But Lab+SNP+LD is more than Con+DUP, making Ed Davey Kingmaker
This is before boundary changes which will probably give the Tories an extra 10 to 15 seats.
The projected (notional) effect is rather tasty. Tories + 15, Labour -9, Lib Dems -5 (ouch!), DUP +2, SF -2. The Tories would then have to lose a notional 58 seats next time not to have a working majority, and 68 to be beyond the ability of the DUP to keep them in power.
Ironic that a Turk is the most applauded individual for producing the Covid vaccine yet Johnson did his level best to keep them out.
The story of Uğur Şahin is most inspiring. Moved to Germany from Turkey at the age of 4 with his mum to join his dad, who was working as a "guest worker" at a Ford factory in Cologne. Star pupil at school, became a doctor, mathematician and research scientist. Goes on to found his own biotech company, becomes a billionaire, and then leads the development of a world-saving Covid-19 vaccine.
I bet he doesn't drink Carling Black Label, though.
He was asked - how did you celebrate. Answered - with a cup of tea with my wife.
We sure he’s German? That’s about as English as it’s possible to get without actually mentioning the weather.
Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish people don't drink tea?
Not to mention the rest of the Irish.
Quite - I suppose even calling it 'British' is a stretch - though more accurate.
You have plainly never been to Turkey. Calling it "Turkish" would be more accurate still.
JVT makes point that the Phase 1 priority list once vaccinated will protect 99% of those who are in the demographic who have died so far.
Johnson declines Express suggestion that Brexit got us the approval faster, instead emphasising the international nature of the work.
As I pointed out this morning, it's just unnecessary. Celebrate that we're going to finally beat this bastard disease, celebrate that we're going to start the programme in December, no need to gloat that we're first or second or whatever. It's a really awful look and all of those people pushing that narrative should be ashamed. There's going to be a lot of hardship for a huge number of developing nations in the next few years as the west looks to its own (rightly so) gloating about how we are first is unnecessarily abrasive.
No idea why you're coming on so strong about what is essentially a bald statement of fact. We changed/diverged from the current EU regs to allow the vaccine to be approved more quickly - it was approved more quickly. So far, so logical. The idea that it is 'shameful' to point this out is frankly bizarre. I recall no shame being heaped on people when they argued that declining to be part of the EU vaccine programme was endangering peoples' lives by delaying the acquisition of vaccine supplies.
Except loads of people did condemn it at the time and also pointed out that it was probably going to be the other way around with the UK securing faster deliveries.
My point is that gloating isn't a good look either way around. I'm sure that the remainers would be doing it if it was Germany starting their programme next week and the UK waiting until January but it speaks more about them.
But Lab+SNP+LD is more than Con+DUP, making Ed Davey Kingmaker
Gosh. Heavy would be the Ed who wore that crown.
The full current Electoral Calculus prediction based on the average of the latest polls is Con 307 and DUP 8 = 315 combined but Labour 255 and SNP 58 and LDs 7 = 320 combined.
Ironic that a Turk is the most applauded individual for producing the Covid vaccine yet Johnson did his level best to keep them out.
The story of Uğur Şahin is most inspiring. Moved to Germany from Turkey at the age of 4 with his mum to join his dad, who was working as a "guest worker" at a Ford factory in Cologne. Star pupil at school, became a doctor, mathematician and research scientist. Goes on to found his own biotech company, becomes a billionaire, and then leads the development of a world-saving Covid-19 vaccine.
I bet he doesn't drink Carling Black Label, though.
He was asked - how did you celebrate. Answered - with a cup of tea with my wife.
We sure he’s German? That’s about as English as it’s possible to get without actually mentioning the weather.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
It’s not a religious festival for us, either. It’s annoying the way some people always try to bring religion into Christmas. Why spoil a perfectly good pagan festival that was around long before some underemployed shepherds started overdosing on Middle Eastern mushrooms?
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
It’s not a religious festival for us, either. It’s annoying the way some people always try to bring religion into Christmas. Why spoil a perfectly good pagan festival that was around long before some underemployed shepherds started overdosing on Middle Eastern mushrooms?
There were pagan winter festivals but Christmas by its very name ie literally 'Christ's Mass' is a Christian festival
I would like to rescind my acknowledgement of the early Pfizer vaccine approval as a potential benefit of Brexit, as I now see that this is fake news. Kicking myself for the elementary mistake of believing anything the government says.
Standard EU MO isn't it? Get called on something, say 'No no no, every member state has the right!' - yet strangely enough none have used it. It will be nice (and is already nice) to be unequivocally outside the purview of such laws/regulations/recommendations/helpful hints, so that it's absolutely clear who is responsible for fuck ups as and when they occur.
Yet both No 10 and the MHRA have contradicted Hancock on this so I am surprised to see you still buying it. The EU's slightly more thorough vetting procedure doesn't look that stupid considering public scepticism about vaccines. Mind you, I won't be getting the vaccine for months, if at all, so I'm not especially fussed either way. By the time I get it I imagine any issues will have been identified.
In theory, every single EU law and regulation is implemented at a member state level, and policed by domestic agencies, so it is all national law, with zero responsibility by the EU. In practice for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery, every other member state has not approved this vaccine using their 'emergency powers' and we have. The surprise I have that that's how the cookie has crumbled is zero.
A similar issue would be lack of dredging rivers, contributing to massive flooding. Dredging is made nearly impossible if EU regulations concerning it are implemented fully - yet when floods come and protest is raised, the EU claims that it's all down to national Governments and agencies, and we can all dredge as much as we like. Again - whatever. I'm just glad we're out of it and we can un-elect Governments who have crap policies.
I voted to leave, but who knows whether this is a good example of what you cite or not. If our hospitals & ICUs start to fill up with people suffering from unrecognised side-effects, it won't look such a good idea to have been ahead of the curve in wide-spread vaccination.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition was also seen with Oliver Cromwell as the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
And if you are getting all het up about names, don't bother looking up the A/S derivation of 'Easter'.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition was also seen with Oliver Cromwell as the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever.....
As opposed to the Die Hard Puritans who don't consider it a Christmas movie......
Other than using physical force or drugs, how does one "entrap" someone into being stark bollock naked at a gangbang? Hasn't he admitted it, apologised and resigned anyway?
Bait and switch.
You tell him the gang bang is heterosexual in nature then bam you bring out the dudes.
'I had no idea who was at the other side of that gloryhole'
a) that the vaccine means that over time the tier system is maintained for a bit longer into spring/summer but ultimately the trend is for local areas to all generally move down to the lowest tiers (potentially at the same time as the restrictions of each tier gradually get looser and/or reclassified), or;
b) the tier system is generally just abandoned at some point when sufficient vaccination has been carried out (and/or noone will vote for it any longer) with nothing formal in place other than a nod/general guidance to maintaining 2m and masks for a bit longer until ultimately those are no longer required, or;
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
When they say ‘voluntary,’ in what sense? Will people given *the* choice to have it, or *a* choice, one option of which is to have the fecking vaccine?
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
In the early 60s (I think), Elvis was vaccinated with the Salk polio vaccine on live tv. Apparently that was a major boost to the vaccination campaign.
Let's get the right people for the job at each phase: Attenborough and HMQ.
Expanding on your list, TV vaccination dream team: Attenborough, HMQ, Prince William, Chris Whitty, Martin Lewis, Marcus Rashford & Deborah Meaden
I actually detest the whole 'trust me' approach - whether we are supposed to trust Boris, Whitty, our GP, the Queen, or Deborah Meaden. Have we not considered simply explaining what's in the vaccine, and how it works, to people? List the ingredients. Tell people what they are and why they're there. Give people a simple, graphic explanation, of how the vaccine makes the immune system respond, and the protection it offers.
At the moment we're largely in two camps - those who don't understand how the vaccine works but trust it, and those who don't understand how the vaccine works, and don't trust it.
There's a lot of sneering about 'low information voters', but we seem to think the right approach to this is finding the right celebrity figure to stupify them with.
Other than using physical force or drugs, how does one "entrap" someone into being stark bollock naked at a gangbang? Hasn't he admitted it, apologised and resigned anyway?
Bait and switch.
You tell him the gang bang is heterosexual in nature then bam you bring out the dudes.
'I had no idea who was at the other side of that gloryhole'
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
It’s not a religious festival for us, either. It’s annoying the way some people always try to bring religion into Christmas. Why spoil a perfectly good pagan festival that was around long before some underemployed shepherds started overdosing on Middle Eastern mushrooms?
There were pagan winter festivals but Christmas by its very name ie literally 'Christ's Mass' is a Christian festival
I think we should celebrate Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday instead.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
It’s not a religious festival for us, either. It’s annoying the way some people always try to bring religion into Christmas. Why spoil a perfectly good pagan festival that was around long before some underemployed shepherds started overdosing on Middle Eastern mushrooms?
There were pagan winter festivals but Christmas by its very name ie literally 'Christ's Mass' is a Christian festival
I think we should celebrate Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday instead.
As a very devout if somewhat unorthodox Christian, he would strongly disapprove of that idea.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
I agree, my own Noncoformist Church thinks such festivals are idolatrous, and that the birth of Christ should be celebrated everyday. A bit like Roy Wood.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
Nah it isn't. It's a celebration of capitalism. Huzzah!
They haven't picked up on the German health minister's point - the EU decided to approve vaccines collectively - unanimously or by QMV? If the latter, then Brexit may have played a role in expediting UK approval.
I think you've misconstrued his point. He said that any EU member could have unilaterally given emergency authorisation but they haven't done this.
What, so any of the 27 could have chosen to be "nimble" but they collectively choose to be "sclerotic" instead?
Yes, plus they lack the strength, skills and expertise of our independent MHRA.
Can picture you bashing that one out, superior jingoey expression on face.
You're weird.
Its just a matter of fact.
I'm just intuiting that you would enjoy typing out such a sentence, that's all.
"They lack the X Y and Z that we have in such abundance."
Where X and Y and Z are Good Things.
You ask a question, you get an answer, then you question people's motives for the answer. Its just the truth.
Our MHRA was already very before Brexit which is in part why the EMA was based in the UK, this is a sector in which the UK does well like the Germans do car manufacturing well.
I didn't ask the question. Someone else did. I just saw your answer and skipped straight to the probing your motives stage. Or to be strictly accurate - speculating on your facial expression when you type something which you find particularly pleasing.
Other than using physical force or drugs, how does one "entrap" someone into being stark bollock naked at a gangbang? Hasn't he admitted it, apologised and resigned anyway?
Bait and switch.
You tell him the gang bang is heterosexual in nature then bam you bring out the dudes.
'I had no idea who was at the other side of that gloryhole'
We've all been there.
Speak for yourself, Mr Eagles...
Did you hear about the undercover cop who uncovered a glory hole in a public toilet?
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
I have a question about Muslim birthdays: are they celebrated using the western, solar calendar or the Islamic Lunar one? I would want to go with the lunar version as it means less time between birthdays.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
It’s not a religious festival for us, either. It’s annoying the way some people always try to bring religion into Christmas. Why spoil a perfectly good pagan festival that was around long before some underemployed shepherds started overdosing on Middle Eastern mushrooms?
There were pagan winter festivals but Christmas by its very name ie literally 'Christ's Mass' is a Christian festival
I think we should celebrate Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday instead.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
You're moving the goalposts again. We were talking about UK (or England if you prefer).
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
It’s not a religious festival for us, either. It’s annoying the way some people always try to bring religion into Christmas. Why spoil a perfectly good pagan festival that was around long before some underemployed shepherds started overdosing on Middle Eastern mushrooms?
There were pagan winter festivals but Christmas by its very name ie literally 'Christ's Mass' is a Christian festival
I think we should celebrate Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday instead.
As a very devout if somewhat unorthodox Christian, he would strongly disapprove of that idea.
That was supposed to be a joke based on when his birthday is.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
I have a question about Muslim birthdays: are they celebrated using the western, solar calendar or the Islamic Lunar one? I would want to go with the lunar version as it means less time between birthdays.
By the Gregorian calendar.
Moving it to the lunar calendar would be a pain for me.
I would like to rescind my acknowledgement of the early Pfizer vaccine approval as a potential benefit of Brexit, as I now see that this is fake news. Kicking myself for the elementary mistake of believing anything the government says.
Standard EU MO isn't it? Get called on something, say 'No no no, every member state has the right!' - yet strangely enough none have used it. It will be nice (and is already nice) to be unequivocally outside the purview of such laws/regulations/recommendations/helpful hints, so that it's absolutely clear who is responsible for fuck ups as and when they occur.
Yet both No 10 and the MHRA have contradicted Hancock on this so I am surprised to see you still buying it. The EU's slightly more thorough vetting procedure doesn't look that stupid considering public scepticism about vaccines. Mind you, I won't be getting the vaccine for months, if at all, so I'm not especially fussed either way. By the time I get it I imagine any issues will have been identified.
In theory, every single EU law and regulation is implemented at a member state level, and policed by domestic agencies, so it is all national law, with zero responsibility by the EU. In practice for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery, every other member state has not approved this vaccine using their 'emergency powers' and we have. The surprise I have that that's how the cookie has crumbled is zero.
A similar issue would be lack of dredging rivers, contributing to massive flooding. Dredging is made nearly impossible if EU regulations concerning it are implemented fully - yet when floods come and protest is raised, the EU claims that it's all down to national Governments and agencies, and we can all dredge as much as we like. Again - whatever. I'm just glad we're out of it and we can un-elect Governments who have crap policies.
I voted to leave, but who knows whether this is a good example of what you cite or not. If our hospitals & ICUs start to fill up with people suffering from unrecognised side-effects, it won't look such a good idea to have been ahead of the curve in wide-spread vaccination.
Good evening, everyone.
Evening. It would only be a bad idea if the EU agency declines to approve the vaccine in question, and is proved correct. If it approves the vaccine, just later, then it just means UK people are first in line to have their extra nipples removed, or to come to terms with their new green colour.
Technically I believe that the 95% efficacy claimed is for 7 days post 2nd shot - but this clearly isn't going to be binary - it's not like your body will be utterly susceptible 6days post the second shot but overnight the magic happens. From other vaccines which have a 2nd 'booster' shot type approach the general rule of thumb seems to be 1st shot gets you to something like 60% efficacy, 2nd shot takes you over 90% - and again, in both cases that's likely to be growing curve from injection to day X (and no idea what shape the curve is)
My concern is people will think one shot makes them immune and that needs to be communicated especially to the first groups of people who have lived in fear of the virus since last spring. For them, and I count myself among that group, vaccination means liberation except it doesn't immediately.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
I have a question about Muslim birthdays: are they celebrated using the western, solar calendar or the Islamic Lunar one? I would want to go with the lunar version as it means less time between birthdays.
By the Gregorian calendar.
Moving it to the lunar calendar would be a pain for me.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
The weirdest thing is how, in the US, which is stuffed full of religious nuts and where the average person often needs to pretend to be religious if they have any sort of public role, wishing people ‘Happy Christmas’ is deemed potentially dodgy and shunned in favour of ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Happy Holidays’ and the like, whereas in the UK where a majority of people dismiss religion as made up nonsense, we’re all quite happy to go wishing everyone ‘Merry Xmas’.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
You're moving the goalposts again. We were talking about UK (or England if you prefer).
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
You're moving the goalposts again. We were talking about UK (or England if you prefer).
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
I have a question about Muslim birthdays: are they celebrated using the western, solar calendar or the Islamic Lunar one? I would want to go with the lunar version as it means less time between birthdays.
By the Gregorian calendar.
Moving it to the lunar calendar would be a pain for me.
Thank you.
TBH a lot of Muslims want to move everything to the Gregorian calendar, Ramadan is intolerable when you have to fast in July, very tolerable when you have to fast in December.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
Going to mass may be Christian if you want to do those religious trimmings. That's your choice and I respect it.
The many thousands of years old secular holiday itself: trees, presents, elves, family, food and so on ... That is for everyone. Especially children not Christ.
You may not care about my non Christian views but in my house we have a Christmas Tree 🎄, multiple Santa decorations 🎅, tinsel, garlands, other decorations ⛄, a couple of mischievous elves on shelves 🧝, chocolate calendars 🍫 . . . And most important and most magical of all two young girls who are counting down the days until Christmas. 👧👧
There's nothing the slightest bit religious about any of that. There is a lot of magic in our household though. You go to Church if you want to, but my daughter's can perfectly happily enjoy the magic of Christmas without any of your preaching.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
You're moving the goalposts again. We were talking about UK (or England if you prefer).
Where it is also called Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas'
On exactly that logic, Easter is a Germanic pagan festival and not a Christian one at all: Easter being the pagan goddess of spring.
Which dio you want, Christmas or Easter? You can't have both on your very own logic.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
It’s not a religious festival for us, either. It’s annoying the way some people always try to bring religion into Christmas. Why spoil a perfectly good pagan festival that was around long before some underemployed shepherds started overdosing on Middle Eastern mushrooms?
There were pagan winter festivals but Christmas by its very name ie literally 'Christ's Mass' is a Christian festival
I think we should celebrate Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday instead.
As a very devout if somewhat unorthodox Christian, he would strongly disapprove of that idea.
That was supposed to be a joke based on when his birthday is.
I never knew the date. That is interesting, but he would still disapprove.
You and I, having our wonderful jokes misunderstood and malappreciated. Ah well, as teachers we’re used to it of course.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
The weirdest thing is how, in the US, which is stuffed full of religious nuts and where the average person often needs to pretend to be religious if they have any sort of public role, wishing people ‘Happy Christmas’ is deemed potentially dodgy and shunned in favour of ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Happy Holidays’ and the like, whereas in the UK where a majority of people dismiss religion as made up nonsense, we’re all quite happy to go wishing everyone ‘Merry Xmas’.
True but the USA has never been a Catholic majority country, the Mayflower was comprised of stern Puritans and it remains a plurality Protestant country, England was a Catholic majority country until the 16th century and the Anglican Church is an heir to that tradition
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
You're moving the goalposts again. We were talking about UK (or England if you prefer).
Where it is also called Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas'
Why are you spelling "Xmas" wrong?
I met a girl called Xtal (Christal) once. I am aware the 't' is redundant, but that's how her folks had decided to spell it.
On Christmas being a Christian holiday: how many here would normally go to church on Christmas day? Midnight Mass counts, watching Nine Lessons from King's does not.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
I have a question about Muslim birthdays: are they celebrated using the western, solar calendar or the Islamic Lunar one? I would want to go with the lunar version as it means less time between birthdays.
By the Gregorian calendar.
Moving it to the lunar calendar would be a pain for me.
Thank you.
TBH a lot of Muslims want to move everything to the Gregorian calendar, Ramadan is intolerable when you have to fast in July, very tolerable when you have to fast in December.
Bit of a bugger for the Southern Hemisphere if it was fixed in December though.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
You're moving the goalposts again. We were talking about UK (or England if you prefer).
Where it is also called Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas'
On exactly that logic, Easter is a Germanic pagan festival and not a Christian one at all: Easter being the pagan goddess of spring.
Which dio you want, Christmas or Easter? You can't have both on your very own logic.
Easter also has its origins in the German word Ostern too derived from the Teutonic form of auferstehung ie resurrection
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
The weirdest thing is how, in the US, which is stuffed full of religious nuts and where the average person often needs to pretend to be religious if they have any sort of public role, wishing people ‘Happy Christmas’ is deemed potentially dodgy and shunned in favour of ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Happy Holidays’ and the like, whereas in the UK where a majority of people dismiss religion as made up nonsense, we’re all quite happy to go wishing everyone ‘Merry Xmas’.
True but the USA has never been a Catholic majority country, the Mayflower was comprised of stern Puritans and it remains a plurality Protestant country, England was a Catholic majority country until the 16th century and the Anglican Church is an heir to that tradition
When we encouraged all our religious nuts to go seek their future in a new world, we might perhaps have thought a little further ahead, to be sure.
On Christmas being a Christian holiday: how many here would normally go to church on Christmas day? Midnight Mass counts, watching Nine Lessons from King's does not.
Does being paid to go because you’re a professional organist count?
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
The weirdest thing is how, in the US, which is stuffed full of religious nuts and where the average person often needs to pretend to be religious if they have any sort of public role, wishing people ‘Happy Christmas’ is deemed potentially dodgy and shunned in favour of ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Happy Holidays’ and the like, whereas in the UK where a majority of people dismiss religion as made up nonsense, we’re all quite happy to go wishing everyone ‘Merry Xmas’.
The majority of people don't dismiss religion as made up nonsense. I think Christianity just passed from being the majority belief, but combined with other faiths and those who 'believe in God/something', I'm pretty sure that will be the majority. The Dawkinsites are louder though, I'll grant them that.
a) that the vaccine means that over time the tier system is maintained for a bit longer into spring/summer but ultimately the trend is for local areas to all generally move down to the lowest tiers (potentially at the same time as the restrictions of each tier gradually get looser and/or reclassified), or;
b) the tier system is generally just abandoned at some point when sufficient vaccination has been carried out (and/or noone will vote for it any longer) with nothing formal in place other than a nod/general guidance to maintaining 2m and masks for a bit longer until ultimately those are no longer required, or;
c) some other ultimate pathway back to normality?
I think option 1 and every area just ends up in tier 1 around about March and eventually a tier 0 will be created to accommodate those places with very little transmission.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
I have a question about Muslim birthdays: are they celebrated using the western, solar calendar or the Islamic Lunar one? I would want to go with the lunar version as it means less time between birthdays.
By the Gregorian calendar.
Moving it to the lunar calendar would be a pain for me.
Thank you.
TBH a lot of Muslims want to move everything to the Gregorian calendar, Ramadan is intolerable when you have to fast in July, very tolerable when you have to fast in December.
Bit of a bugger for the Southern Hemisphere if it was fixed in December though.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
I have a question about Muslim birthdays: are they celebrated using the western, solar calendar or the Islamic Lunar one? I would want to go with the lunar version as it means less time between birthdays.
By the Gregorian calendar.
Moving it to the lunar calendar would be a pain for me.
Thank you.
TBH a lot of Muslims want to move everything to the Gregorian calendar, Ramadan is intolerable when you have to fast in July, very tolerable when you have to fast in December.
Bit of a bugger for the Southern Hemisphere if it was fixed in December though.
It buggers up Australians?
Should I assay remorse?
Well, you might get a Chile reception to that idea, even though it buggers the Australians.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
The weirdest thing is how, in the US, which is stuffed full of religious nuts and where the average person often needs to pretend to be religious if they have any sort of public role, wishing people ‘Happy Christmas’ is deemed potentially dodgy and shunned in favour of ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Happy Holidays’ and the like, whereas in the UK where a majority of people dismiss religion as made up nonsense, we’re all quite happy to go wishing everyone ‘Merry Xmas’.
The majority of people don't dismiss religion as made up nonsense. I think Christianity just passed from being the majority belief, but combined with other faiths and those who 'believe in God/something', I'm pretty sure that will be the majority. The Dawkinsites are louder though, I'll grant them that.
Dawkins has now been cancelled too by the Woke crowd
"To really get the economy moving, give private sector Londoners priority for the vaccine
Anyone who commutes to work by tube should arguably take preference over retired 70 year-olds living in suburbs who rarely mix in crowds Ross Clark" (£)
As suggested on pb the other day, take advantage of the easiest logistics. Give out the jabs at workplaces: Hospitals; care homes; schools; universities; office blocks; factories; shops. For the rest, do what we do with flu jabs.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
I have a question about Muslim birthdays: are they celebrated using the western, solar calendar or the Islamic Lunar one? I would want to go with the lunar version as it means less time between birthdays.
By the Gregorian calendar.
Moving it to the lunar calendar would be a pain for me.
Thank you.
TBH a lot of Muslims want to move everything to the Gregorian calendar, Ramadan is intolerable when you have to fast in July, very tolerable when you have to fast in December.
March might be best. It would have an equal effect in both hemispheres. Having said that there are very few inhabited areas as far south of the equator as the UK is north of it.
When they say ‘voluntary,’ in what sense? Will people given *the* choice to have it, or *a* choice, one option of which is to have the fecking vaccine?
Given Russians are least likely to want a vaccine of countries surveyed....
a) that the vaccine means that over time the tier system is maintained for a bit longer into spring/summer but ultimately the trend is for local areas to all generally move down to the lowest tiers (potentially at the same time as the restrictions of each tier gradually get looser and/or reclassified), or;
b) the tier system is generally just abandoned at some point when sufficient vaccination has been carried out (and/or noone will vote for it any longer) with nothing formal in place other than a nod/general guidance to maintaining 2m and masks for a bit longer until ultimately those are no longer required, or;
c) some other ultimate pathway back to normality?
I think option 1 and every area just ends up in tier 1 around about March and eventually a tier 0 will be created to accommodate those places with very little transmission.
The interesting question is what happens when the vaccine starts to kick in for the older and more vulnerable population - so hospitalisations and deaths should plummet, while infections are still there.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
Thank you, I didn't know that, and I'm inclined to the same view.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
It’s not a religious festival for us, either. It’s annoying the way some people always try to bring religion into Christmas. Why spoil a perfectly good pagan festival that was around long before some underemployed shepherds started overdosing on Middle Eastern mushrooms?
There were pagan winter festivals but Christmas by its very name ie literally 'Christ's Mass' is a Christian festival
I think we should celebrate Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday instead.
As a very devout if somewhat unorthodox Christian, he would strongly disapprove of that idea.
That was supposed to be a joke based on when his birthday is.
I never knew the date. That is interesting, but he would still disapprove.
You and I, having our wonderful jokes misunderstood and malappreciated. Ah well, as teachers we’re used to it of course.
Very true. I have at least three jokes, and I normally don't repeat them more than twice a lesson and they still don't laugh.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
The weirdest thing is how, in the US, which is stuffed full of religious nuts and where the average person often needs to pretend to be religious if they have any sort of public role, wishing people ‘Happy Christmas’ is deemed potentially dodgy and shunned in favour of ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Happy Holidays’ and the like, whereas in the UK where a majority of people dismiss religion as made up nonsense, we’re all quite happy to go wishing everyone ‘Merry Xmas’.
The majority of people don't dismiss religion as made up nonsense. I think Christianity just passed from being the majority belief, but combined with other faiths and those who 'believe in God/something', I'm pretty sure that will be the majority. The Dawkinsites are louder though, I'll grant them that.
Dawkins has now been cancelled too by the Woke crowd
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
The weirdest thing is how, in the US, which is stuffed full of religious nuts and where the average person often needs to pretend to be religious if they have any sort of public role, wishing people ‘Happy Christmas’ is deemed potentially dodgy and shunned in favour of ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Happy Holidays’ and the like, whereas in the UK where a majority of people dismiss religion as made up nonsense, we’re all quite happy to go wishing everyone ‘Merry Xmas’.
The majority of people don't dismiss religion as made up nonsense. I think Christianity just passed from being the majority belief, but combined with other faiths and those who 'believe in God/something', I'm pretty sure that will be the majority. The Dawkinsites are louder though, I'll grant them that.
That does depend on which data you use. The census (now nine years old) does show a majority of Brits, just, describing themselves as Christian. But the Social Attitudes Survey reached a majority describing themselves of no religious belief back in 2013, and opinion polls put those who are not religious or not very religious up at around 75%, with some surveys putting those as not religious above 50%.
The bottom line is that the significantly religious folk in the UK are in a distinct minority, with the only debate being how many among the majority are fixed on having no religion, and how many are willing to tick a box as Christian without being willing to do very much more.
A substantial meal is a very old and established term in licensing laws. Its been used for decades for example with regards to serving alcohol in restaurants to 16 and 17 year olds.
Pratting around with loopholes is just stupid. Restaurants and pubs and customers know what the rules are as much as people in the media put of affectations of idiocy.
If the rules are so well known why did the police get confused about pizza and Cabinet Ministers disagree about scotch eggs? And if as you say these are long-established rules then why not provide cheat sheets to ministers and the media?
When they say ‘voluntary,’ in what sense? Will people given *the* choice to have it, or *a* choice, one option of which is to have the fecking vaccine?
Given Russians are least likely to want a vaccine of countries surveyed....
In one of Terry Pratchett’s books, a minor character is noted as having been convicted by Lord Vetinari of a crime and choosing of his own free will to become a spy.
In a footnote, it is noted the alternative was to choose of his own free will to be flung into a scorpion pit.
On Christmas being a Christian holiday: how many here would normally go to church on Christmas day? Midnight Mass counts, watching Nine Lessons from King's does not.
Does being paid to go because you’re a professional organist count?
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
It’s not a religious festival for us, either. It’s annoying the way some people always try to bring religion into Christmas. Why spoil a perfectly good pagan festival that was around long before some underemployed shepherds started overdosing on Middle Eastern mushrooms?
There were pagan winter festivals but Christmas by its very name ie literally 'Christ's Mass' is a Christian festival
I think we should celebrate Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday instead.
As a very devout if somewhat unorthodox Christian, he would strongly disapprove of that idea.
That was supposed to be a joke based on when his birthday is.
I never knew the date. That is interesting, but he would still disapprove.
You and I, having our wonderful jokes misunderstood and malappreciated. Ah well, as teachers we’re used to it of course.
Very true. I have at least three jokes, and I normally don't repeat them more than twice a lesson and they still don't laugh.
I’m always really encouraged when they tell me I’ve told a joke before.
It shows the little gits do listen even if it doesn’t always seem like it.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
You're moving the goalposts again. We were talking about UK (or England if you prefer).
Where it is also called Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas'
Why are you spelling "Xmas" wrong?
I met a girl called Xtal (Christal) once. I am aware the 't' is redundant, but that's how her folks had decided to spell it.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
It’s not a religious festival for us, either. It’s annoying the way some people always try to bring religion into Christmas. Why spoil a perfectly good pagan festival that was around long before some underemployed shepherds started overdosing on Middle Eastern mushrooms?
There were pagan winter festivals but Christmas by its very name ie literally 'Christ's Mass' is a Christian festival
I think we should celebrate Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday instead.
As a very devout if somewhat unorthodox Christian, he would strongly disapprove of that idea.
That was supposed to be a joke based on when his birthday is.
I never knew the date. That is interesting, but he would still disapprove.
You and I, having our wonderful jokes misunderstood and malappreciated. Ah well, as teachers we’re used to it of course.
Very true. I have at least three jokes, and I normally don't repeat them more than twice a lesson and they still don't laugh.
I’m always really encouraged when they tell me I’ve told a joke before.
It shows the little gits do listen even if it doesn’t always seem like it.
The weirdest thing is how, in the US, which is stuffed full of religious nuts and where the average person often needs to pretend to be religious if they have any sort of public role, wishing people ‘Happy Christmas’ is deemed potentially dodgy and shunned in favour of ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Happy Holidays’ and the like, whereas in the UK where a majority of people dismiss religion as made up nonsense, we’re all quite happy to go wishing everyone ‘Merry Xmas’.
The majority of people don't dismiss religion as made up nonsense. I think Christianity just passed from being the majority belief, but combined with other faiths and those who 'believe in God/something', I'm pretty sure that will be the majority. The Dawkinsites are louder though, I'll grant them that.
Ian's right, though - the striking deference to religious diversity in the US compared with here is quite strange, although atheist friends in the US say it's not always easy.
I think that most religious people in Britain, other than the nutters, feel a certain fellowship with followers of other beliefs. My first Xmas card when I lived in Broxtowe was always from devout Muslim friends; another was so alarmed by attacks on synagogues that he offered to organise a protective cordon of Muslims around the local one. Conversely I have Christian friends who feel real kinship with devoted Muslims who try to live by their faith, unlike us heathens.
They all know that I think they're all deluded, and they think the same of me. As we don't insist on going on about it, it doesn't stop the friendships. But I don't think any of them see Christmas as much more than an artificial family festivity.
On Christmas being a Christian holiday: how many here would normally go to church on Christmas day? Midnight Mass counts, watching Nine Lessons from King's does not.
Does being paid to go because you’re a professional organist count?
Yes.
Then I would normally go at least twice, frequently three or four times.
So fasten your seatbelts for a very bumpy ride in January. The UK has barely started preparations for the jolt, and our EU friends won't be falling over themselves to be helpful, especially if Boris plays further silly buggers with the Internal Market Bill and next week's Finance Bill.
Late to the party, but this is actually disappointing, since they had 3 in less than 12 months, and could have had 4 in about 15 if they had wanted, so this is not as great as it could have been.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
The weirdest thing is how, in the US, which is stuffed full of religious nuts and where the average person often needs to pretend to be religious if they have any sort of public role, wishing people ‘Happy Christmas’ is deemed potentially dodgy and shunned in favour of ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Happy Holidays’ and the like, whereas in the UK where a majority of people dismiss religion as made up nonsense, we’re all quite happy to go wishing everyone ‘Merry Xmas’.
The majority of people don't dismiss religion as made up nonsense. I think Christianity just passed from being the majority belief, but combined with other faiths and those who 'believe in God/something', I'm pretty sure that will be the majority. The Dawkinsites are louder though, I'll grant them that.
Dawkins has now been cancelled too by the Woke crowd
No he hasn't. Only by a few weirdos on Twitter.
Trinity College Dublin is 'a few weirdos on Twitter'? Who knew?
So fasten your seatbelts for a very bumpy ride in January. The UK has barely started preparations for the jolt, and our EU friends won't be falling over themselves to be helpful, especially if Boris plays further silly buggers with the Internal Market Bill and next week's Finance Bill.
I think that was the reason he wanted to put into law that there would be no extension. He was worried that if he didn't then the EU would drag things out to force an extension and then repeat.
Please note I'm not saying it was the right course, but I think that is the reason behind it.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
On Christmas being a Christian holiday: how many here would normally go to church on Christmas day? Midnight Mass counts, watching Nine Lessons from King's does not.
Does being paid to go because you’re a professional organist count?
Yes.
Then I would normally go at least twice, frequently three or four times.
That's more than me, but I just sing in the choir.
So fasten your seatbelts for a very bumpy ride in January. The UK has barely started preparations for the jolt, and our EU friends won't be falling over themselves to be helpful, especially if Boris plays further silly buggers with the Internal Market Bill and next week's Finance Bill.
That's not dithering, it's standing firm and making a decision. To do nothing is to make a decision to do nothing.
The EU may think they are masters of the long game but if the EU don't blink first and he doesn't either then he will be doing exactly what I want him to do.
He will be doing what is quintessentially British: Keep calm and carry on.
So fasten your seatbelts for a very bumpy ride in January. The UK has barely started preparations for the jolt, and our EU friends won't be falling over themselves to be helpful, especially if Boris plays further silly buggers with the Internal Market Bill and next week's Finance Bill.
Whoever does his PR is a sharp operator....just happens to be looking at Baby Yoda toys. That thing that everybody talks about. Where as if Boris was doing such a PR stunt, it would be history books section.
True, but he probably just is a bit of a geek as well. Here here is with a man who created a job opportunity for him by displaying some integrity by standing up to Cummings. https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1207936319873261570
So fasten your seatbelts for a very bumpy ride in January. The UK has barely started preparations for the jolt, and our EU friends won't be falling over themselves to be helpful, especially if Boris plays further silly buggers with the Internal Market Bill and next week's Finance Bill.
That's not dithering, it's standing firm and making a decision. To do nothing is to make a decision to do nothing.
The EU may think they are masters of the long game but if the EU don't blink first and he doesn't either then he will be doing exactly what I want him to do.
He will be doing what is quintessentially British: Keep calm and carry on.
Have you been asleep this past year? Almost nothing this government has announced has been followed by the slightest bit of calmness let alone any carrying on.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Secular 'holy day' - great argument there champ.
I think the point was made regardless of use of the word secular.
So fasten your seatbelts for a very bumpy ride in January. The UK has barely started preparations for the jolt, and our EU friends won't be falling over themselves to be helpful, especially if Boris plays further silly buggers with the Internal Market Bill and next week's Finance Bill.
The closest analogy I can think of is those big budget US TV dramas where you want to get interested in it because everyone's talking about it - but you know that it will mean 3 squillion episodes and that will merely get you to the season finale cliffhanger anyway, and oh, there's another 4 seasons where it's interminably strung out and getting any meaningful answers seems to get harder not easier....
Whoever does his PR is a sharp operator....just happens to be looking at Baby Yoda toys. That thing that everybody talks about. Where as if Boris was doing such a PR stunt, it would be history books section.
True, but he probably just is a bit of a geek as well. Here here is with a man who created a job opportunity for him by displaying some integrity by standing up to Cummings. https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1207936319873261570
There's nothing wrong with being a bit of a geek.
Seems strange to think that is just under a year ago, so much has changed in the past 12 months.
Comments
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/boundaries2023.html
My point is that gloating isn't a good look either way around. I'm sure that the remainers would be doing it if it was Germany starting their programme next week and the UK waiting until January but it speaks more about them.
Labour 255 and SNP 58 and LDs 7 = 320 combined.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Time to get controversial:
https://youtu.be/7IZJjLpNEbE
https://twitter.com/oakieed/status/1333298442643275777?s=21
Good evening, everyone.
a) that the vaccine means that over time the tier system is maintained for a bit longer into spring/summer but ultimately the trend is for local areas to all generally move down to the lowest tiers (potentially at the same time as the restrictions of each tier gradually get looser and/or reclassified), or;
b) the tier system is generally just abandoned at some point when sufficient vaccination has been carried out (and/or noone will vote for it any longer) with nothing formal in place other than a nod/general guidance to maintaining 2m and masks for a bit longer until ultimately those are no longer required, or;
c) some other ultimate pathway back to normality?
At the moment we're largely in two camps - those who don't understand how the vaccine works but trust it, and those who don't understand how the vaccine works, and don't trust it.
There's a lot of sneering about 'low information voters', but we seem to think the right approach to this is finding the right celebrity figure to stupify them with.
Turns out he received an anonymous tip.
Moving it to the lunar calendar would be a pain for me.
The many thousands of years old secular holiday itself: trees, presents, elves, family, food and so on ... That is for everyone. Especially children not Christ.
You may not care about my non Christian views but in my house we have a Christmas Tree 🎄, multiple Santa decorations 🎅, tinsel, garlands, other decorations ⛄, a couple of mischievous elves on shelves 🧝, chocolate calendars 🍫 . . . And most important and most magical of all two young girls who are counting down the days until Christmas. 👧👧
There's nothing the slightest bit religious about any of that. There is a lot of magic in our household though. You go to Church if you want to, but my daughter's can perfectly happily enjoy the magic of Christmas without any of your preaching.
Which dio you want, Christmas or Easter? You can't have both on your very own logic.
You and I, having our wonderful jokes misunderstood and malappreciated. Ah well, as teachers we’re used to it of course.
I think it is for my and others children. I suspect a lot of people here would care for their grandchildren at this time of year.
Should I assay remorse?
Having said that there are very few inhabited areas as far south of the equator as the UK is north of it.
The bottom line is that the significantly religious folk in the UK are in a distinct minority, with the only debate being how many among the majority are fixed on having no religion, and how many are willing to tick a box as Christian without being willing to do very much more.
In a footnote, it is noted the alternative was to choose of his own free will to be flung into a scorpion pit.
It shows the little gits do listen even if it doesn’t always seem like it.
I think that most religious people in Britain, other than the nutters, feel a certain fellowship with followers of other beliefs. My first Xmas card when I lived in Broxtowe was always from devout Muslim friends; another was so alarmed by attacks on synagogues that he offered to organise a protective cordon of Muslims around the local one. Conversely I have Christian friends who feel real kinship with devoted Muslims who try to live by their faith, unlike us heathens.
They all know that I think they're all deluded, and they think the same of me. As we don't insist on going on about it, it doesn't stop the friendships. But I don't think any of them see Christmas as much more than an artificial family festivity.
https://twitter.com/DavidHenigUK/status/1334205249888935938
So fasten your seatbelts for a very bumpy ride in January. The UK has barely started preparations for the jolt, and our EU friends won't be falling over themselves to be helpful, especially if Boris plays further silly buggers with the Internal Market Bill and next week's Finance Bill.
http://www.universitytimes.ie/2020/09/the-hist-will-not-be-moving-ahead-with-richard-dawkins-address/
Please note I'm not saying it was the right course, but I think that is the reason behind it.
The EU may think they are masters of the long game but if the EU don't blink first and he doesn't either then he will be doing exactly what I want him to do.
He will be doing what is quintessentially British: Keep calm and carry on.
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/how-december-25-became-christmas/
https://twitter.com/GeorginaEWright/status/1334211041492946949?s=20
https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1207936319873261570
https://historyforatheists.com/2020/11/richard-dawkins-teaches-the-children/
Or something?
Seems strange to think that is just under a year ago, so much has changed in the past 12 months.
Die Hard was released in July 1988.
Christmas films are not released in July.