A Sinn Fein politician wants and looks forward to a united Ireland by peaceful means, acknowledges the troubles but emphasises those days are in the past. It seems uncontroversial and certainly unsurprising.
Either her Gaelic isn't very good, or Google Translate isn't!
Both are probably true. Irish is taught in schools but no-one speaks it, so there is not much of a corpus for Google Translate to learn from. Ireland is no Israel, where Hebrew was successfully resurrected.
Ireland (most of it anyway) is independent but it's language doesn't appear to be doing so well. There's little prospect of Welsh independence but the language seems to be coming back. Scots Gaelic is on it's last legs, apparently.
Why any parent would want to impede their child's education in this way escapes me completely.
Surely the language teaching lobby has always told us that learning one foreign language helps with others. If true (which tbh I doubt) then French, German and Spanish results should be on the up at those schools.
There's some research I think which confirms that. I believe teaching of foreign languages in British schools is declining generally, though. Or is it just European languages?
We don't even teach English in our schools. I went to a grammar school in the 1970s and was never taught English grammar. And if you don't know how your own language works, how on earth are you going to be able to learn other ones?
Well they teach you it in those other languages. I learned most of my grammar from Latin, for example.
But English is a catastrophic subject at school. It teaches you almost nothing useful at all. No grammar, not how to write in different styles, not how to impart information clearly and succinctly, nothing. Time is wasted studying tedious poetry of little merit where the only correct answer is how wonderful it is. My son managed to get an A in his Higher last year without ever studying a Shakespeare play. As a subject it has completely lost its way.
It’s got no academic rigour at university level either. There is a Cambridge professor in English with just three books, two of them not peer reviewed. For History, that might be enough for a temporary contract at the University of Gloucestershire.
Does explain Richard Burgon, of course...
If you are going to fire an assault at people for their use of language you'd better be on bloody rock solid ground yourself.
"It's" is not a contraction of "it has" ...
G'day to y'all.
That genuinely is an autocorrect error. For some reason every time it sees ‘it’ and ‘s’ near each other it corrects them to ‘it’s’ regardless of what I’m trying to type.
Similarly it is almost impossible to type ‘Liberal Democrats’ as it will always correct it to ‘Liberal Democrat’s.’
Its weirdest trick though is every time I type a capital letter in the middle of a sentence for a proper noun, it will change to lower case and put ‘a’ in front of it.
I don’t think Apple’s engineers speak a single word of English, even that weird barely comprehensible bastardised dialect they use Yankeeside.
It may have been autocorrect but it wasn't an error:
Would you like to know the number one grammatical error? Hint: The word involved is small and it’s contained in this sentence. That’s right: its vs. it’s
Yet the two rules are actually quite easy to remember.
Rule 1: When you mean it is or it has, use an apostrophe.
Rule 2: When you are using its as a possessive, don’t use the apostrophe
A Sinn Fein politician wants and looks forward to a united Ireland by peaceful means, acknowledges the troubles but emphasises those days are in the past. It seems uncontroversial and certainly unsurprising.
Either her Gaelic isn't very good, or Google Translate isn't!
Both are probably true. Irish is taught in schools but no-one speaks it, so there is not much of a corpus for Google Translate to learn from. Ireland is no Israel, where Hebrew was successfully resurrected.
Ireland (most of it anyway) is independent but it's language doesn't appear to be doing so well. There's little prospect of Welsh independence but the language seems to be coming back. Scots Gaelic is on it's last legs, apparently.
Why any parent would want to impede their child's education in this way escapes me completely.
Surely the language teaching lobby has always told us that learning one foreign language helps with others. If true (which tbh I doubt) then French, German and Spanish results should be on the up at those schools.
There's some research I think which confirms that. I believe teaching of foreign languages in British schools is declining generally, though. Or is it just European languages?
We don't even teach English in our schools. I went to a grammar school in the 1970s and was never taught English grammar. And if you don't know how your own language works, how on earth are you going to be able to learn other ones?
Same for me the concept of dealing verbs came as a shock and has limited my ability to learn other languages.
I did Latin at my Grammar school in the early 70s. Hugely useful throughout my life and helped me greatly with Spanish when I retired to Spain.
In my 50's Grammar School the A & B streams did Latin and French in the first form (it was that sort of school), then added either German or Spanish in the 2nd. At the end of the 3rd boys in the A & B streams had to choose either Arts or Science. If you did Science, as I did, you dropped Latin, so 'only' did two languages to O level. We did do English Language and English Literature as O level subjects, though. The C & D streams only did French all the way through.
What is the time line for 70+ being vaccinated? Because once that happens how do you justify lockdowns which will be largely predicated on combating case numbers and (largely mild) illness, but not deaths?
And did the Times’ “reasonable worse case scenario” model the impact of vaccines?
Lockdowns are in response to hospitalisations, to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed.
Yes, and that's why we're going to be stuck with lockdowns for a long time to come. It shouldn't take too long to get round the care homes and the over 80s, at which point the per capita death rate should drop considerably (though whether the absolute numbers do will also depend crucially on whether the novel strain, Christmas and other factors cause the case load to keep increasingly rapidly.) However, these groups are only a small fraction of the population and, even if those in the lower priority segments for vaccination are less likely to die, they'll still include an awful lot of moderately or severely ill patients who end up in hospital. And a moderately ill middle-aged person takes up one bed in the same fashion as a ninety-year-old at death's door.
The bottom line is that I think we're going to be locked up at least until the bulk of the first phase of the JCVI scheme have been vaccinated twice, i.e. the health and care workers, care home residents, the shielders, the rest of the clinically vulnerable and the entire general population over 60. There's unlikely to be any easing until ministers are reasonably confident that the hospitals can cope with the resultant increase in patient numbers, and even then it'll be gradual. Assuming that the vaccination programme is prosecuted with great efficiency, ideally accompanied by a warm, dry Spring, then we might get whatever's left of the hospitality sector back around the middle of 2021.
I think that'd be the scientists view but I think the politicians will open up as soon as deaths get (say) below 30-50 a day or something with hospitals having lots of capacity.
There's no incentive for the scientists to take risks.
Mr Johnson, though, was said to have been stubborn. “It was only when he was faced with a scenario that looked like armageddon that he actually changed his position,” a source said. “He’s been told about this for weeks but he’s been in denial about this."
Teaching languages in school has been a mess for an awfully long time.
I agree that English is pretty strange - it is no accident that the most impressive modern writers do not have an English degree.
In the 70's I didn't take French or Spanish to A Level because they seemed to consist of reading texts from simple writers rather than any lingusitic analysis of the languages or improved fluency.
As life has happened I have gained some knowledge of English as she is taught in French Universities. At least they don't spend too much time on Shakespeare but they have their own pronunciation - they are or were actually taught to speak English like the Frogs in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Now don't get me wrong Shakespeare was indeed great, Dickens less so, Emily Bronte more so. BUT, because of a lifetime researching early modern local history I read a lot of things written in the 15th to 18th centuries. The fact is the style used by Shakespeare was virtually obsolete by the end of the 16th century. He was writing in a deliberately archaic style. The idea you can progress English fluency by reading the artificial writing of the 16th c imitating fairly badly the late 15th c is not a good one.
And don't get me started on Shakespear giving his wife his second best bed in his will - anyone who disparages that knows nothing about 16th and 17th c wills - I have read and analysed several thousand. The general form was that 2/3s of the estate and the best of things was given to the heir - Shakespeare's male heir had just died - the other third and the second best of everything was given to the widow, the Widow's Third.
Shakespeare’s male heir died aged 11, around 25 years before Shakespeare himself did. His eldest daughter Susannah was his heiress from then on (and her mother seems to have lived with her until Anne’s own death in 1623).
The other point is that the ‘second best bed’ would, in a family of that type and wealth, have been the marriage bed. The best bed was in the guest bedroom.
We decline verbs of course. You just have to teach people that's what they're doing, and that foreigners (except for Scandinavians) do more of it. I think people will always experience their mother tongue differently to learned languages.
Oh no we don´t. If we did anything, we would conjugate verbs. But we don´t even do that, except in the present tense in the third person singular. In practice, in English, there is no grammar to teach. This is why other people speak it so well.
While those nobles were writing their fancy French, those Anglo Saxon peasants simplified it for us all.
Voters wanted to eject Trump but don't trust the Democrats with power of all the wings of federal Government.
And for very good reason, in my view.
We don't know but I actually expect the opposite - there is very little reason for Trump supporting Republicans to go out and vote and every incentive for Democrats to actually get out and vote.
Georgias continually process of voter removal may actually have resulted in a problem for the Republicans as the Democrats made an effort to ensure their voters checked they were still eligible to vote and the Republicans don't seem to have done the same.
It wouldn't surprise me if the Democrats won both seats but the odds aren't good enough for me to bet.
A Sinn Fein politician wants and looks forward to a united Ireland by peaceful means, acknowledges the troubles but emphasises those days are in the past. It seems uncontroversial and certainly unsurprising.
Either her Gaelic isn't very good, or Google Translate isn't!
Both are probably true. Irish is taught in schools but no-one speaks it, so there is not much of a corpus for Google Translate to learn from. Ireland is no Israel, where Hebrew was successfully resurrected.
Ireland (most of it anyway) is independent but it's language doesn't appear to be doing so well. There's little prospect of Welsh independence but the language seems to be coming back. Scots Gaelic is on it's last legs, apparently.
Why any parent would want to impede their child's education in this way escapes me completely.
Surely the language teaching lobby has always told us that learning one foreign language helps with others. If true (which tbh I doubt) then French, German and Spanish results should be on the up at those schools.
There's some research I think which confirms that. I believe teaching of foreign languages in British schools is declining generally, though. Or is it just European languages?
We don't even teach English in our schools. I went to a grammar school in the 1970s and was never taught English grammar. And if you don't know how your own language works, how on earth are you going to be able to learn other ones?
Well they teach you it in those other languages. I learned most of my grammar from Latin, for example.
But English is a catastrophic subject at school. It teaches you almost nothing useful at all. No grammar, not how to write in different styles, not how to impart information clearly and succinctly, nothing. Time is wasted studying tedious poetry of little merit where the only correct answer is how wonderful it is. My son managed to get an A in his Higher last year without ever studying a Shakespeare play. As a subject it has completely lost its way.
That's only going to get worse, I'm afraid, with the very strong fashion for identity politics permeating itself right through our education system.
The key test will be "who wrote it?" rather than what it is.
We decline verbs of course. You just have to teach people that's what they're doing, and that foreigners (except for Scandinavians) do more of it. I think people will always experience their mother tongue differently to learned languages.
Oh no we don´t. If we did anything, we would conjugate verbs. But we don´t even do that, except in the present tense in the third person singular. In practice, in English, there is no grammar to teach. This is why other people speak it so well.
While those nobles were writing their fancy French, those Anglo Saxon peasants simplified it for us all.
A Sinn Fein politician wants and looks forward to a united Ireland by peaceful means, acknowledges the troubles but emphasises those days are in the past. It seems uncontroversial and certainly unsurprising.
Either her Gaelic isn't very good, or Google Translate isn't!
Both are probably true. Irish is taught in schools but no-one speaks it, so there is not much of a corpus for Google Translate to learn from. Ireland is no Israel, where Hebrew was successfully resurrected.
Ireland (most of it anyway) is independent but it's language doesn't appear to be doing so well. There's little prospect of Welsh independence but the language seems to be coming back. Scots Gaelic is on it's last legs, apparently.
Why any parent would want to impede their child's education in this way escapes me completely.
Surely the language teaching lobby has always told us that learning one foreign language helps with others. If true (which tbh I doubt) then French, German and Spanish results should be on the up at those schools.
There's some research I think which confirms that. I believe teaching of foreign languages in British schools is declining generally, though. Or is it just European languages?
We don't even teach English in our schools. I went to a grammar school in the 1970s and was never taught English grammar. And if you don't know how your own language works, how on earth are you going to be able to learn other ones?
I was 11 when I went to America in 1975, and that was the first place that I got taught English grammar. It was taught in a very rigid manner, but very useful later on.
English and maths were well taught in Georgia, the rest of the subjects much less so.
I went to school in DC for two years and learned almost nothing except how to be an expert shot with a pistol on the school's shooting range.
British kids learn almost no English grammar. I have had plenty of native English speaking A level students who can't name the seventeen English verbs that can't take the present continuous tense. I have also met foreign students of English (usually Dutch or German) who can.
So if a British student has achieved some proficiency in one foreign language they will almost certainly do better at a second just because they have finally had to learn some grammar.
Voters wanted to eject Trump but don't trust the Democrats with power of all the wings of federal Government.
And for very good reason, in my view.
This is mis-interpreting the views of voters.
The two biggest groups of voters by far are want Trump with all the wings of federal govt, and want Biden with all the wings of federal govt. The outcome is a quirk of the system, and could have been very different with just a 1% swing either way, not something that gives a clear interpretation of what "the voters" wanted.
No, I think there's a significant constitutency who wanted Trump out but don't want the Democrats to have free reign.
A Sinn Fein politician wants and looks forward to a united Ireland by peaceful means, acknowledges the troubles but emphasises those days are in the past. It seems uncontroversial and certainly unsurprising.
Either her Gaelic isn't very good, or Google Translate isn't!
Both are probably true. Irish is taught in schools but no-one speaks it, so there is not much of a corpus for Google Translate to learn from. Ireland is no Israel, where Hebrew was successfully resurrected.
Ireland (most of it anyway) is independent but it's language doesn't appear to be doing so well. There's little prospect of Welsh independence but the language seems to be coming back. Scots Gaelic is on it's last legs, apparently.
Why any parent would want to impede their child's education in this way escapes me completely.
Surely the language teaching lobby has always told us that learning one foreign language helps with others. If true (which tbh I doubt) then French, German and Spanish results should be on the up at those schools.
There's some research I think which confirms that. I believe teaching of foreign languages in British schools is declining generally, though. Or is it just European languages?
We don't even teach English in our schools. I went to a grammar school in the 1970s and was never taught English grammar. And if you don't know how your own language works, how on earth are you going to be able to learn other ones?
Well they teach you it in those other languages. I learned most of my grammar from Latin, for example.
But English is a catastrophic subject at school. It teaches you almost nothing useful at all. No grammar, not how to write in different styles, not how to impart information clearly and succinctly, nothing. Time is wasted studying tedious poetry of little merit where the only correct answer is how wonderful it is. My son managed to get an A in his Higher last year without ever studying a Shakespeare play. As a subject it has completely lost its way.
We decline verbs of course. You just have to teach people that's what they're doing, and that foreigners (except for Scandinavians) do more of it. I think people will always experience their mother tongue differently to learned languages.
Oh no we don´t. If we did anything, we would conjugate verbs. But we don´t even do that, except in the present tense in the third person singular. In practice, in English, there is no grammar to teach. This is why other people speak it so well.
While those nobles were writing their fancy French, those Anglo Saxon peasants simplified it for us all.
And, surely, the Danes.
Indeed.
There's an interesting counter-view to the normal assumption that Middle English was based on Old English with some Norse grafted on, which argues that, based on language structure rather than word origins, Middle English is closer to being Norse with a lot of Old English words drafted in. I don't necessarily buy it, but English does appear to owe more to Norse than you might assume. For example English's greater importance of word order and prepositions, rather than endings (case inflections), to indicate subject and object etc. comes from Norse.
A Sinn Fein politician wants and looks forward to a united Ireland by peaceful means, acknowledges the troubles but emphasises those days are in the past. It seems uncontroversial and certainly unsurprising.
Either her Gaelic isn't very good, or Google Translate isn't!
Both are probably true. Irish is taught in schools but no-one speaks it, so there is not much of a corpus for Google Translate to learn from. Ireland is no Israel, where Hebrew was successfully resurrected.
Ireland (most of it anyway) is independent but it's language doesn't appear to be doing so well. There's little prospect of Welsh independence but the language seems to be coming back. Scots Gaelic is on it's last legs, apparently.
Why any parent would want to impede their child's education in this way escapes me completely.
Surely the language teaching lobby has always told us that learning one foreign language helps with others. If true (which tbh I doubt) then French, German and Spanish results should be on the up at those schools.
There's some research I think which confirms that. I believe teaching of foreign languages in British schools is declining generally, though. Or is it just European languages?
We don't even teach English in our schools. I went to a grammar school in the 1970s and was never taught English grammar. And if you don't know how your own language works, how on earth are you going to be able to learn other ones?
I was 11 when I went to America in 1975, and that was the first place that I got taught English grammar. It was taught in a very rigid manner, but very useful later on.
English and maths were well taught in Georgia, the rest of the subjects much less so.
I went to school in DC for two years and learned almost nothing except how to be an expert shot with a pistol on the school's shooting range.
British kids learn almost no English grammar. I have had plenty of native English speaking A level students who can't name the seventeen English verbs that can't take the present continuous tense. I have also met foreign students of English (usually Dutch or German) who can.
So if a British student has achieved some proficiency in one foreign language they will almost certainly do better at a second just because they have finally had to learn some grammar.
Do properly educated Brits speak 'better' German or French than native speakers, I wonder. I believe that is the case in Spanish.
A Sinn Fein politician wants and looks forward to a united Ireland by peaceful means, acknowledges the troubles but emphasises those days are in the past. It seems uncontroversial and certainly unsurprising.
Either her Gaelic isn't very good, or Google Translate isn't!
Both are probably true. Irish is taught in schools but no-one speaks it, so there is not much of a corpus for Google Translate to learn from. Ireland is no Israel, where Hebrew was successfully resurrected.
Ireland (most of it anyway) is independent but it's language doesn't appear to be doing so well. There's little prospect of Welsh independence but the language seems to be coming back. Scots Gaelic is on it's last legs, apparently.
Why any parent would want to impede their child's education in this way escapes me completely.
Surely the language teaching lobby has always told us that learning one foreign language helps with others. If true (which tbh I doubt) then French, German and Spanish results should be on the up at those schools.
There's some research I think which confirms that. I believe teaching of foreign languages in British schools is declining generally, though. Or is it just European languages?
We don't even teach English in our schools. I went to a grammar school in the 1970s and was never taught English grammar. And if you don't know how your own language works, how on earth are you going to be able to learn other ones?
Were there not complaints when Michael Gove tried to fix that as education secretary?
Insert 50 Guardian articles claiming such a move is a) unnecessary and b) racist in the 21st century.
My impression of West Indian, African and Subcontinent schools is that English Grammar is heavily taught, and in an old fashioned method. Old fashioned in the sense of properly...
Yes, they haven't let go of good old-fashioned standards as we have in the UK because they haven't succumbed to trendy education fashions.
Have a bit of credulity - that’s almost certainly a fake picture imo. From a previous year or something. It’s not credible that there isn’t single person wearing a mask. Even round their chin or something.
EDIT: apparently it’s from the Daily Mail so maybe it is. I still find it very difficult to believe they haven’t been duped.
I agree. On any High Street, let alone one as busy as that at least 1/3 of people would be wearing masks now. I can't see a single one.
You would seem to be wrong.
Start the day as you mean to go on!
Apologies. That came out rather more rude than I intended.
Mr Johnson, though, was said to have been stubborn. “It was only when he was faced with a scenario that looked like armageddon that he actually changed his position,” a source said. “He’s been told about this for weeks but he’s been in denial about this."
No 10 had been caught off guard by the ban on freight, which the government had expected to apply only to passengers.
No doubt the Brexiteer Cabinet was astounded to find that fresh fruit and veg passed through Dover and that we don't grow lettuce in the UK in December.
Voters wanted to eject Trump but don't trust the Democrats with power of all the wings of federal Government.
And for very good reason, in my view.
Considering it is likely to be 51/49% or so, I think that a very tenditious conclusion to draw on "what voters want" whichever way it goes.
We draw national conclusions from national elections (and this is one, if slightly deferred) in the round all the time.
Those who reject them normally do so because they don't like the answer.
Given that more voters nationally voted for democrat candidates in the national House elections, then it looks you are the one who doesn't like the conclusion to be drawn from "what voters want"
On Corona, I think many young people are utterly fed up of the restrictions and lockdowns would rather take their chances - and don't care anymore.
Before we all cry they are selfish and heartless they've sacrificed a lot for nearly 9 months now and the years when you're 17, 18 and 19 are some of the most formative of your lives when you learn key social skills and want to break free as an adult. And whilst a year is no great shakes for someone with an established career, family and home who is decades older for those youngsters a year is a huge deal - over 5% of their lives to date.
I'm not sure I'd be wholly dissimilar where I that age again.
Voters wanted to eject Trump but don't trust the Democrats with power of all the wings of federal Government.
And for very good reason, in my view.
We don't know but I actually expect the opposite - there is very little reason for Trump supporting Republicans to go out and vote and every incentive for Democrats to actually get out and vote.
Georgias continually process of voter removal may actually have resulted in a problem for the Republicans as the Democrats made an effort to ensure their voters checked they were still eligible to vote and the Republicans don't seem to have done the same.
It wouldn't surprise me if the Democrats won both seats but the odds aren't good enough for me to bet.
With respect there's wishful thinking all over this post.
It really makes we wonder where I have gone wrong. I mean I make plenty of mistakes, have lapses of judgment, take on things well beyond my competence, why don't I get these kind of gigs?
Hilarious interview with Patel on R$ this morning, where she stated that the government were being 'proactive' (they seem to have adopted this as the new buzzword without understanding what it means) on this, and that it was "too early to speculate" on what testing regime they were considering.
We have a tescos just up the road, one of the first in Spain, last night it was out of everything British and salad and veg? I asked why to be told a lot of the veg goes back to the UK for packaging and reexported, stupid? The farm opposite where I live actually packs it in tesco packaging before export. Someone has the right business model
A Sinn Fein politician wants and looks forward to a united Ireland by peaceful means, acknowledges the troubles but emphasises those days are in the past. It seems uncontroversial and certainly unsurprising.
Either her Gaelic isn't very good, or Google Translate isn't!
Both are probably true. Irish is taught in schools but no-one speaks it, so there is not much of a corpus for Google Translate to learn from. Ireland is no Israel, where Hebrew was successfully resurrected.
Ireland (most of it anyway) is independent but it's language doesn't appear to be doing so well. There's little prospect of Welsh independence but the language seems to be coming back. Scots Gaelic is on it's last legs, apparently.
Why any parent would want to impede their child's education in this way escapes me completely.
Surely the language teaching lobby has always told us that learning one foreign language helps with others. If true (which tbh I doubt) then French, German and Spanish results should be on the up at those schools.
There's some research I think which confirms that. I believe teaching of foreign languages in British schools is declining generally, though. Or is it just European languages?
We don't even teach English in our schools. I went to a grammar school in the 1970s and was never taught English grammar. And if you don't know how your own language works, how on earth are you going to be able to learn other ones?
I was 11 when I went to America in 1975, and that was the first place that I got taught English grammar. It was taught in a very rigid manner, but very useful later on.
English and maths were well taught in Georgia, the rest of the subjects much less so.
I went to school in DC for two years and learned almost nothing except how to be an expert shot with a pistol on the school's shooting range.
British kids learn almost no English grammar. I have had plenty of native English speaking A level students who can't name the seventeen English verbs that can't take the present continuous tense. I have also met foreign students of English (usually Dutch or German) who can.
So if a British student has achieved some proficiency in one foreign language they will almost certainly do better at a second just because they have finally had to learn some grammar.
Do properly educated Brits speak 'better' German or French than native speakers, I wonder. I believe that is the case in Spanish.
Some but very few. Frederica Mogherini speaks amazingly good French.
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
Says a contributor with just shy of 40, 000 posts.
Voters wanted to eject Trump but don't trust the Democrats with power of all the wings of federal Government.
And for very good reason, in my view.
Considering it is likely to be 51/49% or so, I think that a very tenditious conclusion to draw on "what voters want" whichever way it goes.
We draw national conclusions from national elections (and this is one, if slightly deferred) in the round all the time.
Those who reject them normally do so because they don't like the answer.
Given that more voters nationally voted for democrat candidates in the national House elections, then it looks you are the one who doesn't like the conclusion to be drawn from "what voters want"
Is that the one where the Republicans made gains and the Democrats nearly lost their majority?
On Corona, I think many young people are utterly fed up of the restrictions and lockdowns would rather take their chances - and don't care anymore.
Before we all cry they are selfish and heartless they've sacrificed a lot for nearly 9 months now and the years when you're 17, 18 and 19 are some of the most formative of your lives when you learn key social skills and want to break free as an adult. And whilst a year is no great shakes for someone with an established career, family and home who is decades older for those youngsters a year is a huge deal - over 5% of their lives to date.
I'm not sure I'd be wholly dissimilar where I that age again.
Yes, but the government don’t care about their views. Or epidemiology. Or safety.
They will make this decision based on one thing only - will it make them look like they are in control of events? Bearing in mind if they shut schools, they will have to cancel exams and they are still stubbornly pretending they are going to (a) go ahead and (b) be meaningful.
My instinct is still that they will force all children back on the 11th January.
What new horrors will Boris have in store for us today ?
I would be very content for Rishi or Hunt to takeover from him today but it is not going to happen
His 170 number for HGVs yesterday was idiotic
Just quoted 2000 on news broadcast five minutes ago
Last night is was over 900 so 2000 this morning is very possible
170 actually in Dover itself? Which would be a massive traffic-jam, of course. The skies are clearer this morning, so planes with photographers can go up and have a look!
Mr Johnson, though, was said to have been stubborn. “It was only when he was faced with a scenario that looked like armageddon that he actually changed his position,” a source said. “He’s been told about this for weeks but he’s been in denial about this."
No 10 had been caught off guard by the ban on freight, which the government had expected to apply only to passengers.
No doubt the Brexiteer Cabinet was astounded to find that fresh fruit and veg passed through Dover and that we don't grow lettuce in the UK in December.
That article shows the utter folly of not agreeing a temporary transition extension until COVID is sorted. France shuts the border (yes probably largely for political reasons as the EU states) and the instant response in Downing Street is that they are only doing it to influence Brexit negotiations. They are so obsessed that they can’t imagine any other reason. And EVEN if they were right and it was about Brexit, then that would also show why we don’t want the two things mixed up at a time of national emergency.
What new horrors will Boris have in store for us today ?
I would be very content for Rishi or Hunt to takeover from him today but it is not going to happen
His 170 number for HGVs yesterday was idiotic
Just quoted 2000 on news broadcast five minutes ago
Its worth noting that these numbers getting thrown about are different things. How many are waiting to cross the Channel vs how many on the M20 itself vs . . . and so on.
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
Says a contributor with just shy of 40, 000 posts.
On Corona, I think many young people are utterly fed up of the restrictions and lockdowns would rather take their chances - and don't care anymore.
Before we all cry they are selfish and heartless they've sacrificed a lot for nearly 9 months now and the years when you're 17, 18 and 19 are some of the most formative of your lives when you learn key social skills and want to break free as an adult. And whilst a year is no great shakes for someone with an established career, family and home who is decades older for those youngsters a year is a huge deal - over 5% of their lives to date.
I'm not sure I'd be wholly dissimilar where I that age again.
That’s fine but they need to find a way to not interact with the risk groups, maybe they should have kept the student accommodation open for them. They can’t expect to party and mix as normal and then go home for an extended Xmas lunch.
What new horrors will Boris have in store for us today ?
I would be very content for Rishi or Hunt to takeover from him today but it is not going to happen
His 170 number for HGVs yesterday was idiotic
What do you mean “new horrors” it’s the French who has closed it up. We might have a PM who managed to get it reopened in less than 48hrs, what would be wrong in that?
A Sinn Fein politician wants and looks forward to a united Ireland by peaceful means, acknowledges the troubles but emphasises those days are in the past. It seems uncontroversial and certainly unsurprising.
Either her Gaelic isn't very good, or Google Translate isn't!
Both are probably true. Irish is taught in schools but no-one speaks it, so there is not much of a corpus for Google Translate to learn from. Ireland is no Israel, where Hebrew was successfully resurrected.
Ireland (most of it anyway) is independent but it's language doesn't appear to be doing so well. There's little prospect of Welsh independence but the language seems to be coming back. Scots Gaelic is on it's last legs, apparently.
On Corona, I think many young people are utterly fed up of the restrictions and lockdowns would rather take their chances - and don't care anymore.
Before we all cry they are selfish and heartless they've sacrificed a lot for nearly 9 months now and the years when you're 17, 18 and 19 are some of the most formative of your lives when you learn key social skills and want to break free as an adult. And whilst a year is no great shakes for someone with an established career, family and home who is decades older for those youngsters a year is a huge deal - over 5% of their lives to date.
I'm not sure I'd be wholly dissimilar where I that age again.
That’s fine but they need to find a way to not interact with the risk groups, maybe they should have kept the student accommodation open for them. They can’t expect to party and mix as normal and then go home for an extended Xmas lunch.
Arguing on the internet can be addictive and destructive. We should look after each other. If you find yourself here all day something is not quite right.
"why is the Government still pressing ahead with its vastly expensive community testing programme when it could redeploy many of the staff tied up in that in the vaccine programme instead? "
British kids learn almost no English grammar. I have had plenty of native English speaking A level students who can't name the seventeen English verbs that can't take the present continuous tense. I have also met foreign students of English (usually Dutch or German) who can.
This is exactly the kind of minutiae which there is no point teaching a native English speaker, though -- I bet none of those A-Level students ever said or wrote "I am liking him". It's helpful for non-native speakers to learn this sort of thing because they benefit from having a scaffolding of grammar rules and patterns while they build up enough fluency with a foreign language to get to the point where they can just say things without having to mentally puzzle through whether something is or isn't grammatical. Native speakers already have the fluency and built-in grammar, so 'rules' are less helpful. (Exceptions: where the formal/written/prestige form diverges from local dialect; people who are going to become English-as-a-second-language teachers themselves; and for the interest of linguistics as an academic subject in itself.)
"why is the Government still pressing ahead with its vastly expensive community testing programme when it could redeploy many of the staff tied up in that in the vaccine programme instead? "
Telegraph
Isn't the vaccine programme restricted by stocks of vaccine? Not staff.
Arguing on the internet can be addictive and destructive. We should look after each other. If you find yourself here all day something is not quite right.
Yeah, we might be in the middle of a fecking pandemic or something. You never know.
Didnt a lot of the European fleets that fish in our waters buy quotas from our own boats in the first place?
QTWAIN.
The UK quotas being used by European fleets aren't what is being debated here. It is European quotas that were never British and never sold.
It might not be what you prefer to discuss, but that doesn't make it a QTWTAIN (or even a QTWAIN).
BBC - £160m worth of England's fishing quota is in the hands of vessels owned by companies based in Iceland, Spain and the Netherlands, according to BBC research.
That amounts to 130,000 tonnes of fish a year and 55% of the quota's annual value in 2019.
Many parts of the quota were sold by English fishermen in the 1990s when fishing rights were cut dramatically. Cod fishing, for instance, was almost entirely stopped for several years. Foreign companies then bought it up as a long-term investment, and experts say the quota market has been allowed to develop in an unregulated way ever since.
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
Says a contributor with just shy of 40, 000 posts.
I've been here 15 years mate.
Me too, but the circa 40,000 posts are since 2013. Just saying, glass houses, stones etc.
Didnt a lot of the European fleets that fish in our waters buy quotas from our own boats in the first place?
QTWAIN.
The UK quotas being used by European fleets aren't what is being debated here. It is European quotas that were never British and never sold.
It might not be what you prefer to discuss, but that doesn't make it a QTWTAIN (or even a QTWAIN).
BBC - £160m worth of England's fishing quota is in the hands of vessels owned by companies based in Iceland, Spain and the Netherlands, according to BBC research.
That amounts to 130,000 tonnes of fish a year and 55% of the quota's annual value in 2019.
Many parts of the quota were sold by English fishermen in the 1990s when fishing rights were cut dramatically. Cod fishing, for instance, was almost entirely stopped for several years. Foreign companies then bought it up as a long-term investment, and experts say the quota market has been allowed to develop in an unregulated way ever since.
That's England's fishing quota. England's fishing quota isn't being reduced. Europeans holding England's fishing quota will still hold England's fishing quota next year unless England changes that.
What is being debated is not England's fishing quota. What is being debated is French, Spanish, Dutch etc fishing quota being reduced. None of that was sold by the English.
EDIT: To be clear even if they're Europeans using the quotas for the purpose of these negotiations they're English boats fishing under English quotas. What is being affected is Europeans using European quotas not Europeans using English quotas.
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
Says a contributor with just shy of 40, 000 posts.
I've been here 15 years mate.
Me too, but the circa 40,000 posts are since 2013. Just saying, glass houses, stones etc.
Well, I’ve had 33,632 posts since I returned for the second time in April 2014, and with the exception of the first four months I have been in rather demanding full time employment for all that time.
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
Says a contributor with just shy of 40, 000 posts.
I've been here 15 years mate.
Me too, but the circa 40,000 posts are since 2013. Just saying, glass houses, stones etc.
Well, I’ve had 33,632 posts since I returned for the second time in April 2014, and with the exception of the first four months I have been in rather demanding full time employment for all that time.
So I can hardly talk.
I'm on 46k since 2013 too. Originally joined the site about 2008 (lurking since about 2006). All quite comparable numbers.
Mr Johnson, though, was said to have been stubborn. “It was only when he was faced with a scenario that looked like armageddon that he actually changed his position,” a source said. “He’s been told about this for weeks but he’s been in denial about this."
No 10 had been caught off guard by the ban on freight, which the government had expected to apply only to passengers.
Compare and contrast as if it’s a black and white world and one is a lie the other true?
Sorry. No.
Will the shit stirrers now claim, the reason Boris has caved in on fishing to scramble for a deal this week was because of this episode? That Macrons stitch up worked and saved the Brexit deal? All Hail Manny for bouncing Boris?
Didnt a lot of the European fleets that fish in our waters buy quotas from our own boats in the first place?
Some did, yes. There might be a critical mass thing here too.
Tripling our quota gives us a chance for a UK fishing industry to develop to a sustainable level, so we can "buy British" fish nationally in the same way we do for lamb, pork or beef from good organic/sustainable farmers.
It doesn't guarantee success but it gives them a fair shot.
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
Says a contributor with just shy of 40, 000 posts.
I've been here 15 years mate.
Me too, but the circa 40,000 posts are since 2013. Just saying, glass houses, stones etc.
Well, I’ve had 33,632 posts since I returned for the second time in April 2014, and with the exception of the first four months I have been in rather demanding full time employment for all that time.
So I can hardly talk.
I'm on 46k since 2013 too. Originally joined the site about 2008 (lurking since about 2006). All quite comparable numbers.
I joined in 2007. But that was before I graduated, so I had a different username then.
Voters wanted to eject Trump but don't trust the Democrats with power of all the wings of federal Government.
And for very good reason, in my view.
Considering it is likely to be 51/49% or so, I think that a very tenditious conclusion to draw on "what voters want" whichever way it goes.
We draw national conclusions from national elections (and this is one, if slightly deferred) in the round all the time.
Those who reject them normally do so because they don't like the answer.
Given that more voters nationally voted for democrat candidates in the national House elections, then it looks you are the one who doesn't like the conclusion to be drawn from "what voters want"
Wait a sec. The national vote totals for the Presidential election were 81m-74m. For the House they are not finalised, but currently stand at 77.5m-72.9m.
So it's true to say that the Democrats won the national vote for the House, but it's also true that they did so by a smaller margin than Biden - plausibly for the reason given by Casino. This difference would be enough to hand the Senate seats of Georgia to the GOP.
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
Says a contributor with just shy of 40, 000 posts.
I've been here 15 years mate.
Me too, but the circa 40,000 posts are since 2013. Just saying, glass houses, stones etc.
Well, I’ve had 33,632 posts since I returned for the second time in April 2014, and with the exception of the first four months I have been in rather demanding full time employment for all that time.
So I can hardly talk.
I am guilty as charged too.
I just thought Casino's comment to Southam was unfortunately made to be obtuse.
A Sinn Fein politician wants and looks forward to a united Ireland by peaceful means, acknowledges the troubles but emphasises those days are in the past. It seems uncontroversial and certainly unsurprising.
Either her Gaelic isn't very good, or Google Translate isn't!
Both are probably true. Irish is taught in schools but no-one speaks it, so there is not much of a corpus for Google Translate to learn from. Ireland is no Israel, where Hebrew was successfully resurrected.
Ireland (most of it anyway) is independent but it's language doesn't appear to be doing so well. There's little prospect of Welsh independence but the language seems to be coming back. Scots Gaelic is on it's last legs, apparently.
Why any parent would want to impede their child's education in this way escapes me completely.
Surely the language teaching lobby has always told us that learning one foreign language helps with others. If true (which tbh I doubt) then French, German and Spanish results should be on the up at those schools.
There's some research I think which confirms that. I believe teaching of foreign languages in British schools is declining generally, though. Or is it just European languages?
We don't even teach English in our schools. I went to a grammar school in the 1970s and was never taught English grammar. And if you don't know how your own language works, how on earth are you going to be able to learn other ones?
I was 11 when I went to America in 1975, and that was the first place that I got taught English grammar. It was taught in a very rigid manner, but very useful later on.
English and maths were well taught in Georgia, the rest of the subjects much less so.
I went to school in DC for two years and learned almost nothing except how to be an expert shot with a pistol on the school's shooting range.
British kids learn almost no English grammar. I have had plenty of native English speaking A level students who can't name the seventeen English verbs that can't take the present continuous tense. I have also met foreign students of English (usually Dutch or German) who can.
So if a British student has achieved some proficiency in one foreign language they will almost certainly do better at a second just because they have finally had to learn some grammar.
I am believing that's wrong. For the next five minutes at least.
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
Says a contributor with just shy of 40, 000 posts.
I've been here 15 years mate.
Me too, but the circa 40,000 posts are since 2013. Just saying, glass houses, stones etc.
Um, I'm not throwing stones in a glass house. I'm pointing out that SO used to also post that intensely in c.2014-16. He's dialled back a lot since then.
I think I average out at about fifteen comments a day, which isn't excessive considering you'll get into perhaps 1-2 debates each day.
"why is the Government still pressing ahead with its vastly expensive community testing programme when it could redeploy many of the staff tied up in that in the vaccine programme instead? "
Telegraph
Isn't the vaccine programme restricted by stocks of vaccine? Not staff.
Not for long. It will be staff by the middle of January. The rollout schedule is too slow and badly designed. The US have got it right.
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
thomo does seem a nice person to joust with though? Doesn’t result to aggression like some people quickly can.
"why is the Government still pressing ahead with its vastly expensive community testing programme when it could redeploy many of the staff tied up in that in the vaccine programme instead? "
Telegraph
Because the bottleneck is supplies? They've run out of vaccine after a flying start in one of our local centres.
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
Says a contributor with just shy of 40, 000 posts.
I've been here 15 years mate.
Me too, but the circa 40,000 posts are since 2013. Just saying, glass houses, stones etc.
Well, I’ve had 33,632 posts since I returned for the second time in April 2014, and with the exception of the first four months I have been in rather demanding full time employment for all that time.
So I can hardly talk.
I'm on 46k since 2013 too. Originally joined the site about 2008 (lurking since about 2006). All quite comparable numbers.
I joined in 2007. But that was before I graduated, so I had a different username then.
"why is the Government still pressing ahead with its vastly expensive community testing programme when it could redeploy many of the staff tied up in that in the vaccine programme instead? "
Telegraph
Because the bottleneck is supplies? They've run out of vaccine after a flying start in one of our local centres.
That's not going to be the case for long. Especially once the AZ vaccine is approved. The government should start thinking about ramping down testing and ramping up jabbing.
During that time, I've offered hundreds of tips, including the longest ever winner (251, Verstappen, to win the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, which may be equalled by Mr. Thompson if Sunak is next PM).
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
Says a contributor with just shy of 40, 000 posts.
I've been here 15 years mate.
Me too, but the circa 40,000 posts are since 2013. Just saying, glass houses, stones etc.
Well, I’ve had 33,632 posts since I returned for the second time in April 2014, and with the exception of the first four months I have been in rather demanding full time employment for all that time.
So I can hardly talk.
I'm on 46k since 2013 too. Originally joined the site about 2008 (lurking since about 2006). All quite comparable numbers.
I joined in 2007. But that was before I graduated, so I had a different username then.
We remember ymyfyriwr fondly.
Maybe you do, but do you remember the Half Blood Welshman, which was my actual username?
I’m guessing probably not, incidentally. I didn’t post vast amounts and thinking back I can’t think of any posts of particular distinction.
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
thomo does seem a nice person to joust with though? Doesn’t result to aggression like some people quickly can.
Mr Johnson, though, was said to have been stubborn. “It was only when he was faced with a scenario that looked like armageddon that he actually changed his position,” a source said. “He’s been told about this for weeks but he’s been in denial about this."
No 10 had been caught off guard by the ban on freight, which the government had expected to apply only to passengers.
No doubt the Brexiteer Cabinet was astounded to find that fresh fruit and veg passed through Dover and that we don't grow lettuce in the UK in December.
I've started getting a veg box since returning to Edinburgh this November, and the farmer from East Lothian is still growing lettuce and tomatoes in his polytunnels. We've not received a single turnip!
Posting is fine, repetitive messaging is intensely annoying as are opinion polls with no context or repeated debates about Scottish referendums, and the like. Info, news unique or supportive opinion especially when feeding betting decisions surely are the prime objective coupled with some humor and occasional emotional support.
Didnt a lot of the European fleets that fish in our waters buy quotas from our own boats in the first place?
Some did, yes. There might be a critical mass thing here too.
Tripling our quota gives us a chance for a UK fishing industry to develop to a sustainable level, so we can "buy British" fish nationally in the same way we do for lamb, pork or beef from good organic/sustainable farmers.
It doesn't guarantee success but it gives them a fair shot.
I think it's the right thing to do.
Is the patriotic thing to expand it. Or just properly look after what is already there?
Mr Johnson, though, was said to have been stubborn. “It was only when he was faced with a scenario that looked like armageddon that he actually changed his position,” a source said. “He’s been told about this for weeks but he’s been in denial about this."
No 10 had been caught off guard by the ban on freight, which the government had expected to apply only to passengers.
There isn't a ban on freight. It IS a ban on passengers - the drivers. If you can send unaccompanied freight then no problem. Problem is that with trucks you can't do that.
Mr Johnson, though, was said to have been stubborn. “It was only when he was faced with a scenario that looked like armageddon that he actually changed his position,” a source said. “He’s been told about this for weeks but he’s been in denial about this."
No 10 had been caught off guard by the ban on freight, which the government had expected to apply only to passengers.
No doubt the Brexiteer Cabinet was astounded to find that fresh fruit and veg passed through Dover and that we don't grow lettuce in the UK in December.
I've started getting a veg box since returning to Edinburgh this November, and the farmer from East Lothian is still growing lettuce and tomatoes in his polytunnels. We've not received a single turnip!
I hope this comes out right, but I am concerned about Philip Thompson. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Political betting. I dip in and out these days, but he seems to be on the site literally every time I come on, except first thing in the morning. I am pretty sure he is not some kind of group effort but a genuine human, so I can't help wondering whether spending so much time on here is good for him. We frequently joust, so this may seem like point scoring, but it genuinely isn't. I hope he's OK.
I once asked the same question of you - about five years ago.
thomo does seem a nice person to joust with though? Doesn’t result to aggression like some people quickly can.
"why is the Government still pressing ahead with its vastly expensive community testing programme when it could redeploy many of the staff tied up in that in the vaccine programme instead? "
Telegraph
Isn't the vaccine programme restricted by stocks of vaccine? Not staff.
Hopefully not a gashed up macro on a PC that keeps falling over with green updates.
Mr Johnson, though, was said to have been stubborn. “It was only when he was faced with a scenario that looked like armageddon that he actually changed his position,” a source said. “He’s been told about this for weeks but he’s been in denial about this."
No 10 had been caught off guard by the ban on freight, which the government had expected to apply only to passengers.
There isn't a ban on freight. It IS a ban on passengers - the drivers. If you can send unaccompanied freight then no problem. Problem is that with trucks you can't do that.
I imagine The Times means, that the government thought that the freight Eurotunnel trains would be unaffected?
Mr Johnson, though, was said to have been stubborn. “It was only when he was faced with a scenario that looked like armageddon that he actually changed his position,” a source said. “He’s been told about this for weeks but he’s been in denial about this."
No 10 had been caught off guard by the ban on freight, which the government had expected to apply only to passengers.
No doubt the Brexiteer Cabinet was astounded to find that fresh fruit and veg passed through Dover and that we don't grow lettuce in the UK in December.
I've started getting a veg box since returning to Edinburgh this November, and the farmer from East Lothian is still growing lettuce and tomatoes in his polytunnels. We've not received a single turnip!
Who ate all the turnips?
I'd assumed that the centuries of English jackboots trampling over the ground of East Lothian made the soil unsuitable for growing turnips.
We have a tescos just up the road, one of the first in Spain, last night it was out of everything British and salad and veg? I asked why to be told a lot of the veg goes back to the UK for packaging and reexported, stupid? The farm opposite where I live actually packs it in tesco packaging before export. Someone has the right business model
That makes sense. Two separate operations: 1. Tesco sourcing. Farm in Spain produces veg for Tesco, packs it, ships it 2. Tesco supply. Tesco UK is the "parent" operation for Tesco international markets. Ireland, Czech, Spain etc are dispatched as consolidated loads from UK warehouses to order from those subsidiary markets.
It sounds stupid, but its almost certainly cheaper to ship Spanish veg to the UK and back as a few items in a full vehicle than pull those few items out then pick / dispatch them locally on a van. The unit cost of transcontinental shipping on a full load will be pennies, vs pounds (ok, €uros) sticking them on a van locally.
Mr Johnson, though, was said to have been stubborn. “It was only when he was faced with a scenario that looked like armageddon that he actually changed his position,” a source said. “He’s been told about this for weeks but he’s been in denial about this."
No 10 had been caught off guard by the ban on freight, which the government had expected to apply only to passengers.
There isn't a ban on freight. It IS a ban on passengers - the drivers. If you can send unaccompanied freight then no problem. Problem is that with trucks you can't do that.
I imagine The Times means, that the government thought that the freight Eurotunnel trains would be unaffected?
They only use the DLR and toy trains as befits a bunch of five year olds.
Didnt a lot of the European fleets that fish in our waters buy quotas from our own boats in the first place?
Some did, yes. There might be a critical mass thing here too.
Tripling our quota gives us a chance for a UK fishing industry to develop to a sustainable level, so we can "buy British" fish nationally in the same way we do for lamb, pork or beef from good organic/sustainable farmers.
It doesn't guarantee success but it gives them a fair shot.
I think it's the right thing to do.
Is the patriotic thing to expand it. Or just properly look after what is already there?
Both. People want good and sustainable fish stocks to strong ecological standards and, they also want to support British fishing too.
Comments
Would you like to know the number one grammatical error? Hint: The word involved is small and it’s contained in this sentence. That’s right: its vs. it’s
Yet the two rules are actually quite easy to remember.
Rule 1: When you mean it is or it has, use an apostrophe.
Rule 2: When you are using its as a possessive, don’t use the apostrophe
We did do English Language and English Literature as O level subjects, though.
The C & D streams only did French all the way through.
There's no incentive for the scientists to take risks.
The other point is that the ‘second best bed’ would, in a family of that type and wealth, have been the marriage bed. The best bed was in the guest bedroom.
Georgias continually process of voter removal may actually have resulted in a problem for the Republicans as the Democrats made an effort to ensure their voters checked they were still eligible to vote and the Republicans don't seem to have done the same.
It wouldn't surprise me if the Democrats won both seats but the odds aren't good enough for me to bet.
The key test will be "who wrote it?" rather than what it is.
British kids learn almost no English grammar. I have had plenty of native English speaking A level students who can't name the seventeen English verbs that can't take the present continuous tense. I have also met foreign students of English (usually Dutch or German) who can.
So if a British student has achieved some proficiency in one foreign language they will almost certainly do better at a second just because they have finally had to learn some grammar.
It's those floating voters that decide elections.
There's an interesting counter-view to the normal assumption that Middle English was based on Old English with some Norse grafted on, which argues that, based on language structure rather than word origins, Middle English is closer to being Norse with a lot of Old English words drafted in. I don't necessarily buy it, but English does appear to owe more to Norse than you might assume. For example English's greater importance of word order and prepositions, rather than endings (case inflections), to indicate subject and object etc. comes from Norse.
Those who reject them normally do so because they don't like the answer.
His 170 number for HGVs yesterday was idiotic
Before we all cry they are selfish and heartless they've sacrificed a lot for nearly 9 months now and the years when you're 17, 18 and 19 are some of the most formative of your lives when you learn key social skills and want to break free as an adult. And whilst a year is no great shakes for someone with an established career, family and home who is decades older for those youngsters a year is a huge deal - over 5% of their lives to date.
I'm not sure I'd be wholly dissimilar where I that age again.
And something most of us foresaw when he was elected.
They will make this decision based on one thing only - will it make them look like they are in control of events? Bearing in mind if they shut schools, they will have to cancel exams and they are still stubbornly pretending they are going to (a) go ahead and (b) be meaningful.
My instinct is still that they will force all children back on the 11th January.
Don't think Malcolm believes what he writes ...Noone can be that miserable.. not even a Scotsman ...
This should do it. Any redundant European fisherman in future will simply be bought off with €50k and the chance to start a new business elsewhere:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/brexit-uk-offers-cash-for-quotas-fishing-deal-to-tempt-europe-dr3zn6kz3
Lies, damned lies and statistics applies.
The UK quotas being used by European fleets aren't what is being debated here. It is European quotas that were never British and never sold.
Telegraph
BBC - £160m worth of England's fishing quota is in the hands of vessels owned by companies based in Iceland, Spain and the Netherlands, according to BBC research.
That amounts to 130,000 tonnes of fish a year and 55% of the quota's annual value in 2019.
Many parts of the quota were sold by English fishermen in the 1990s when fishing rights were cut dramatically. Cod fishing, for instance, was almost entirely stopped for several years. Foreign companies then bought it up as a long-term investment, and experts say the quota market has been allowed to develop in an unregulated way ever since.
What is being debated is not England's fishing quota. What is being debated is French, Spanish, Dutch etc fishing quota being reduced. None of that was sold by the English.
EDIT: To be clear even if they're Europeans using the quotas for the purpose of these negotiations they're English boats fishing under English quotas. What is being affected is Europeans using European quotas not Europeans using English quotas.
So I can hardly talk.
Sorry. No.
Will the shit stirrers now claim, the reason Boris has caved in on fishing to scramble for a deal this week was because of this episode? That Macrons stitch up worked and saved the Brexit deal? All Hail Manny for bouncing Boris?
Tripling our quota gives us a chance for a UK fishing industry to develop to a sustainable level, so we can "buy British" fish nationally in the same way we do for lamb, pork or beef from good organic/sustainable farmers.
It doesn't guarantee success but it gives them a fair shot.
I think it's the right thing to do.
So it's true to say that the Democrats won the national vote for the House, but it's also true that they did so by a smaller margin than Biden - plausibly for the reason given by Casino. This difference would be enough to hand the Senate seats of Georgia to the GOP.
I just thought Casino's comment to Southam was unfortunately made to be obtuse.
For the next five minutes at least.
I think I average out at about fifteen comments a day, which isn't excessive considering you'll get into perhaps 1-2 debates each day.
I would be happy to have a few pints with thomo
During that time, I've offered hundreds of tips, including the longest ever winner (251, Verstappen, to win the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, which may be equalled by Mr. Thompson if Sunak is next PM).
And I have quoted 0 posts.
I’m guessing probably not, incidentally. I didn’t post vast amounts and thinking back I can’t think of any posts of particular distinction.
Something not quite right here.
1. Tesco sourcing. Farm in Spain produces veg for Tesco, packs it, ships it
2. Tesco supply. Tesco UK is the "parent" operation for Tesco international markets. Ireland, Czech, Spain etc are dispatched as consolidated loads from UK warehouses to order from those subsidiary markets.
It sounds stupid, but its almost certainly cheaper to ship Spanish veg to the UK and back as a few items in a full vehicle than pull those few items out then pick / dispatch them locally on a van. The unit cost of transcontinental shipping on a full load will be pennies, vs pounds (ok, €uros) sticking them on a van locally.
Are we ready for Brexit?
Yes we are. Yes we are.
Are we ready?
Are we ready for Brexit?
Yes we are. Yes we are.