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Remember when Betfair settled a US election market too early and paid out on the loser? – politicalb

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  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,362

    Mr. Mark, the defending armies were moosacred.

    Edited extra bit: on a serious note, Australia once lost a war to kangaroos.

    Edited extra bit: I apologise to Australia. It was emus, not kangaroos.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

    Having actual met an emu - it is completely understandable the Australians lost. My advice is to use the larger sizes of thermo-nuclear weapon.
  • HYUFD said:

    Omnium said:

    Interesting. Checked Wikipedia, and apparently there's lots of arguments over the age.

    Not that Wikipedia's always right. It thinks Alexander was Greek...

    You'd have us argue that the British Empire was in fact Norman though on that basis.

    He may not have been Greek, but his legacy clearly is.
    Surely the British Empire was Norman? They conquered us and then just kept on conquering! The Tory party is clearly the Norman party too.
    It is one of the arguments I have with Scots about their claims that it was 'the English' who conquered and oppressed them. What they forget is that before they were conquered and oppressed by the Norman elite, the same thing had happened to the English. They were the first victims of the Norman Empire.
    England was first conquered by the Anglo Saxons before the Normans however, Scotland was never fully conquered by the Saxons apart from the southeast which was part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. The rest of it was a mix of Celts and Gaelic settlers from Ireland.

    Scotland also kept separate monarchs from England for centuries after the Norman conquest of England, unlike Wales which was united under the crown of England by the 13th century the English and Scottish crowns were not united until the 18th century.
    Um no. 'England' was never conquered by the Anglo-Saxons. It was a purely Anglo-Saxon creation. Actually a creation of Alfred and his successors in the 9th century.

    The 'English' didn't exist before the Anglo-Saxons arrived and indeed there is strong evidence that across much of the lowlands of Britain they were coming into a largely depopulated landscape as a result of the collapse of the late Romano-British villa landscape.

    There is also very little evidence beyond the ASC that they conquered the existing population by force of arms. Most of the sites in Eastern and Southern England that existed at the time show no signs of the sorts of destruction that are usually associated with forced conquest.

  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375

    Oxford approval appears to be going backwards

    CW now saying expects MHRA approval early next year possibly sooner.

    Have they broke up early for Christmas?

    Chris Whitty?
    Remember they said it was unlikely that we would be vaccinating before Christmas just 4 weeks ago
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468

    Mr. Mark, the defending armies were moosacred.

    Edited extra bit: on a serious note, Australia once lost a war to kangaroos.

    Edited extra bit: I apologise to Australia. It was emus, not kangaroos.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

    If only Hannibal had recourse to a regiment of emu as well.... History could have been so much different (albeit, still inaccessible to TSE....)
    Interesting, but cannot find anything which describes how Australia now controls emus in farming areas. Are they still using a bounty system, a cull season, or are they relying on fencing and other barriers?

    Here it is always deer season for farmers on their own land, even if their hunting is strictly limited to non-farmer hunters.
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,706
    edited December 2020

    IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    And how is he going to enforce it
    If Santa can make it to every kid's house in the world on Xmas Eve, perhaps Drakeford will offer him a job in covid regulation compliance enforcement.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,362
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Mr. Malmesbury, that sounds insane. It prohibits discussion of historical facts because they don't, or may not, tally with modern morality.

    Imposing modern norms on the past leads to revisionism of history, rewriting it to be more currently convenient and throwing out irksome accuracies. It leads to bullshit like the Common Era nonsense.

    I was told at a seminar on workplace behaviour that (for example) some the facts of the case regarding Oscar Wilde are not mentionable - and are indeed homophobic.
    IN what context are they not mentionable? Presumably an academic historian would be able to narrate them in a book on the case?
    Saying in a conversation something like "Oscar Wilde would have got life, these days". Apparently, he is an icon of persecution, so attributing certain behaviour to him is attacking an icon. Hence attacking a community.
    Ah, thanks. I'm reading that in the sense of what he would get today if he was prosecuted (say, if he had been molesting a minor [edit] or wwhatever it was was imputed to him - I'm not familiar with the details). Is that correct?
    Yes - and there is no doubt as to what he did. He spoke of it to several people. And it was part of the evidence that sank him for perjury.
    Thanks. *blinks* An, erm, interesting approach. But in this case he would have been done for it just as much in the past as today so I can't see it is imposing modern norms on the past. I must be missing something ...
    He wasn't done for the said activities. He was convicted of perjury, for denying them in court, in a libel action.

    What you are missing is that Wilde is a hero for some. So pointing out that he was actually a serious criminal by *todays* standards is to attack an icon. Which is punching down.
    Ah, thanks! Rather reinforces my view that history is to be inquired into and commemorated, perhaps, but never celebrated.
    Why not? - there is good and ill in every man and woman.

    "The evil that men do lives after them;
    The good is oft interred with their bones;"
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,217
    edited December 2020

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.

    Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
    We await your insightful contributions with interest.
    I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
    The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
    This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
    'Quite literally never have to think about it'? Perhaps that was true once, but not after the super-saturation of wokeness throughout our entire media and popular culture. One can't even watch a football match without having the rituals of wokeness performed in front of you, so it's really quite hard to avoid these days.
    I struggle to see you with your Latin and your ancient wit & wisdoms in true simpatico with the Proud Boys down in The Den.
    Eh? Julius Caesar redefined Latin prose style - plus managed a few other minor achievements along the way - but that didn't stop him mixing it up with the plebs against the grave, out-of-touch optimates.
    See what I mean? Try a fancy comment like that down at the Den and you'll probably get an even bigger boo than if you'd taken a knee, shouted Black Lives Matter! at the top of your voice, and insulted Jim Davidson.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468

    RobD said:

    No, I wasn't able to make a cup of tea, I couldn't find any laws on kettle filling and the guidance was too confusing...so I am going to have to go to Starbucks to buy one.

    Hadn't you better check what the law says on that, too?
    🤯..
    Seems like the old joke is no longer true, then:

    UK: Everything which is not prohibited is permitted
    Germany: Everything which is not permitted is prohibited
    Switzerland: Everything which is not prohibited is mandatory.
  • IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    And how is he going to enforce it
    Gunboats.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,221

    Carnyx said:

    Mr. Malmesbury, that sounds insane. It prohibits discussion of historical facts because they don't, or may not, tally with modern morality.

    Imposing modern norms on the past leads to revisionism of history, rewriting it to be more currently convenient and throwing out irksome accuracies. It leads to bullshit like the Common Era nonsense.

    I was told at a seminar on workplace behaviour that (for example) some the facts of the case regarding Oscar Wilde are not mentionable - and are indeed homophobic.
    IN what context are they not mentionable? Presumably an academic historian would be able to narrate them in a book on the case?
    Saying in a conversation something like "Oscar Wilde would have got life, these days". Apparently, he is an icon of persecution, so attributing certain behaviour to him is attacking an icon. Hence attacking a community.
    An Oscar Wilde living "these days" would most likely have behaved very differently, too.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    HYUFD said:

    Omnium said:

    Interesting. Checked Wikipedia, and apparently there's lots of arguments over the age.

    Not that Wikipedia's always right. It thinks Alexander was Greek...

    You'd have us argue that the British Empire was in fact Norman though on that basis.

    He may not have been Greek, but his legacy clearly is.
    Surely the British Empire was Norman? They conquered us and then just kept on conquering! The Tory party is clearly the Norman party too.
    It is one of the arguments I have with Scots about their claims that it was 'the English' who conquered and oppressed them. What they forget is that before they were conquered and oppressed by the Norman elite, the same thing had happened to the English. They were the first victims of the Norman Empire.
    England was first conquered by the Anglo Saxons before the Normans however, Scotland was never fully conquered by the Saxons apart from the southeast which was part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. The rest of it was a mix of Celts and Gaelic settlers from Ireland.

    Scotland also kept separate monarchs from England for centuries after the Norman conquest of England, unlike Wales which was united under the crown of England by the 13th century the English and Scottish crowns were not united until the 18th century.
    Um no. 'England' was never conquered by the Anglo-Saxons. It was a purely Anglo-Saxon creation. Actually a creation of Alfred and his successors in the 9th century.

    The 'English' didn't exist before the Anglo-Saxons arrived and indeed there is strong evidence that across much of the lowlands of Britain they were coming into a largely depopulated landscape as a result of the collapse of the late Romano-British villa landscape.

    There is also very little evidence beyond the ASC that they conquered the existing population by force of arms. Most of the sites in Eastern and Southern England that existed at the time show no signs of the sorts of destruction that are usually associated with forced conquest.

    So after the Romans left the Britons unilaterally retreated to Wales and Cornwall? interesting.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,676
    RobD said:

    Oxford approval appears to be going backwards

    CW now saying expects MHRA approval early next year possibly sooner.

    Have they broke up early for Christmas?

    How is that backwards? Slower, perhaps.
    If approval was expected before Xmas and its now not. The approval in WC Northern terminology is that it has gone backward.

    Nothing more than that.
  • Nigelb said:
    If you think that is good camouflage, then try this - entered into my facebook Moth Group's photo competition. Knot Grass moth, by Paul Coombes
    .

    LOL. I saw this picture when Paul first put it up on the group earlier in the year. And I know what a Knot-Grass looks like but I still have a hell of a job finding the bloody thing :)
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,362
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.

    Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
    We await your insightful contributions with interest.
    I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
    The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
    This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
    'Quite literally never have to think about it'? Perhaps that was true once, but not after the super-saturation of wokeness throughout our entire media and popular culture. One can't even watch a football match without having the rituals of wokeness performed in front of you, so it's really quite hard to avoid these days.
    I struggle to see you with your Latin and your ancient wit & wisdoms in true simpatico with the Proud Boys down in The Den.
    Eh? Julius Caesar redefined Latin prose style - plus managed a few other minor achievements along the way - but that didn't stop him mixing it up with the plebs against the grave, out-of-touch optimates.
    See what I mean? Try a fancy comment like that down at the Den and you'll probably get an even bigger boo than if you'd taken a knee, shouted Black Lives Matter! at the top of your voice, and insulted Jim Davidson.
    "That Caesar was one of the lads. Not to proud to buy a round at the Canis Et Anas on a Friday night...."
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,601

    Mr. Mark, the defending armies were moosacred.

    Edited extra bit: on a serious note, Australia once lost a war to kangaroos.

    Edited extra bit: I apologise to Australia. It was emus, not kangaroos.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

    Having actual met an emu - it is completely understandable the Australians lost. My advice is to use the larger sizes of thermo-nuclear weapon.
    The emu is a cuddly lovable critter when compared to the cassowary, which clearly evolved from the more psychotic branch of the velociraptor family.....
  • kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.

    Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
    We await your insightful contributions with interest.
    I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
    The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
    This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
    And given that working class white boys are amongst the lowest educational achievers in society already, what is the remedy for this privilege?
    I've many times given mine. End educational elitism, end the private optout, everyone goes to their local state school, pour resource into underperforming areas, turn Leveling Up into more than a soundbite.

    This will do rather more to address the problem than denying the existence of a different problem.
    So selection by house price then. That will help alot...
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,221

    Oxford approval appears to be going backwards

    CW now saying expects MHRA approval early next year possibly sooner.

    Have they broke up early for Christmas?

    Or waiting for more evidence from the ongoing trials ?
  • Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Z, his father was from Macedon and his mother from Epirus. And he was king of Macedon.

    Greece at the time was a collection of city-states. There was Athens. It happened to be in Attica, but Attica wasn't the political bloc. Likewise Sparta and Lacedaemon(ia?).

    The Hellenistic culture certainly was a great factor in Macedon, and Epirus, but that doesn't make them Greek, anymore than English-speaking Australians are British.

    The Olympic Games argument is an interesting one I haven't heard before. It seems like (again, just quickly checking Wikipedia) that those from Greek-founded cities could participate. That would presumably include residents of Tarentum, a city founded as Taras by Greeks and under Roman sway for centuries.

    Edited extra bit: hmm.

    Surely though, as neither slavs, nor Bulgars, nor Albanians had arrived in the land that we know as Macedonia, the ethnicity, culture and language of Alexander's Macedon was Greek?
    Not the same language

    My grandfather was once invited to give a speech in Athens

    Being fairly well educated he gave the speech in Greek. Unfortunately he didn’t realise there was a difference between ancient and modern Greek... the only person who understood him was the British ambassador 😂
    It seems highly improbable that someone who was sufficiently well-educated to give a speech in Greek would be unaware that modern Greek is not the same as ancient Greek. Nice story though.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,676

    Oxford approval appears to be going backwards

    CW now saying expects MHRA approval early next year possibly sooner.

    Have they broke up early for Christmas?

    Chris Whitty?
    Yes
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,882

    Nigelb said:
    If you think that is good camouflage, then try this - entered into my facebook Moth Group's photo competition. Knot Grass moth, by Paul Coombes
    .

    LOL. I saw this picture when Paul first put it up on the group earlier in the year. And I know what a Knot-Grass looks like but I still have a hell of a job finding the bloody thing :)
    Is it about F6 in chess parlance?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Mr. Z, his father was from Macedon and his mother from Epirus. And he was king of Macedon.

    Greece at the time was a collection of city-states. There was Athens. It happened to be in Attica, but Attica wasn't the political bloc. Likewise Sparta and Lacedaemon(ia?).

    The Hellenistic culture certainly was a great factor in Macedon, and Epirus, but that doesn't make them Greek, anymore than English-speaking Australians are British.

    The Olympic Games argument is an interesting one I haven't heard before. It seems like (again, just quickly checking Wikipedia) that those from Greek-founded cities could participate. That would presumably include residents of Tarentum, a city founded as Taras by Greeks and under Roman sway for centuries.

    Edited extra bit: hmm.

    The Greeks didn't tie Greekness to mainland Hellas. They thought Greek colonies were Greek, including for instance West coast Turkey, Byzantium, and lots of Southern Italy (which the Romans called Magna Graecia) and defined Greekness by descent and language. Sure, there was a debate about Alexander, in the course of which that little shit Demosthenes observed that Macedonians weren't Greek and didn't even make decent slaves. A racist debate in other words.

    The Greeks Overseas by Boardman and Inventing the Barbarian by Hall are key texts.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.

    Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
    We await your insightful contributions with interest.
    I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
    The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
    This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
    And given that working class white boys are amongst the lowest educational achievers in society already, what is the remedy for this privilege?
    I've many times given mine. End educational elitism, end the private optout, everyone goes to their local state school, pour resource into underperforming areas, turn Leveling Up into more than a soundbite.

    This will do rather more to address the problem than denying the existence of a different problem.
    So selection by house price then. That will help alot...
    End the education system designed to prune out those who don't perform and redesign it to seek to maximize what each student learns.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,217

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Mr. Malmesbury, that sounds insane. It prohibits discussion of historical facts because they don't, or may not, tally with modern morality.

    Imposing modern norms on the past leads to revisionism of history, rewriting it to be more currently convenient and throwing out irksome accuracies. It leads to bullshit like the Common Era nonsense.

    I was told at a seminar on workplace behaviour that (for example) some the facts of the case regarding Oscar Wilde are not mentionable - and are indeed homophobic.
    IN what context are they not mentionable? Presumably an academic historian would be able to narrate them in a book on the case?
    Saying in a conversation something like "Oscar Wilde would have got life, these days". Apparently, he is an icon of persecution, so attributing certain behaviour to him is attacking an icon. Hence attacking a community.
    Ah, thanks. I'm reading that in the sense of what he would get today if he was prosecuted (say, if he had been molesting a minor [edit] or wwhatever it was was imputed to him - I'm not familiar with the details). Is that correct?
    Yes - and there is no doubt as to what he did. He spoke of it to several people. And it was part of the evidence that sank him for perjury.

    This comes from trying reduce human relations to a grid of victims and heroes, all in their little coloured boxes.

    Real people are complicated.

    So you have to start cutting bits off to make them fit.
    I see we have broke open WokeWorld to have a go at again. How many points needed for Platinum status?

    But yes of course. Real people ARE complicated. Tick to that.
  • Nigelb said:
    If you think that is good camouflage, then try this - entered into my facebook Moth Group's photo competition. Knot Grass moth, by Paul Coombes
    .

    Very unlikely I would have seen it if I didn't know it was there.
  • Sky news already and predictably saying TOOOOOOO CONFUSING....

    Its just too confusing to have legal rules and guidance.

    THE LAW: Do this legal thing
    THE ADVICE: Don't do this legal thing despite all the times we have not only told you to do it but done everything possible to make it easier for you
    No that's totally false:

    THE LAW: Do not do this illegal thing.
    THE ADVICE: Think twice before doing these legal things.

    If the law is "do this" like you phrased it that means you "MUST" do it - not that you can. Consider a distinction with drinking.

    THE LAW: You can drink two bottles of wine, but it would be illegal to drive after doing so.
    THE ADVICE: Do not drink more than 14 units of alcohol (approximately one bottle of wine) per week.
    Drop the analogies and use the reality. THE LAW says bubbles of 3 households can meet for 5 days. THE ADVICE says don't stay overnight despite the people issuing the guidelines clearing roadworks rail engineering and ensuring more seats available so that you can stay overnight.

    Its the usual contradictory bullshit which as usual you are happy to parrot
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,676

    IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    And how is he going to enforce it
    He is having officers permanently stationed outside chez BigG

    Or the same way Boris is going to enforce 3, would be an obvious flaw in your comment
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Omnium said:

    Interesting. Checked Wikipedia, and apparently there's lots of arguments over the age.

    Not that Wikipedia's always right. It thinks Alexander was Greek...

    You'd have us argue that the British Empire was in fact Norman though on that basis.

    He may not have been Greek, but his legacy clearly is.
    Surely the British Empire was Norman? They conquered us and then just kept on conquering! The Tory party is clearly the Norman party too.
    It is one of the arguments I have with Scots about their claims that it was 'the English' who conquered and oppressed them. What they forget is that before they were conquered and oppressed by the Norman elite, the same thing had happened to the English. They were the first victims of the Norman Empire.
    The Scots were never conquered!
    Agree on the Normans though, time to throw off the yoke.
    Please don't egg him on!
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,934
    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:
    If you think that is good camouflage, then try this - entered into my facebook Moth Group's photo competition. Knot Grass moth, by Paul Coombes
    .

    LOL. I saw this picture when Paul first put it up on the group earlier in the year. And I know what a Knot-Grass looks like but I still have a hell of a job finding the bloody thing :)
    Is it about F6 in chess parlance?
    Thank you. Spent about five minutes scouring the image.
  • IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    And how is he going to enforce it
    How will the government enforce three households?
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,934

    Sky news already and predictably saying TOOOOOOO CONFUSING....

    Its just too confusing to have legal rules and guidance.

    THE LAW: Do this legal thing
    THE ADVICE: Don't do this legal thing despite all the times we have not only told you to do it but done everything possible to make it easier for you
    No that's totally false:

    THE LAW: Do not do this illegal thing.
    THE ADVICE: Think twice before doing these legal things.

    If the law is "do this" like you phrased it that means you "MUST" do it - not that you can. Consider a distinction with drinking.

    THE LAW: You can drink two bottles of wine, but it would be illegal to drive after doing so.
    THE ADVICE: Do not drink more than 14 units of alcohol (approximately one bottle of wine) per week.
    Drop the analogies and use the reality. THE LAW says bubbles of 3 households can meet for 5 days. THE ADVICE says don't stay overnight despite the people issuing the guidelines clearing roadworks rail engineering and ensuring more seats available so that you can stay overnight.

    Its the usual contradictory bullshit which as usual you are happy to parrot
    There are many inconsistencies between law and advice in many different areas.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Z, his father was from Macedon and his mother from Epirus. And he was king of Macedon.

    Greece at the time was a collection of city-states. There was Athens. It happened to be in Attica, but Attica wasn't the political bloc. Likewise Sparta and Lacedaemon(ia?).

    The Hellenistic culture certainly was a great factor in Macedon, and Epirus, but that doesn't make them Greek, anymore than English-speaking Australians are British.

    The Olympic Games argument is an interesting one I haven't heard before. It seems like (again, just quickly checking Wikipedia) that those from Greek-founded cities could participate. That would presumably include residents of Tarentum, a city founded as Taras by Greeks and under Roman sway for centuries.

    Edited extra bit: hmm.

    Surely though, as neither slavs, nor Bulgars, nor Albanians had arrived in the land that we know as Macedonia, the ethnicity, culture and language of Alexander's Macedon was Greek?
    Not the same language

    My grandfather was once invited to give a speech in Athens

    Being fairly well educated he gave the speech in Greek. Unfortunately he didn’t realise there was a difference between ancient and modern Greek... the only person who understood him was the British ambassador 😂
    Great story. Peak Charles?
    If I had told you all of the details that might have been "Peak Charles"...
    https://parks.dpaw.wa.gov.au/park/peak-charles
    An ancient peak with sweeping views... not entirely inappropriate...
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,601

    Nigelb said:
    If you think that is good camouflage, then try this - entered into my facebook Moth Group's photo competition. Knot Grass moth, by Paul Coombes
    .

    LOL. I saw this picture when Paul first put it up on the group earlier in the year. And I know what a Knot-Grass looks like but I still have a hell of a job finding the bloody thing :)
    So do I! (Hint: quarter the images, then look in the middle of the NE quarter. Head down, pointing to 7 o'clock. But it is bloody tricky....)
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,381
    The most impressive achievement after Boris discovering the vaccine were his Nightingale Hospitals. Here in the People's Republic of Drakeford, I understand from an electrician who has ripped the wiring out of the ones in The Principality Stadium and in Gwent, that they are no more in Wales. They would have been kind of handy as Welsh cases go through the roof, I would have thought.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,882
    RobD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:
    If you think that is good camouflage, then try this - entered into my facebook Moth Group's photo competition. Knot Grass moth, by Paul Coombes
    .

    LOL. I saw this picture when Paul first put it up on the group earlier in the year. And I know what a Knot-Grass looks like but I still have a hell of a job finding the bloody thing :)
    Is it about F6 in chess parlance?
    Thank you. Spent about five minutes scouring the image.
    It's the very subtle difference in detail patterning and - when I look away and again - the bilateral symmetry.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,221

    kinabalu said:


    Well some good points, except the same people who are asking you to believe the 2020 election was free and fair are asking you to believe the 2016 election was completely bent and decided by interference from Russia, and that the President who won that election was and remains a Russian asset.

    I'm sure you will forgive my questioning them.

    I don't agree with you on very much, but I think you have a valid point there. Obviously there's a big difference of degree between the two (arguing that voters were influenced by interference by Russia or whatever is different from arguing that the actual votes cast were illegal or not correctly counted), but the Democrats set a bad precedent in not really accepting that Trump's 2016 victory was entirely legitimate, which they then made worse with the ridiculous impeachment attempt.
    Astonishing (!) post from you. As in, I'm astonished. There's no equivalence at all here. Serious Russian interference in 16 is a proven fact. Serious voter fraud in 20 is a proven nonsense. Trump & Co are saying 20 is flat out illegitimate and refusing the result. The Dems conceded 16 promptly and accepted the result. Trump was impeached for an impeachable offence that the evidence says he committed. He was acquitted for partisan reasons only. As the Dems knew he would be. Hence why they were reluctant to do it.
    Well, I specifically said there wasn't equivalence, but, leaving that aside:

    Russian attempts at interference are a proven fact (and nothing new, of course). Whether Russian interference actually achieved anything is completely unclear, but even if it did, there is still the rather vital point that US electors cast those votes for Trump, not Russian bots, and so the point of the complaints can only be that Trump voters were so stupid that they allowed themselves to be influenced by those bots and that, therefore, the election wasn't legitimate.

    Do you not see a smidgen of a problem with telling voters that they were illegally influenced by Putin, which implies that their votes were worth less than those of nice East and West coast liberals? Or even a problem with telling yourself that?
    You're being silly.

    The fact is that Democrats conceded two elections in the past couple of decades where they suspected they might have been cheated. Because at the end of the day they don't wish to wreck democracy.
    One cannot say that of the current Republican party.
  • The government have made it clear that they do not want people travelling to stay overnight with their relatives. And to make it difficult to do so they have spent money cancelling roadworks, postponing rail engineering planned 18 months in advance and paid for additional seats to be available for people making trips they are being told not to make.

    Perfectly clear. That they want to be able to wash their hands of the post-Christmas death toll and blame the people who took their advice to buy coach and train tickets or drive north to stay overnight with their family.
  • IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    And how is he going to enforce it
    How will the government enforce three households?
    Yes but 3 had been agreed across the UK until the last half an hour

  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541

    HYUFD said:

    Omnium said:

    Interesting. Checked Wikipedia, and apparently there's lots of arguments over the age.

    Not that Wikipedia's always right. It thinks Alexander was Greek...

    You'd have us argue that the British Empire was in fact Norman though on that basis.

    He may not have been Greek, but his legacy clearly is.
    Surely the British Empire was Norman? They conquered us and then just kept on conquering! The Tory party is clearly the Norman party too.
    It is one of the arguments I have with Scots about their claims that it was 'the English' who conquered and oppressed them. What they forget is that before they were conquered and oppressed by the Norman elite, the same thing had happened to the English. They were the first victims of the Norman Empire.
    England was first conquered by the Anglo Saxons before the Normans however, Scotland was never fully conquered by the Saxons apart from the southeast which was part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. The rest of it was a mix of Celts and Gaelic settlers from Ireland.

    Scotland also kept separate monarchs from England for centuries after the Norman conquest of England, unlike Wales which was united under the crown of England by the 13th century the English and Scottish crowns were not united until the 18th century.
    Um no. 'England' was never conquered by the Anglo-Saxons. It was a purely Anglo-Saxon creation. Actually a creation of Alfred and his successors in the 9th century.

    The 'English' didn't exist before the Anglo-Saxons arrived and indeed there is strong evidence that across much of the lowlands of Britain they were coming into a largely depopulated landscape as a result of the collapse of the late Romano-British villa landscape.

    There is also very little evidence beyond the ASC that they conquered the existing population by force of arms. Most of the sites in Eastern and Southern England that existed at the time show no signs of the sorts of destruction that are usually associated with forced conquest.

    As I was taught it, in London there is a very visble evidence of of burnt brickearth, ashy silts and charcoal marking where Boudecca burned the city in AD61. But in the record for period the Anglo-Saxons turned up, nothing remotely similar, indicating there was no one left (or willing) to fight for it. Fascinatingly there is evidence of a small pocket of Romano British culture surviving around St Martin-in-the-Fields contemporanious with the Anglo-Saxons were settling Aldwich less than a mile away.
  • Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:
    If you think that is good camouflage, then try this - entered into my facebook Moth Group's photo competition. Knot Grass moth, by Paul Coombes
    .

    LOL. I saw this picture when Paul first put it up on the group earlier in the year. And I know what a Knot-Grass looks like but I still have a hell of a job finding the bloody thing :)
    Is it about F6 in chess parlance?
    Yep. Facing south south-west.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Z, his father was from Macedon and his mother from Epirus. And he was king of Macedon.

    Greece at the time was a collection of city-states. There was Athens. It happened to be in Attica, but Attica wasn't the political bloc. Likewise Sparta and Lacedaemon(ia?).

    The Hellenistic culture certainly was a great factor in Macedon, and Epirus, but that doesn't make them Greek, anymore than English-speaking Australians are British.

    The Olympic Games argument is an interesting one I haven't heard before. It seems like (again, just quickly checking Wikipedia) that those from Greek-founded cities could participate. That would presumably include residents of Tarentum, a city founded as Taras by Greeks and under Roman sway for centuries.

    Edited extra bit: hmm.

    Surely though, as neither slavs, nor Bulgars, nor Albanians had arrived in the land that we know as Macedonia, the ethnicity, culture and language of Alexander's Macedon was Greek?
    Not the same language

    My grandfather was once invited to give a speech in Athens

    Being fairly well educated he gave the speech in Greek. Unfortunately he didn’t realise there was a difference between ancient and modern Greek... the only person who understood him was the British ambassador 😂
    Now that's how it's done! I suppose it's too much to hope that a text of the speech survives?
    Sent you a PM
  • theakestheakes Posts: 931
    I am impressed that someone "knows the BOZO line". I don't, everytime time he speak it seemingly changes, today twice in two hours. We need a Leader, a man for the hour, not a sailor forgetting to steer his boat and seeing it blown in different directions, with the crew seemingly nowhere.
    Someone needs to get a grip, I have said it before, a National Government for 12 months.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,934

    The government have made it clear that they do not want people travelling to stay overnight with their relatives. And to make it difficult to do so they have spent money cancelling roadworks, postponing rail engineering planned 18 months in advance and paid for additional seats to be available for people making trips they are being told not to make.

    Perfectly clear. That they want to be able to wash their hands of the post-Christmas death toll and blame the people who took their advice to buy coach and train tickets or drive north to stay overnight with their family.

    Because people will travel, regardless of whatever the law or advice says. So why not try ensure it is done as safely as possible? That doesn't mean they can't simultaneously try to discourage it.
  • TimT said:

    TimT said:

    Just when you thought that you could no longer be surprised by the government's Brexit looniness, they come up with this world-class humdinger of insanity:

    https://twitter.com/GeorgePeretzQC/status/1339227792987271168
    https://twitter.com/GeorgePeretzQC/status/1339230901717360640

    Serious question Richard, is it really as ridiculous as you're making it sound. Presumably there are legal and policy issues related to activities, social conditions, employment law etc... that will take part within those parts of the Chunnel that are under UK J&C that do not require ECJ jurisdiction for the Chunnel to function and where some divergence of practice has no impact on the performance of the tunnel. Or am I misreading what this covers?
    Health and safety, for example. If the EU, or an ECJ ruling, says that EU safety regulations have changed so as to outlaw some goods which currently can be carried, what on earth is the UK going to do to avoid 'dynamic alignment' with that ruling? Stop the train half way through the tunnel and chuck those chemicals on to the track?
    But Health and Safety rules as applied to those working on the track in the UK part?
    Those employees or contractors will in many cases be French nationals working for a French company, for one thing, so it's unlikely to be a purely UK matter. For another, if French laws specify one particular type of protective clothing, and the UK laws specify a different one, what are they supposed to do when they reach the half-way point?

    So it's Brexiteer madness to pretend that EU regulations can somehow be ignored on the UK side. There is no such thing as complete sovereignty, and this is a wonderfully clear example of that principle in action. We can't simply pretend that EU regulations and ECJ rulings don't exist - and most obviously not in the Channel tunnel.
  • Mr. Z, but did the Macedonians feel the same way?

    It's certainly true Eumenes of Cardia was looked down on by the other Diadochi because he was Greek (you might argue because he wasn't Macedonian).
  • RobD said:

    Sky news already and predictably saying TOOOOOOO CONFUSING....

    Its just too confusing to have legal rules and guidance.

    THE LAW: Do this legal thing
    THE ADVICE: Don't do this legal thing despite all the times we have not only told you to do it but done everything possible to make it easier for you
    No that's totally false:

    THE LAW: Do not do this illegal thing.
    THE ADVICE: Think twice before doing these legal things.

    If the law is "do this" like you phrased it that means you "MUST" do it - not that you can. Consider a distinction with drinking.

    THE LAW: You can drink two bottles of wine, but it would be illegal to drive after doing so.
    THE ADVICE: Do not drink more than 14 units of alcohol (approximately one bottle of wine) per week.
    Drop the analogies and use the reality. THE LAW says bubbles of 3 households can meet for 5 days. THE ADVICE says don't stay overnight despite the people issuing the guidelines clearing roadworks rail engineering and ensuring more seats available so that you can stay overnight.

    Its the usual contradictory bullshit which as usual you are happy to parrot
    There are many inconsistencies between law and advice in many different areas.
    This is the first time I can think of where the government have worked very hard to encourage something then at the last minute saying don't do it. Whilst insisting the advice hasn't changed.
  • I wonder whether there will even be a Christmas spike in cases.

    Yes there's going to be some family mixing.

    But against that the schools are going to be closed and many people won't be going to work.

    Its possible I would have thought that with common sense the two might cancel each other out.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,934

    RobD said:

    Sky news already and predictably saying TOOOOOOO CONFUSING....

    Its just too confusing to have legal rules and guidance.

    THE LAW: Do this legal thing
    THE ADVICE: Don't do this legal thing despite all the times we have not only told you to do it but done everything possible to make it easier for you
    No that's totally false:

    THE LAW: Do not do this illegal thing.
    THE ADVICE: Think twice before doing these legal things.

    If the law is "do this" like you phrased it that means you "MUST" do it - not that you can. Consider a distinction with drinking.

    THE LAW: You can drink two bottles of wine, but it would be illegal to drive after doing so.
    THE ADVICE: Do not drink more than 14 units of alcohol (approximately one bottle of wine) per week.
    Drop the analogies and use the reality. THE LAW says bubbles of 3 households can meet for 5 days. THE ADVICE says don't stay overnight despite the people issuing the guidelines clearing roadworks rail engineering and ensuring more seats available so that you can stay overnight.

    Its the usual contradictory bullshit which as usual you are happy to parrot
    There are many inconsistencies between law and advice in many different areas.
    This is the first time I can think of where the government have worked very hard to encourage something then at the last minute saying don't do it. Whilst insisting the advice hasn't changed.
    When have they worked very hard to encourage it? From the start they've been saying the celebrations should be minimal.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,601
    RobD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:
    If you think that is good camouflage, then try this - entered into my facebook Moth Group's photo competition. Knot Grass moth, by Paul Coombes
    .

    LOL. I saw this picture when Paul first put it up on the group earlier in the year. And I know what a Knot-Grass looks like but I still have a hell of a job finding the bloody thing :)
    Is it about F6 in chess parlance?
    Thank you. Spent about five minutes scouring the image.
    If you were a blue tit you wouldn't exactly be feasting this Christmas!
  • IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    And how is he going to enforce it
    How will the government enforce three households?
    Yes but 3 had been agreed across the UK until the last half an hour

    And how will they enforce it? You want to attack Drakeford for changing something unenforceable for something unenforceable. You don't see the hole in your argument...? Why not attack Shagger for setting the unenforceable thing at 3? And don't say "people know what they are allowed to do. Because that has just been changed in the last half hour.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    These stories only go one way.

    1. Mark Drakeford announces A Tough New Rule.

    2. A Welsh Govt Minister Organizes a Mahoosive Xmas Party in violation of the Rules (Probably Vaughan Gething -- he has not had a good pandemic).

    3. It is Explained the Rules Don't Apply to Some People.
  • Countdown until CorrectHorseBattery says "capitulation" without even reading any of what has been agreed . . .
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468

    Nigelb said:
    If you think that is good camouflage, then try this - entered into my facebook Moth Group's photo competition. Knot Grass moth, by Paul Coombes
    .

    LOL. I saw this picture when Paul first put it up on the group earlier in the year. And I know what a Knot-Grass looks like but I still have a hell of a job finding the bloody thing :)
    So do I! (Hint: quarter the images, then look in the middle of the NE quarter. Head down, pointing to 7 o'clock. But it is bloody tricky....)
    It's like those 3D images - best to de-focus a little and it jumps out more.
  • RobD said:

    The government have made it clear that they do not want people travelling to stay overnight with their relatives. And to make it difficult to do so they have spent money cancelling roadworks, postponing rail engineering planned 18 months in advance and paid for additional seats to be available for people making trips they are being told not to make.

    Perfectly clear. That they want to be able to wash their hands of the post-Christmas death toll and blame the people who took their advice to buy coach and train tickets or drive north to stay overnight with their family.

    Because people will travel, regardless of whatever the law or advice says. So why not try ensure it is done as safely as possible? That doesn't mean they can't simultaneously try to discourage it.
    Right you are Mr Parrot. Skwark!
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,934

    RobD said:

    The government have made it clear that they do not want people travelling to stay overnight with their relatives. And to make it difficult to do so they have spent money cancelling roadworks, postponing rail engineering planned 18 months in advance and paid for additional seats to be available for people making trips they are being told not to make.

    Perfectly clear. That they want to be able to wash their hands of the post-Christmas death toll and blame the people who took their advice to buy coach and train tickets or drive north to stay overnight with their family.

    Because people will travel, regardless of whatever the law or advice says. So why not try ensure it is done as safely as possible? That doesn't mean they can't simultaneously try to discourage it.
    Right you are Mr Parrot. Skwark!
    Right.
  • Mr. Seal, might that not be indicative of urban abandonment?

    Even centuries later, when Alfred was around, many major Roman cities were either still abandoned or only partially re-inhabited.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,678
    edited December 2020

    The government have made it clear that they do not want people travelling to stay overnight with their relatives. And to make it difficult to do so they have spent money cancelling roadworks, postponing rail engineering planned 18 months in advance and paid for additional seats to be available for people making trips they are being told not to make.

    Perfectly clear. That they want to be able to wash their hands of the post-Christmas death toll and blame the people who took their advice to buy coach and train tickets or drive north to stay overnight with their family.

    Belt and braces.

    Would you prefer it if those who have to travel for one reason or another were crushed on to crowded trains?

    Students, for example.

  • RH1992RH1992 Posts: 788
    edited December 2020

    I wonder whether there will even be a Christmas spike in cases.

    Yes there's going to be some family mixing.

    But against that the schools are going to be closed and many people won't be going to work.

    Its possible I would have thought that with common sense the two might cancel each other out.

    Much more inter-regional travel will be going on though, despite the advice from the government to stay local. I will be travelling around 70 miles to go home for Christmas and the majority of my friends have parents at least 100 miles away whom they wish to visit.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Mr. Malmesbury, that sounds insane. It prohibits discussion of historical facts because they don't, or may not, tally with modern morality.

    Imposing modern norms on the past leads to revisionism of history, rewriting it to be more currently convenient and throwing out irksome accuracies. It leads to bullshit like the Common Era nonsense.

    I was told at a seminar on workplace behaviour that (for example) some the facts of the case regarding Oscar Wilde are not mentionable - and are indeed homophobic.
    IN what context are they not mentionable? Presumably an academic historian would be able to narrate them in a book on the case?
    Saying in a conversation something like "Oscar Wilde would have got life, these days". Apparently, he is an icon of persecution, so attributing certain behaviour to him is attacking an icon. Hence attacking a community.
    Ah, thanks. I'm reading that in the sense of what he would get today if he was prosecuted (say, if he had been molesting a minor [edit] or wwhatever it was was imputed to him - I'm not familiar with the details). Is that correct?
    Yes - and there is no doubt as to what he did. He spoke of it to several people. And it was part of the evidence that sank him for perjury.

    This comes from trying reduce human relations to a grid of victims and heroes, all in their little coloured boxes.

    Real people are complicated.

    So you have to start cutting bits off to make them fit.
    If you were JK Rowling you'd get in trouble for that comment!
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,217

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.

    Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
    We await your insightful contributions with interest.
    I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
    The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
    This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
    'Quite literally never have to think about it'? Perhaps that was true once, but not after the super-saturation of wokeness throughout our entire media and popular culture. One can't even watch a football match without having the rituals of wokeness performed in front of you, so it's really quite hard to avoid these days.
    I struggle to see you with your Latin and your ancient wit & wisdoms in true simpatico with the Proud Boys down in The Den.
    Eh? Julius Caesar redefined Latin prose style - plus managed a few other minor achievements along the way - but that didn't stop him mixing it up with the plebs against the grave, out-of-touch optimates.
    See what I mean? Try a fancy comment like that down at the Den and you'll probably get an even bigger boo than if you'd taken a knee, shouted Black Lives Matter! at the top of your voice, and insulted Jim Davidson.
    "That Caesar was one of the lads. Not to proud to buy a round at the Canis Et Anas on a Friday night...."
    :smile: - Nevertheless I'm not convinced by the BluestBlue = Julius Caesar comparison.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,316

    I wonder whether there will even be a Christmas spike in cases.

    Yes there's going to be some family mixing.

    But against that the schools are going to be closed and many people won't be going to work.

    Its possible I would have thought that with common sense the two might cancel each other out.

    There might not be much of a spike in cases, but there might be a spike in the death rates: Christmas is an ideal time for the younger population to spread their bugs to elderly relatives who will then pass it on to all their friends.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    Are you sure it was not just lunch time and he meant Fume Blanc?
  • IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    And how is he going to enforce it
    How will the government enforce three households?
    Besides "two bubbles" or "three bubbles" is simple and actionable. Even if you don't get 100 % compliance, any more than you get with the 70 mph speed limit, it's clear meaningful anchoring.

    "Be careful" is meaningless guff that doesn't help anyone. And if the last year has taught us anything, it's that "common sense" is surprisingly uncommon.

    Still, assuming that Boris doesn't bail out (if Marky D has done this, I can't imagine Nicola S or Arlene F being that far behind), we'll see the impact in January, won't we?

    (But at this stage vis a vis the vaccine, the UK really should have scheduled a VC loooong weekend for Whitsun 2021, and kept Christmas to singing "Silent Night" out of windows as if it were the Western Front in 1914.)
  • I am officially deemed "competent" at "practical legal research".

    You would never have guessed from my posts on here.

    Yes, but what about 'theoretical legal research'? That's what we excel at here.
  • So ridiculous people who keep saying why is a big deal made about Christmas but not Eid.

    Christmas is a public holiday, Eid is not.

    Churches were shut during Easter too.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,601
    Scott_xP said:
    The only tricky part will be Boris telling HM the Q that to clinch a deal, he has had to sign up the UK to the Church of Rome.....
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468

    TimT said:

    TimT said:

    Just when you thought that you could no longer be surprised by the government's Brexit looniness, they come up with this world-class humdinger of insanity:

    https://twitter.com/GeorgePeretzQC/status/1339227792987271168
    https://twitter.com/GeorgePeretzQC/status/1339230901717360640

    Serious question Richard, is it really as ridiculous as you're making it sound. Presumably there are legal and policy issues related to activities, social conditions, employment law etc... that will take part within those parts of the Chunnel that are under UK J&C that do not require ECJ jurisdiction for the Chunnel to function and where some divergence of practice has no impact on the performance of the tunnel. Or am I misreading what this covers?
    Health and safety, for example. If the EU, or an ECJ ruling, says that EU safety regulations have changed so as to outlaw some goods which currently can be carried, what on earth is the UK going to do to avoid 'dynamic alignment' with that ruling? Stop the train half way through the tunnel and chuck those chemicals on to the track?
    But Health and Safety rules as applied to those working on the track in the UK part?
    Those employees or contractors will in many cases be French nationals working for a French company, for one thing, so it's unlikely to be a purely UK matter. For another, if French laws specify one particular type of protective clothing, and the UK laws specify a different one, what are they supposed to do when they reach the half-way point?

    So it's Brexiteer madness to pretend that EU regulations can somehow be ignored on the UK side. There is no such thing as complete sovereignty, and this is a wonderfully clear example of that principle in action. We can't simply pretend that EU regulations and ECJ rulings don't exist - and most obviously not in the Channel tunnel.
    For most things, I fully agree with you. But I do not think that is, or needs to be, as absolute as you are implying for everything to do with the Chunnel.
  • HYUFD said:

    Omnium said:

    Interesting. Checked Wikipedia, and apparently there's lots of arguments over the age.

    Not that Wikipedia's always right. It thinks Alexander was Greek...

    You'd have us argue that the British Empire was in fact Norman though on that basis.

    He may not have been Greek, but his legacy clearly is.
    Surely the British Empire was Norman? They conquered us and then just kept on conquering! The Tory party is clearly the Norman party too.
    It is one of the arguments I have with Scots about their claims that it was 'the English' who conquered and oppressed them. What they forget is that before they were conquered and oppressed by the Norman elite, the same thing had happened to the English. They were the first victims of the Norman Empire.
    England was first conquered by the Anglo Saxons before the Normans however, Scotland was never fully conquered by the Saxons apart from the southeast which was part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. The rest of it was a mix of Celts and Gaelic settlers from Ireland.

    Scotland also kept separate monarchs from England for centuries after the Norman conquest of England, unlike Wales which was united under the crown of England by the 13th century the English and Scottish crowns were not united until the 18th century.
    Um no. 'England' was never conquered by the Anglo-Saxons. It was a purely Anglo-Saxon creation. Actually a creation of Alfred and his successors in the 9th century.

    The 'English' didn't exist before the Anglo-Saxons arrived and indeed there is strong evidence that across much of the lowlands of Britain they were coming into a largely depopulated landscape as a result of the collapse of the late Romano-British villa landscape.

    There is also very little evidence beyond the ASC that they conquered the existing population by force of arms. Most of the sites in Eastern and Southern England that existed at the time show no signs of the sorts of destruction that are usually associated with forced conquest.

    So after the Romans left the Britons unilaterally retreated to Wales and Cornwall? interesting.
    Nope. Outside of the towns and cities, across much of South Eastern Britain (basically south and east of the Fosse Way) the pre-Roman population had been removed from much of the land. Those that remained worked in what was known as the Villa Landscape. where the countryside was dominated by villa farms with the peasantry working for the villa owners. In the late 4th and early 5th centuries there were a whole series of plagues known to have swept across the Roman Empire which greatly reduced the population anyway and when the Romans withdrew from Britain militarily and economically the Villa landscape collapsed - as the markets had largely disappeared - leaving a landscape that was seriously depopulated compare to pre-Roman times.

    The areas which suffered the least from this were those areas you mention - Wales and Cornwall - because they had never really been part of the villa economy.

    There were of course still some inhabitants in southern and Eastern Britain but mostly they appear to have been concentrated in the towns although some smaller settlements do show continuous occupation from the Bronze Age through to the Viking invasions of the late 8th and 9th centuries. But the sorts of nucleated settlements we associate with the modern country landscape do not really develop until the mid to late Saxon period.
  • Phil said:

    I wonder whether there will even be a Christmas spike in cases.

    Yes there's going to be some family mixing.

    But against that the schools are going to be closed and many people won't be going to work.

    Its possible I would have thought that with common sense the two might cancel each other out.

    There might not be much of a spike in cases, but there might be a spike in the death rates: Christmas is an ideal time for the younger population to spread their bugs to elderly relatives who will then pass it on to all their friends.
    Not if the elderly relatives choose to isolate. That's what mine are doing at least.

    Why are the elderly relatives not isolating from the young ones - or their friends?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,217

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.

    Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
    We await your insightful contributions with interest.
    I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
    The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
    This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
    And given that working class white boys are amongst the lowest educational achievers in society already, what is the remedy for this privilege?
    I've many times given mine. End educational elitism, end the private optout, everyone goes to their local state school, pour resource into underperforming areas, turn Leveling Up into more than a soundbite.

    This will do rather more to address the problem than denying the existence of a different problem.
    So selection by house price then. That will help alot...
    You clearly missed the bit about resource allocation.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,221

    Nigelb said:
    If you think that is good camouflage, then try this - entered into my facebook Moth Group's photo competition. Knot Grass moth, by Paul Coombes
    .

    Very unlikely I would have seen it if I didn't know it was there.
    You missed the rest of its family, then ? :smile:
  • IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    And how is he going to enforce it
    How will the government enforce three households?
    Yes but 3 had been agreed across the UK until the last half an hour

    And how will they enforce it? You want to attack Drakeford for changing something unenforceable for something unenforceable. You don't see the hole in your argument...? Why not attack Shagger for setting the unenforceable thing at 3? And don't say "people know what they are allowed to do. Because that has just been changed in the last half hour.
    In the first instance maybe a more mature reference to Boris Johnson would help but the point here is that all four
    administrations agreed the 3 rule, confirmed this morning and only in the last half hour changed by Drakeford

    Drakeford is presiding over a his failure of policy while desperately trying to contain covid

    He is a disaster for Wales and not just on covid but as anyone who has dealt with Wales NHS will testify
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Z, his father was from Macedon and his mother from Epirus. And he was king of Macedon.

    Greece at the time was a collection of city-states. There was Athens. It happened to be in Attica, but Attica wasn't the political bloc. Likewise Sparta and Lacedaemon(ia?).

    The Hellenistic culture certainly was a great factor in Macedon, and Epirus, but that doesn't make them Greek, anymore than English-speaking Australians are British.

    The Olympic Games argument is an interesting one I haven't heard before. It seems like (again, just quickly checking Wikipedia) that those from Greek-founded cities could participate. That would presumably include residents of Tarentum, a city founded as Taras by Greeks and under Roman sway for centuries.

    Edited extra bit: hmm.

    Surely though, as neither slavs, nor Bulgars, nor Albanians had arrived in the land that we know as Macedonia, the ethnicity, culture and language of Alexander's Macedon was Greek?
    Not the same language

    My grandfather was once invited to give a speech in Athens

    Being fairly well educated he gave the speech in Greek. Unfortunately he didn’t realise there was a difference between ancient and modern Greek... the only person who understood him was the British ambassador 😂
    It seems highly improbable that someone who was sufficiently well-educated to give a speech in Greek would be unaware that modern Greek is not the same as ancient Greek. Nice story though.
    He had his faults, but I doubt he would have done it deliberately. No point in that - and it was an important occasion.

    It would be entirely in character that he just didn't think.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    Nigelb said:

    Oxford approval appears to be going backwards

    CW now saying expects MHRA approval early next year possibly sooner.

    Have they broke up early for Christmas?

    Or waiting for more evidence from the ongoing trials ?
    It looks like they are waiting for more data, maybe from US trial which is going to recruit 10k into the half/full dose regime now that it has restarted. I do wonder whether the MHRA will go for the partial approval rather than wait for data to give full approval. I'm hoping for the former.
  • Countdown until CorrectHorseBattery says "capitulation" without even reading any of what has been agreed . . .
    A bad deal will be spun as better than no deal, lol! Of course it is capitulation. It always was going to be. Only a complete thicket (aka Brexiteer) would think otherwise. They are a big trading block, and we are a much smaller trading country with limited leverage and a really weak crap government. I am sure you will delude yourself it was a wonderful deal and there with be "blue birds over" and all that crap.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541

    Mr. Seal, might that not be indicative of urban abandonment?

    Even centuries later, when Alfred was around, many major Roman cities were either still abandoned or only partially re-inhabited.

    That's the point. Roman civilisation collapsed and what would become known as Anglo-Saxon civilisation stepped into what was more or less a vaccuum. To get anywhere in life the native population had to adopt the customs and language of the new ruling class and England was (eventually) the result.
  • RobD said:

    RobD said:

    Sky news already and predictably saying TOOOOOOO CONFUSING....

    Its just too confusing to have legal rules and guidance.

    THE LAW: Do this legal thing
    THE ADVICE: Don't do this legal thing despite all the times we have not only told you to do it but done everything possible to make it easier for you
    No that's totally false:

    THE LAW: Do not do this illegal thing.
    THE ADVICE: Think twice before doing these legal things.

    If the law is "do this" like you phrased it that means you "MUST" do it - not that you can. Consider a distinction with drinking.

    THE LAW: You can drink two bottles of wine, but it would be illegal to drive after doing so.
    THE ADVICE: Do not drink more than 14 units of alcohol (approximately one bottle of wine) per week.
    Drop the analogies and use the reality. THE LAW says bubbles of 3 households can meet for 5 days. THE ADVICE says don't stay overnight despite the people issuing the guidelines clearing roadworks rail engineering and ensuring more seats available so that you can stay overnight.

    Its the usual contradictory bullshit which as usual you are happy to parrot
    There are many inconsistencies between law and advice in many different areas.
    This is the first time I can think of where the government have worked very hard to encourage something then at the last minute saying don't do it. Whilst insisting the advice hasn't changed.
    When have they worked very hard to encourage it? From the start they've been saying the celebrations should be minimal.
    I know that you are obsequious in your thinking for political reasons so I will walk you through it again.

    We are locked down. We can't legally mix indoors. For some of us that situation hasn't been lifted since this began. For Christmas a 5 day amnesty was declared - a window where up to three households can mix indoors. Before and after this amnesty they cannot mix indoors.

    By creating a window where you can do something after months of not being able to do something, you actively promote such behavior. Marketed by the government and their media as "Boris saves Christmas"

    'That will be difficult' complained Tory MPs due to major engineering works closing Kings Cross Station as well as other major network upgrades, major roadworks and the usual wind down of coach and rail services for Christmas made worse by Covid. So the government clears away the roadworks, reopens the rail lines and pays for additional services.

    So not only have they saved Christmas, they have made it easier than ever to travel during the 5 day amnesty period. Transport Secretary Michael Green was bragging on Twitter about government cash spent on coach seats to go home.

    The scientists have pointed out their actions will kill people in their tens of thousands. So having Saved Christmas and paid to make travel home for Christmas the easiest it can be, they now say don't stay overnight.

    Its literally laughable. I know you are intelligent, so I don't get why you say something that is patently wrong for political point scoring purposes. I couldn't give a toss about party politics during this and have said so repeatedly - I was attacking Keith Starmer earlier so its not an anti-Tory pro-Labour attack.

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    Seems like an exciting day. Brexit, Christmas, Heathrow, it's all happening (though only 2 of those 3 will ever actually take place I expect).

    A shorter Christmas is a safer Christmas says Boris on the front page of the BBC. But a bad Christmas is better than no Christmas?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,381

    IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    These stories only go one way.

    1. Mark Drakeford announces A Tough New Rule.

    2. A Welsh Govt Minister Organizes a Mahoosive Xmas Party in violation of the Rules (Probably Vaughan Gething -- he has not had a good pandemic).

    3. It is Explained the Rules Don't Apply to Some People.
    I am glad I caught you. I enjoyed the intriguing debate between yourself and Ydoethur last evening. Rather enlightening.

    I had mistakenly (I believe) pencilled you in as an upright Welsh Conservative. Unless I misread the tealeaves, I couldn't have been more wrong.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,221
    DougSeal said:

    HYUFD said:

    Omnium said:

    Interesting. Checked Wikipedia, and apparently there's lots of arguments over the age.

    Not that Wikipedia's always right. It thinks Alexander was Greek...

    You'd have us argue that the British Empire was in fact Norman though on that basis.

    He may not have been Greek, but his legacy clearly is.
    Surely the British Empire was Norman? They conquered us and then just kept on conquering! The Tory party is clearly the Norman party too.
    It is one of the arguments I have with Scots about their claims that it was 'the English' who conquered and oppressed them. What they forget is that before they were conquered and oppressed by the Norman elite, the same thing had happened to the English. They were the first victims of the Norman Empire.
    England was first conquered by the Anglo Saxons before the Normans however, Scotland was never fully conquered by the Saxons apart from the southeast which was part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. The rest of it was a mix of Celts and Gaelic settlers from Ireland.

    Scotland also kept separate monarchs from England for centuries after the Norman conquest of England, unlike Wales which was united under the crown of England by the 13th century the English and Scottish crowns were not united until the 18th century.
    Um no. 'England' was never conquered by the Anglo-Saxons. It was a purely Anglo-Saxon creation. Actually a creation of Alfred and his successors in the 9th century.

    The 'English' didn't exist before the Anglo-Saxons arrived and indeed there is strong evidence that across much of the lowlands of Britain they were coming into a largely depopulated landscape as a result of the collapse of the late Romano-British villa landscape.

    There is also very little evidence beyond the ASC that they conquered the existing population by force of arms. Most of the sites in Eastern and Southern England that existed at the time show no signs of the sorts of destruction that are usually associated with forced conquest.

    As I was taught it, in London there is a very visble evidence of of burnt brickearth, ashy silts and charcoal marking where Boudecca burned the city in AD61. But in the record for period the Anglo-Saxons turned up, nothing remotely similar, indicating there was no one left (or willing) to fight for it. Fascinatingly there is evidence of a small pocket of Romano British culture surviving around St Martin-in-the-Fields contemporanious with the Anglo-Saxons were settling Aldwich less than a mile away.
    That the early Academy ?
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,507

    Nigelb said:
    If you think that is good camouflage, then try this - entered into my facebook Moth Group's photo competition. Knot Grass moth, by Paul Coombes
    .

    Very unlikely I would have seen it if I didn't know it was there.
    I can see 3 or 4. which leads me to believe I haven't in fact seen any.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126

    Scott_xP said:
    The only tricky part will be Boris telling HM the Q that to clinch a deal, he has had to sign up the UK to the Church of Rome.....
    That'll be fine, it'll be telling the pope that Her Majesty is taking over that may be more difficult.
  • DougSeal said:

    Mr. Seal, might that not be indicative of urban abandonment?

    Even centuries later, when Alfred was around, many major Roman cities were either still abandoned or only partially re-inhabited.

    That's the point. Roman civilisation collapsed and what would become known as Anglo-Saxon civilisation stepped into what was more or less a vaccuum. To get anywhere in life the native population had to adopt the customs and language of the new ruling class and England was (eventually) the result.
    Absolutely. I know this is not something we will ever necessarily 'prove' but the evidence that this is the way it happened seems pretty overwhelming to me.
  • Countdown until CorrectHorseBattery says "capitulation" without even reading any of what has been agreed . . .
    A bad deal will be spun as better than no deal, lol! Of course it is capitulation. It always was going to be. Only a complete thicket (aka Brexiteer) would think otherwise. They are a big trading block, and we are a much smaller trading country with limited leverage and a really weak crap government. I am sure you will delude yourself it was a wonderful deal and there with be "blue birds over" and all that crap.
    Shouldn't be surprised with your spin before its even announced what it is. So predictable. 🙄
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,590
    Peter Hitchens' latest interview with Mike Graham.

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl-q_TU906s
  • IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    And how is he going to enforce it
    How will the government enforce three households?
    Yes but 3 had been agreed across the UK until the last half an hour

    And how will they enforce it? You want to attack Drakeford for changing something unenforceable for something unenforceable. You don't see the hole in your argument...? Why not attack Shagger for setting the unenforceable thing at 3? And don't say "people know what they are allowed to do. Because that has just been changed in the last half hour.
    In the first instance maybe a more mature reference to Boris Johnson would help but the point here is that all four
    administrations agreed the 3 rule, confirmed this morning and only in the last half hour changed by Drakeford

    Drakeford is presiding over a his failure of policy while desperately trying to contain covid

    He is a disaster for Wales and not just on covid but as anyone who has dealt with Wales NHS will testify
    You keep saying changed in the last half hour. Shagger - a lying manchild who can't stop philandering hence the name - stood there at PMQs and said all 4 nations were in agreement. Wales had already said it wasn't - something the media were correcting whilst he was still on his feet attacking Keith.

    Just because you keep repeating "last half hour" doesn't make it correct. It isn't. Nor have you answered how 2 or 3 or any number will be enforced. Because you know it can't be enforced. You are attacking something that can't be enforced because you dislike Drakeford. I have no problem with you wanting him gone but this isn't his fault.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,217
    Andy_JS said:

    Peter Hitchens' latest interview with Mike Graham.

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl-q_TU906s

    Did you watch his recent interview with Owen Jones, Andy?
  • Nigelb said:


    You're being silly.

    The fact is that Democrats conceded two elections in the past couple of decades where they suspected they might have been cheated. Because at the end of the day they don't wish to wreck democracy.
    One cannot say that of the current Republican party.

    You are completely misunderstanding my point. In no way am I defending the Trumpsters' madness and the obvious racist basis of it, still less the cowardly and cynical collusion of the Republican Party in it. What I'm saying is that the fact that the Democrats' obviously much milder and less reprehensible accusations of 'unfairness' have provided political cover for it, and indeed a sort of political 'justification', albeit one which is objectively irrational.
  • GaussianGaussian Posts: 831
    Wales reporting still broken. Maybe tomorrow.

    https://twitter.com/JCrichtonSmith/status/1339251867847684097
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.

    Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
    We await your insightful contributions with interest.
    I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
    The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
    This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
    'Quite literally never have to think about it'? Perhaps that was true once, but not after the super-saturation of wokeness throughout our entire media and popular culture. One can't even watch a football match without having the rituals of wokeness performed in front of you, so it's really quite hard to avoid these days.
    I struggle to see you with your Latin and your ancient wit & wisdoms in true simpatico with the Proud Boys down in The Den.
    Eh? Julius Caesar redefined Latin prose style - plus managed a few other minor achievements along the way - but that didn't stop him mixing it up with the plebs against the grave, out-of-touch optimates.
    See what I mean? Try a fancy comment like that down at the Den and you'll probably get an even bigger boo than if you'd taken a knee, shouted Black Lives Matter! at the top of your voice, and insulted Jim Davidson.
    It's all right, it's only us here. It's just possible that in that situation I might feel a little pueris superbis constrictus - inhibited by the attendant circumstance of the Proud Boys' presence - so probably best to wait till everyone's too drunk to notice.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,934



    I know that you are obsequious in your thinking for political reasons so I will walk you through it again.

    We are locked down. We can't legally mix indoors. For some of us that situation hasn't been lifted since this began. For Christmas a 5 day amnesty was declared - a window where up to three households can mix indoors. Before and after this amnesty they cannot mix indoors.

    By creating a window where you can do something after months of not being able to do something, you actively promote such behavior. Marketed by the government and their media as "Boris saves Christmas"

    'That will be difficult' complained Tory MPs due to major engineering works closing Kings Cross Station as well as other major network upgrades, major roadworks and the usual wind down of coach and rail services for Christmas made worse by Covid. So the government clears away the roadworks, reopens the rail lines and pays for additional services.

    So not only have they saved Christmas, they have made it easier than ever to travel during the 5 day amnesty period. Transport Secretary Michael Green was bragging on Twitter about government cash spent on coach seats to go home.

    The scientists have pointed out their actions will kill people in their tens of thousands. So having Saved Christmas and paid to make travel home for Christmas the easiest it can be, they now say don't stay overnight.

    Its literally laughable. I know you are intelligent, so I don't get why you say something that is patently wrong for political point scoring purposes. I couldn't give a toss about party politics during this and have said so repeatedly - I was attacking Keith Starmer earlier so its not an anti-Tory pro-Labour attack.

    Thank you, I am aware of the present situation and the proposals. The visits or gatherings were going to happen anyway, regardless of what the government says or does. I don't think there is much to be gained by changing the law to criminalise this behaviour, but that doesn't mean the advice can't be to limit gatherings to small circles.
  • IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    And how is he going to enforce it
    How will the government enforce three households?
    Yes but 3 had been agreed across the UK until the last half an hour

    And how will they enforce it? You want to attack Drakeford for changing something unenforceable for something unenforceable. You don't see the hole in your argument...? Why not attack Shagger for setting the unenforceable thing at 3? And don't say "people know what they are allowed to do. Because that has just been changed in the last half hour.
    In the first instance maybe a more mature reference to Boris Johnson would help but the point here is that all four
    administrations agreed the 3 rule, confirmed this morning and only in the last half hour changed by Drakeford

    Drakeford is presiding over a his failure of policy while desperately trying to contain covid

    He is a disaster for Wales and not just on covid but as anyone who has dealt with Wales NHS will testify
    You keep saying changed in the last half hour. Shagger - a lying manchild who can't stop philandering hence the name - stood there at PMQs and said all 4 nations were in agreement. Wales had already said it wasn't - something the media were correcting whilst he was still on his feet attacking Keith.

    Just because you keep repeating "last half hour" doesn't make it correct. It isn't. Nor have you answered how 2 or 3 or any number will be enforced. Because you know it can't be enforced. You are attacking something that can't be enforced because you dislike Drakeford. I have no problem with you wanting him gone but this isn't his fault.
    The change by Drakeford has come this afternoon when earlier he was saying it was advice

  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,217

    IanB2 said:

    Breaking: Welsh two household limit will be law, not just advice

    These stories only go one way.

    1. Mark Drakeford announces A Tough New Rule.

    2. A Welsh Govt Minister Organizes a Mahoosive Xmas Party in violation of the Rules (Probably Vaughan Gething -- he has not had a good pandemic).

    3. It is Explained the Rules Don't Apply to Some People.
    I am glad I caught you. I enjoyed the intriguing debate between yourself and Ydoethur last evening. Rather enlightening.

    I had mistakenly (I believe) pencilled you in as an upright Welsh Conservative. Unless I misread the tealeaves, I couldn't have been more wrong.
    YBardd is Plaid, I've always thought, to the extent he is anything.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,388
    RobD said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Since when do law and advice have to coincide? It’s legal to drink fifty bottles of wine in one sitting, for example.
    You'd probably need more than one Scotch egg if you were to drink fifty bottles of wine in one sitting.
This discussion has been closed.