as well wish for the removal of monarchists or capitalists from the Conservatives.
    So we hear, but it we heard the same about die hard ideological socialists in the Labour Party in the eighties. But it turned out they were flexible enough to shift to a more elector friendly position when the right leader turned up. And try the thought experiment of how a narrow remain win would have affected the Tories under Cameron. I have a feeling a lot of them would have decided that the EU was not so bad after all.

    The Vicar of Bray would be at home in both the main parties.
    In the end, the ideological socialists won.


    Did they? Or was it just a choice between a candidate who only appealed to a limited section of the electorate and a group of people who didn't appeal to anybody.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I am convinced that almost all the people who get huffy about people misusing apostrophes (myself included) would've been unutterably horrified about their introduction in place of missing letters, had they lived through it.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    Endillion said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I am convinced that almost all the people who get huffy about people misusing apostrophes (myself included) would've been unutterably horrified about their introduction in place of missing letters, had they lived through it.
    Only lazy b'stards use apostrophes anyway though.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,163
    Endillion said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I am convinced that almost all the people who get huffy about people misusing apostrophes (myself included) would've been unutterably horrified about their introduction in place of missing letters, had they lived through it.
    Don't show them medieval latin texts - I've even seen anglo saxon runes crop up in some of them.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I am convinced that almost all the people who get huffy about people misusing apostrophes (myself included) would've been unutterably horrified about their introduction in place of missing letters, had they lived through it.
    Don't show them medieval latin texts - I've even seen anglo saxon runes crop up in some of them.
    And bloody thorns get everywhere.
  • ydoethur said:

    Endillion said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I am convinced that almost all the people who get huffy about people misusing apostrophes (myself included) would've been unutterably horrified about their introduction in place of missing letters, had they lived through it.
    Only lazy b'stards use apostrophes anyway though.
    They really are cnuts.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426

    ydoethur said:

    Endillion said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I am convinced that almost all the people who get huffy about people misusing apostrophes (myself included) would've been unutterably horrified about their introduction in place of missing letters, had they lived through it.
    Only lazy b'stards use apostrophes anyway though.
    They really are cnuts.
    But the tide will turn!!! :smiley:
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I'm saying, and hold onto your hat here, there are no rules.

    No one sat down and said, here are the rules of Old English, everyone must now follow them. They didn't update the rule book and say, everyone has to shift vowels, they didn't call a stopping point and say " throw the Old English book away, we are mobi g to English v2 which we will call Middle English. English simply evolved changed and adapted over time without any central guiding force.

    If you wish 'rules' of grammar can be derived by studying language as it is used but the 'rules' of English as observed, as it is actually used, has absolutely hee-haw to say about fewer and less. Except that less is perfectly understandable in almost all sirltuations so people should chill out.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,692
    edited January 2019
    Blimey, I can't imagine people trying to hide their poshness.

    Many public-school boys deliberately speak in slang with an Estuary accent, even when they grow up, because “being posh these days is not a good thing”, according to the former headmaster of one of Britain’s top schools.

    Barnaby Lenon, former head of Harrow School whose alumni include Winston Churchill and Benedict Cumberbatch, said: “There has long been a tendency for schoolchildren at private schools to adopt their own language and certainly with an emphasis on mockney.

    “It continues into adult life. George Osborne and Tony Blair are both prone to lapse into Estuary English so they resemble the Kray brothers rather more than the private school background they come from.”

    Osborne went to St Paul’s School in west London and Blair to Fettes College in Edinburgh.

    “Remember the Old Etonian Prince William saying, ‘I need to check this with the missus.’”


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/eton-and-arrow-boys-have-gone-mockney-sl9n950cz
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,692
    edited January 2019
    On topic, I assume this has been discussed?

    If it happens, many of us might just die from eating too much popcorn.

    Roger Stone opens door to cooperating with Mueller after dramatic predawn arrest

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/roger-stone-appears-to-open-door-to-cooperating-with-mueller-after-dramatic-predawn-arrest
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Endillion said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I am convinced that almost all the people who get huffy about people misusing apostrophes (myself included) would've been unutterably horrified about their introduction in place of missing letters, had they lived through it.
    Only lazy b'stards use apostrophes anyway though.
    They really are cnuts.
    But the tide will turn!!! :smiley:
    There's Nor way that will happen.
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453

    On topic, I assume this has been discussed?

    If it happens, many of us might just die from eating too much popcorn.

    Roger Stone opens door to cooperating with Mueller after dramatic predawn arrest

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/roger-stone-appears-to-open-door-to-cooperating-with-mueller-after-dramatic-predawn-arrest

    https://twitter.com/jules_su/status/1089506535095586817
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I'm saying, and hold onto your hat here, there are no rules.
    Dear heaven. You really are beyond redemption.

    I bet you have extra pineapple on your pizza.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    edited January 2019
    Endillion said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Endillion said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I am convinced that almost all the people who get huffy about people misusing apostrophes (myself included) would've been unutterably horrified about their introduction in place of missing letters, had they lived through it.
    Only lazy b'stards use apostrophes anyway though.
    They really are cnuts.
    But the tide will turn!!! :smiley:
    There's Nor way that will happen.
    It's not the Dane thing now, but neither beast Norman will stop it.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I'm saying, and hold onto your hat here, there are no rules.
    Dear heaven. You really are beyond redemption.

    I bet you have extra pineapple on your pizza.
    No, pineapple on pizza is disgusting, do not be absurd.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,237
    kle4 said:

    A second yellow vest party is planning to stand in the European elections.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1089593953232605184

    Feels like with all this splitting that Macron has ridden this one out.
    The leftist groups will do well in aggregate, but Macron will be seen to have won ...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I'm saying, and hold onto your hat here, there are no rules.
    Dear heaven. You really are beyond redemption.

    I bet you have extra pineapple on your pizza.
    No, pineapple on pizza is disgusting, do not be absurd.
    Hey, you're the anarchist!
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,732
    edited January 2019

    Blimey, I can't imagine people trying to hide their poshness.

    Many public-school boys deliberately speak in slang with an Estuary accent, even when they grow up, because “being posh these days is not a good thing”, according to the former headmaster of one of Britain’s top schools.

    Luckily these days all they need to do is support Brexit and claim it's out of class solidarity with the lower orders.
  • Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I'm saying, and hold onto your hat here, there are no rules.
    Dear heaven. You really are beyond redemption.

    I bet you have extra pineapple on your pizza.
    No, pineapple on pizza is disgusting, do not be absurd.
    I don't drink tea but a friend of mine is dating someone who pours the milk in first then adds the tea bags.

    My friend views this as a degeneracy worse than pineapple on pizza.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,163

    Blimey, I can't imagine people trying to hide their poshness.

    Many public-school boys deliberately speak in slang with an Estuary accent, even when they grow up, because “being posh these days is not a good thing”, according to the former headmaster of one of Britain’s top schools.

    Luckily these days all they need to do is support Brexit and claim it's out of class solidarity with the lower orders.
    Works for those supporting far left policies!
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    ydoethur said:

    Endillion said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Endillion said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I am convinced that almost all the people who get huffy about people misusing apostrophes (myself included) would've been unutterably horrified about their introduction in place of missing letters, had they lived through it.
    Only lazy b'stards use apostrophes anyway though.
    They really are cnuts.
    But the tide will turn!!! :smiley:
    There's Nor way that will happen.
    It's not the Dane thing now, but neither beast Norman will stop it.
    If so, I predict it will be viewed as a Harald of the apocalypse.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,318
    kle4 said:

    Blimey, I can't imagine people trying to hide their poshness.

    Many public-school boys deliberately speak in slang with an Estuary accent, even when they grow up, because “being posh these days is not a good thing”, according to the former headmaster of one of Britain’s top schools.

    Luckily these days all they need to do is support Brexit and claim it's out of class solidarity with the lower orders.
    Works for those supporting far left policies!
    Call me old-fashioned but I find this sort of condescending pretending to be something you're not silly. And somewhat patronising. There is nothing wrong with being well-spoken. Too many people nowadays murder the English language - both when speaking and writing. A shame. It is such a beautiful rich language: both muscular and musical. Too many people are barely above the level of chimps these days in their communication skills.

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,692
    edited January 2019
    There were two types of Yellow Jackets on Market Street Manchester yesterday.

    The Manchester Collective (A left wing bunch) and the free Tommy lot.

    I resisted the urge to shout 'Splitters' at them.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I'm saying, and hold onto your hat here, there are no rules.
    Dear heaven. You really are beyond redemption.

    I bet you have extra pineapple on your pizza.
    No, pineapple on pizza is disgusting, do not be absurd.
    I don't drink tea but a friend of mine is dating someone who pours the milk in first then adds the tea bags.

    My friend views this as a degeneracy worse than pineapple on pizza.
    Indeed yes.

    Teabags are Satan's droppings.
  • Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    ydoethur said:

    He spoke Anglo-Saxon, or Early English! Not the same thing!

    You'll be telling me next the Romans spoke Italian...

    Yet we don't speak Old English now. Hmmm. How strange. Almost like language has changed and evolved over time. Crazy. What with these prescriptive rules that we must follow. You think it would stay the same.

    The meeting when everyone agreed to do the Great Vowel Shift must have been a corker.
    So you are saying that basically the rules you are following were out of date a thousand years ago?

    (This is a silly debate really, but it beats the B-word any day!)
    I'm saying, and hold onto your hat here, there are no rules.
    Dear heaven. You really are beyond redemption.

    I bet you have extra pineapple on your pizza.
    No, pineapple on pizza is disgusting, do not be absurd.
    I don't drink tea but a friend of mine is dating someone who pours the milk in first then adds the tea bags.

    My friend views this as a degeneracy worse than pineapple on pizza.
    https://youtu.be/FtK_vfp8po8
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,426
    edited January 2019
    Cyclefree said:

    kle4 said:

    Blimey, I can't imagine people trying to hide their poshness.

    Many public-school boys deliberately speak in slang with an Estuary accent, even when they grow up, because “being posh these days is not a good thing”, according to the former headmaster of one of Britain’s top schools.

    Luckily these days all they need to do is support Brexit and claim it's out of class solidarity with the lower orders.
    Works for those supporting far left policies!
    Call me old-fashioned but I find this sort of condescending pretending to be something you're not silly. And somewhat patronising. There is nothing wrong with being well-spoken. Too many people nowadays murder the English language - both when speaking and writing. A shame. It is such a beautiful rich language: both muscular and musical. Too many people are barely above the level of chimps these days in their communication skills.

    Ain't this the truth? :smile:

    Edit - more seriously, I think as regional accents have withered with TV and radio the very English lov of lost causes has kicked in to try and preserve them.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,676
    Cyclefree said:

    kle4 said:

    Blimey, I can't imagine people trying to hide their poshness.

    Many public-school boys deliberately speak in slang with an Estuary accent, even when they grow up, because “being posh these days is not a good thing”, according to the former headmaster of one of Britain’s top schools.

    Luckily these days all they need to do is support Brexit and claim it's out of class solidarity with the lower orders.
    Works for those supporting far left policies!
    Call me old-fashioned but I find this sort of condescending pretending to be something you're not silly. And somewhat patronising. There is nothing wrong with being well-spoken. Too many people nowadays murder the English language - both when speaking and writing. A shame. It is such a beautiful rich language: both muscular and musical. Too many people are barely above the level of chimps these days in their communication skills.

    ‘Nuff respect. Big up Cyclefree homies.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,626

    ydoethur said:

    She gets laughed at because she gets laughed at, the problem is the right wing morons laughing at her are often wrong, they don't realise this though so keep laughing. She does as every politician get things wrong as well.

    I suppose at least your 2nd paragraph isn't the usual misogynistic/racist line about getting the job because she slept with Corbyn previously.

    She is very left wing herself, her Corbyn and other left wingers are all in the same campaign group and have very similar political beliefs, do you have any reason to believe she wouldn't have supported John McDonnell just as much?

    I don't think many people interesting in politics would deny that her and Corbyn are similar (and Mcdonnell) which is usually enough for people to cheerlead for each other.

    Stewart, Hammond, Boris, Gove, Cummings, May, Letwin, Redwood, all these get laughed at when they make mistakes like this.

    But they don't keep on doing it (well, OK, Gove and Cummings aside) so they don't keep getting laughed at.

    While it is true Abbott does come in for a lot of racist and sexist abuse, she also comes in for a lot of stick because she simply isn't very good at what she does. Yet she does at least sometimes seem to try to hide behind her race and her gender to deflect criticism.

    As with Israel, which we have discussed before, it then becomes difficult to disentangle where one ends and the other begins.
    Mostly agree.
    But, in a way, Dianne *is* good at what she does. She has been a prominent public figure for 30 years, that’s very good going.
    Easy for Abbott and Corbyn to be "prominent public figures" when they have absolute security of tenure in safe seats. You can keep going for decades without any effective scrutiny.

    (The point applies equally to other political parties....)
This discussion has been closed.