Are we ready? 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.
Well its a good stress test trial run isn't it?
If we can cope with a complete and utter shutdown of the border for accompanied vehicles for a few days then it seems we can cope with a bit of a slowdown at the border.
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.
Not if it's been well fertilised with the blood and ground bones of the trampled upon.
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.
Whatever the reason for Biden's margin being bigger, what he said about "what voters want" is still demonstrably bullshit.
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 have to say though, WTF would knowing those 17 verbs do to improve your life.
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?
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.
I believe the area round Prestonpans is particularly bad, the ground has never really recovered from the churning it got from routed Redcoats running backwards.
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.
It's those floating voters that decide elections.
Sure there are such voters and they are important, but they are not the "voters" nor even bigger than the purist groups on either side. If your post said "swing voters wanted to eject Trump but dont trust the Democrats....." it would have had merit.
A friend of mine is away in Barbados. She appears to be having a lovely time! I’m rather jealous!
I went to Barbados last year and didn't really enjoy it. This has convinced me that I'm an incurable grouch, because if I can't have a good time at a tropical resort then it's not the setting but the subject of the experiment which is causing the problem.
Actually, I rarely enjoy holidays. They are expensive, require planning, and while I get to see new places I lose the convenience of home. I can't work 52 weeks a year for my whole life, so I ask you:
What are good holidays for people who don't really like holidaying?
A week's self catering in rural England or Scotland/Wales etc.
You can take all the conveniences of home with you, and you have your own place in a familiar environment, but you are also somewhere different.
Change is as good as a break.
This plaguetime has introduced me to the concept of British road trips. I’ve done plenty of road trips before - but always abroad. The desert states of SW USA are basically designed for road trips, few things can beat roaring down an empty highway in Arizona
But British road trips are just as good in their own peculiar way. Partly because distances are so short. If you drive for an hour anywhere in the UK you will invariably pass a castle, an ancient battlefield, incredible churches, beautiful villages, lovely countryside. And many excellent pubs, these days with good food.
You will also pass plenty of ugly suburbs, tatty farms, traffic jams, and so on, but nowhere is perfect.
And if you’re in your own car you can take many of the comforts of home.
The best bit is deciding where to stay next - that night - over breakfast. Look at a map. Select a village or town. Go to booking.com. Sorted.
The British road trip. Heartily recommended (plague permitting)
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.
They then have the cheek to label as British grown and stick a butcher's apron on the front , unbelievable. British labelled Farm Assured Carrots....grown in Spain!
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 have to say though, WTF would knowing those 17 verbs do to improve your life.
If you are knowing those verbs it would help you when you are impressing and astonishing your listeners who would be liking your English and seeing your linguistic prowess in action.
Mr. Doethur, well quite. Not to mention the solar death ray, and trebuchets on the coast. Or Castle Morris Dancer, complete with subterranean genetic research facility where I continue to perfect the enormo-haddock and octo-lemurs.
Why do the Tories suddenly care about fishermen? Because five families on the Sunday Times Rich List (min qualification £130 million) own 30% of the UK quota. None ever seen on a boat. That kind of fishermen.
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 have to say though, WTF would knowing those 17 verbs do to improve your life.
A A Gill famously said he knew literally nothing about grammar. Zero. Yet he managed to be one of the most stylish, accomplished, amusing, and successful journalists of his era, even if he was a terrific snob.
The Beatles, likewise, barely knew how to read music.
The UK is paying $37 per dose of the Moderna vaccine. The EU is paying $18 per dose. Both buyers ordered 40m doses. The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
Post Brexit, we may remain a better place from which to invest in the dodgier bits of the EU than the EU itself.
https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-uk-trade-investment-protection-eu-competition-rule-of-law-courts/ ...Up until now, they have been able to use special bilateral investment protection agreements between countries that allow private arbitration panels to resolve disputes between the investor and the government of the country where the investment was made. Such disputes would include, for example, alleged discriminatory practice or a breach of protections the investor believes they are entitled to. But such arrangements are controversial — critics say private investor tribunals are secretive and allow corporations to escape legal responsibilities — and the EU has agreed to scrap them.
That has left some companies pondering incorporating in the U.K., where they could still use bilateral investment protection agreements with EU countries.
“Trust cannot be imposed,” Stephan Wernicke, chief legal officer for the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce said earlier this year. “Hence there are strong legal and economic arguments that EU companies will, following Brexit … launch bigger investments in certain EU member states only after having set up a [legal incorporation] in the U.K."
EU countries agreed to stop using private arbitration for investments within the EU following a judgment by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), the bloc’s highest court, that said EU laws offer sufficient protections...
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.
Actually you can send unaccompanied lorries - or more commonly just the trailers - a French based unit drops them on the ferry in Calais, and an English based unit collects then in Dover. In theory, this could be a way out of this crisis, but in practice the logistical problems of pairing up operators of units either side of the channel to swap roles is probably in many cases too great.
I suspect however that some of the larger outfits with units and drivers stranded on both sides are frantically trying to sort this out - however because of the gridlock at both ends, I'd imagine that getting your unit into place to collect incomming trailers is also a major problem. Lots of unaccompanied trailers arriving without the means of getting them away will also cause the ports lots of issues.
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?
That is what you get for going to the sissy east coast Ian. You should be over here with the toughies on the west coast. Turnips morning , noon and night.
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.
Really wish I was a linguist. Rather be a linguist than most other things I wish I was. I've heard that when learning a new language there comes a kind of "dam breaking" moment when you make a leap and you reach the next step. Two or three of those and you arrive at competency. Then it's about fine-tuning, playing with it, getting the quirky tics & tacs, and lo you're fluent. I've never managed the first quantum move as an adult. School French was ok but beyond that, no. I had total immersion German lessons on the company for 12 weeks when I lived in Vienna and yet did not progress much beyond "das ist ein hund". I nailed that - totally - but then seemed to get stuck. On a brighter note, I'm doing Spiral soup to nuts atm and I think it's doing wonders for my French. Can follow bits of it without looking at the subtitles.
But I digress. On the topic - Georgia - I have not given up hope of the Dems pulling it off. I really hope they do because to my mind this manifestation of the GOP are a disgrace and until they detrumpify should not be anywhere near power either at federal or state level.
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.
They then have the cheek to label as British grown and stick a butcher's apron on the front , unbelievable. British labelled Farm Assured Carrots....grown in Spain!
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 have to say though, WTF would knowing those 17 verbs do to improve your life.
Nothing whatsoever, of course. Only foreigners would need to learn things like that. It is significant that Mr Ace is talking about America. They are all foreigners over there. English children do not need to be taught nonsense like 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.
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 have to say though, WTF would knowing those 17 verbs do to improve your life.
A A Gill famously said he knew literally nothing about grammar. Zero. Yet he managed to be one of the most stylish, accomplished, amusing, and successful journalists of his era, even if he was a terrific snob.
The Beatles, likewise, barely knew how to read music.
Yet they knew and applied classical music theory to their compositions, making it more complex and involving than the relatively simplistic composing of their immediate predecessors, see here:
The UK is paying $37 per dose of the Moderna vaccine. The EU is paying $18 per dose. Both buyers ordered 40m doses. The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
Hi Malcom. Where are you getting the Uk figure from?
I can't find a reliable estimate since the summer (and we hadn't ordered 40m then).
The UK is paying $37 per dose of the Moderna vaccine. The EU is paying $18 per dose. Both buyers ordered 40m doses. The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
The British have vaccinated 500k people already. The EU haven't vaccinated anyone.
The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down and got the vaccines first. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
The Times reports that Supercovid may increase the R number by 0.93.
If that is the case, we are fecked. The virus is unbeatable. No lockdown will ever ‘work’, just slow the inevitable increase. The only way out is the jabs (if they are still effective, which is slightly questionable).
OTOH the Times also reports that scientists in the EU are skeptical about the real menace of this new mutant, and think we have over-reacted.
I guess this is one debate which will be concluded very soon, one way or another
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.
Actually you can send unaccompanied lorries - or more commonly just the trailers - a French based unit drops them on the ferry in Calais, and an English based unit collects then in Dover. In theory, this could be a way out of this crisis, but in practice the logistical problems of pairing up operators of units either side of the channel to swap roles is probably in many cases too great.
I suspect however that some of the larger outfits with units and drivers stranded on both sides are frantically trying to sort this out - however because of the gridlock at both ends, I'd imagine that getting your unit into place to collect incomming trailers is also a major problem. Lots of unaccompanied trailers arriving without the means of getting them away will also cause the ports lots of issues.
Sounds like the basis for an excellent simulation game.
The military has been re-enlisted to support the Welsh Ambulance Service as it contends with a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
More than 90 soldiers will assist the trust by driving ambulances from Wednesday.
Well, if they all drive like @Dura_Ace then response times are going to vary between the fastest in the history of ambulances and ‘oops, we’ve crashed.’
The UK is paying $37 per dose of the Moderna vaccine. The EU is paying $18 per dose. Both buyers ordered 40m doses. The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
The Times reports that Supercovid may increase the R number by 0.93.
If that is the case, we are fecked. The virus is unbeatable. No lockdown will ever ‘work’, just slow the inevitable increase. The only way out is the jabs (if they are still effective, which is slightly questionable).
OTOH the Times also reports that scientists in the EU are skeptical about the real menace of this new mutant, and think we have over-reacted.
I guess this is one debate which will be concluded very soon, one way or another
That isn't new news....the document has been available for a couple of days. We discussed it on here the other day. The estimated range is somewhere between ~0.4-0.9, but a lot of guesswork involved at the moment.
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.
They then have the cheek to label as British grown and stick a butcher's apron on the front , unbelievable. British labelled Farm Assured Carrots....grown in Spain!
The UK is paying $37 per dose of the Moderna vaccine. The EU is paying $18 per dose. Both buyers ordered 40m doses. The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
The British have vaccinated 500k people already. The EU haven't vaccinated anyone.
The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down and got the vaccines first. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
But it’s not the end picture though? If the others vaccinate quicker, even though giving us head start go passed us. they will have vaccinated faster at half the price in the end picture? Plus learnt from our pilot scheme giving it to people with allergies for example? 😕
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 have to say though, WTF would knowing those 17 verbs do to improve your life.
A A Gill famously said he knew literally nothing about grammar. Zero. Yet he managed to be one of the most stylish, accomplished, amusing, and successful journalists of his era, even if he was a terrific snob.
The Beatles, likewise, barely knew how to read music.
Yet they knew and applied classical music theory to their compositions, making it more complex and involving than the relatively simplistic composing of their immediate predecessors, see here:
The Times reports that Supercovid may increase the R number by 0.93.
If that is the case, we are fecked. The virus is unbeatable. No lockdown will ever ‘work’, just slow the inevitable increase. The only way out is the jabs (if they are still effective, which is slightly questionable).
OTOH the Times also reports that scientists in the EU are skeptical about the real menace of this new mutant, and think we have over-reacted.
I guess this is one debate which will be concluded very soon, one way or another
That isn't new news....the document has been available for a couple of days. We discussed it on here the other day. The estimated range is somewhere between ~0.4-0.9, but a lot of guesswork involved at the moment.
Plus it doesn't increase R by that, it increases R0 by that. Important distinction.
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.
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.
They then have the cheek to label as British grown and stick a butcher's apron on the front , unbelievable. British labelled Farm Assured Carrots....grown in Spain!
How is that legal?
Tesco claimed it was a printing error. Which I can believe to be fair to Tesco. Have to laugh at the production team at the packing house though - someone needs the sack for quality approving those for release!
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 have to say though, WTF would knowing those 17 verbs do to improve your life.
A A Gill famously said he knew literally nothing about grammar. Zero. Yet he managed to be one of the most stylish, accomplished, amusing, and successful journalists of his era, even if he was a terrific snob.
The Beatles, likewise, barely knew how to read music.
Yet they knew and applied classical music theory to their compositions, making it more complex and involving than the relatively simplistic composing of their immediate predecessors, see here:
The UK is paying $37 per dose of the Moderna vaccine. The EU is paying $18 per dose. Both buyers ordered 40m doses. The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
Hi Malcom. Where are you getting the Uk figure from?
I can't find a reliable estimate since the summer (and we hadn't ordered 40m then).
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.
They then have the cheek to label as British grown and stick a butcher's apron on the front , unbelievable. British labelled Farm Assured Carrots....grown in Spain!
How is that legal?
I suppose it's like "British cars" made of Japanese parts and assembled in Britain? Something is done at the UK end (packaging, presumably) which enables them to give it the British label. Buying by national label is a mug's game anyway - the car industry when it really was British used to sell cars more expensively in Britain than in dEnmark (where I was living) and I was told that was because in the UK the buyers would pay more for it being British, so the company felt they might as well cash in.
The distribution isssue goes back for many years. My father grew up in Bexhill-on-Sea during the First World War. He said the local fishermen never supplied local shops as they found it far too fiddly - the catch all went in one consignment to London to be parcelled up and then returned to the shops in due course. Since most people like fish as fresh as possible, that seems even more of a pity than the carrots.
The UK is paying $37 per dose of the Moderna vaccine. The EU is paying $18 per dose. Both buyers ordered 40m doses. The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
The British have vaccinated 500k people already. The EU haven't vaccinated anyone.
The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down and got the vaccines first. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
But that absolutely nothing to do with the ability to negotiate, but is down to the regulatory body. The EU got the Pfizer vaccine the same time we did.
So the original point being made is still valid and your response Philip isn't is it?
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 have to say though, WTF would knowing those 17 verbs do to improve your life.
Nothing whatsoever, of course. Only foreigners would need to learn things like that. It is significant that Mr Ace is talking about America. They are all foreigners over there. English children do not need to be taught nonsense like that.
Patently untrue - @Dura_Ace appears to make a decent living from his knowledge.
The Times reports that Supercovid may increase the R number by 0.93.
If that is the case, we are fecked. The virus is unbeatable. No lockdown will ever ‘work’, just slow the inevitable increase. The only way out is the jabs (if they are still effective, which is slightly questionable).
OTOH the Times also reports that scientists in the EU are skeptical about the real menace of this new mutant, and think we have over-reacted.
I guess this is one debate which will be concluded very soon, one way or another
That isn't new news....the document has been available for a couple of days. We discussed it on here the other day. The estimated range is somewhere between ~0.4-0.9, but a lot of guesswork involved at the moment.
I know. Perhaps it was just seeing it written down that freaked me out. R0.93. Scary
The UK is paying $37 per dose of the Moderna vaccine. The EU is paying $18 per dose. Both buyers ordered 40m doses. The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
The British have vaccinated 500k people already. The EU haven't vaccinated anyone.
The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down and got the vaccines first. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
How many doses have we got ahead of EU?
Why couldnt we have done both?
They have ordered 200m doses BTW so bound to be cheaper
Why do the Tories suddenly care about fishermen? Because five families on the Sunday Times Rich List (min qualification £130 million) own 30% of the UK quota. None ever seen on a boat. That kind of fishermen.
The recent history of English (but not British) fishing is essentially that first the larger owners shafted the smaller boats, then sold their quotas off to foreigners, mostly from the EU.
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 have to say though, WTF would knowing those 17 verbs do to improve your life.
A A Gill famously said he knew literally nothing about grammar. Zero. Yet he managed to be one of the most stylish, accomplished, amusing, and successful journalists of his era, even if he was a terrific snob.
The Beatles, likewise, barely knew how to read music.
Yet they knew and applied classical music theory to their compositions, making it more complex and involving than the relatively simplistic composing of their immediate predecessors, see here:
A friend of mine is away in Barbados. She appears to be having a lovely time! I’m rather jealous!
I went to Barbados last year and didn't really enjoy it. This has convinced me that I'm an incurable grouch, because if I can't have a good time at a tropical resort then it's not the setting but the subject of the experiment which is causing the problem.
Actually, I rarely enjoy holidays. They are expensive, require planning, and while I get to see new places I lose the convenience of home. I can't work 52 weeks a year for my whole life, so I ask you:
What are good holidays for people who don't really like holidaying?
A week's self catering in rural England or Scotland/Wales etc.
You can take all the conveniences of home with you, and you have your own place in a familiar environment, but you are also somewhere different.
Change is as good as a break.
This plaguetime has introduced me to the concept of British road trips. I’ve done plenty of road trips before - but always abroad. The desert states of SW USA are basically designed for road trips, few things can beat roaring down an empty highway in Arizona
But British road trips are just as good in their own peculiar way. Partly because distances are so short. If you drive for an hour anywhere in the UK you will invariably pass a castle, an ancient battlefield, incredible churches, beautiful villages, lovely countryside. And many excellent pubs, these days with good food.
You will also pass plenty of ugly suburbs, tatty farms, traffic jams, and so on, but nowhere is perfect.
And if you’re in your own car you can take many of the comforts of home.
The best bit is deciding where to stay next - that night - over breakfast. Look at a map. Select a village or town. Go to booking.com. Sorted.
The British road trip. Heartily recommended (plague permitting)
I agree. Even what you call the ugly and the tatty can be quite interesting if you're in the right frame of mind. Just so long as they're not dangerous. Also very ordinary places can be soothing to visit. That's what I find anyway. Just that sense of ticking along and nothing much happening other than what you expect to be happening.
"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 sticking a needle in someone's arm takes a lot more skill than sticking a cotton bud up someone's nose?
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.
They then have the cheek to label as British grown and stick a butcher's apron on the front , unbelievable. British labelled Farm Assured Carrots....grown in Spain!
How is that legal?
I suppose it's like "British cars" made of Japanese parts and assembled in Britain? Something is done at the UK end (packaging, presumably) which enables them to give it the British label. Buying by national label is a mug's game anyway - the car industry when it really was British used to sell cars more expensively in Britain than in dEnmark (where I was living) and I was told that was because in the UK the buyers would pay more for it being British, so the company felt they might as well cash in.
The distribution isssue goes back for many years. My father grew up in Bexhill-on-Sea during the First World War. He said the local fishermen never supplied local shops as they found it far too fiddly - the catch all went in one consignment to London to be parcelled up and then returned to the shops in due course. Since most people like fish as fresh as possible, that seems even more of a pity than the carrots.
The arrangement our local fisherman has is very good - the catch is landed mid morning and they have a small shop on the pier where it's offered to locals for sale, until afternoon when they close up and drive it to Devon for Brixham market where, being British catch, most of it is bought for export
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.
Really wish I was a linguist...
I wish I were... surely ?
"Wish I were a Rich man ... dubidubidubidibudubidum"
"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 sticking a needle in someone's arm takes a lot more skill than sticking a cotton bud up someone's nose?
Yes, but that part will only be some of the work needed at a large scale vaccination site.
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.
They then have the cheek to label as British grown and stick a butcher's apron on the front , unbelievable. British labelled Farm Assured Carrots....grown in Spain!
How is that legal?
I think it's been cleared up and was just a labelling error. I gather the carrots are actually from Scotland.
The UK is paying $37 per dose of the Moderna vaccine. The EU is paying $18 per dose. Both buyers ordered 40m doses. The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
Malc stick to Scotland, facts aren't your strength.
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.
They then have the cheek to label as British grown and stick a butcher's apron on the front , unbelievable. British labelled Farm Assured Carrots....grown in Spain!
"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 sticking a needle in someone's arm takes a lot more skill than sticking a cotton bud up someone's nose?
You say that but I was taught to inject my own medicine in about 5 minutes.
"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 sticking a needle in someone's arm takes a lot more skill than sticking a cotton bud up someone's nose?
You say that but I was taught to inject my own medicine in about 5 minutes.
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. Hmmm.
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 have to say though, WTF would knowing those 17 verbs do to improve your life.
Nothing whatsoever, of course. Only foreigners would need to learn things like that. It is significant that Mr Ace is talking about America. They are all foreigners over there. English children do not need to be taught nonsense like that.
Patently untrue - @Dura_Ace appears to make a decent living from his knowledge.
Being able to identify seventeen English verbs that can't take the present continuous tense? How is anybody able to make a decent living out of that?
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.
They then have the cheek to label as British grown and stick a butcher's apron on the front , unbelievable. British labelled Farm Assured Carrots....grown in Spain!
But they don't label as "British grown", do they? They carefully IMPLY it, but what they are saying is "these are the finest of English carrots. Only the ENGLISH could breed a carrot as fine as this. English flavour, for discerning English tastebuds. (OK, they might be grown in Spain. But these are NOT Spanish carrots. The Spanish could never devise a carrot as fine as this. No sirreee....)
"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 sticking a needle in someone's arm takes a lot more skill than sticking a cotton bud up someone's nose?
Plus, we don't have the straight-forward vaccine to administer yet.
Comments
If we can cope with a complete and utter shutdown of the border for accompanied vehicles for a few days then it seems we can cope with a bit of a slowdown at the border.
Well, apart from the magnificence of my wiffle stick, and the sublime elegance of my lace-and-bells raiment.
*Apart from female posters, obviously.
Parliament voted in favor of the NATO option — allowing the country to join the alliance in future.
https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-nato-membership-dilemma/
I suppose it is better than the incorrect use of the word virulent.
But British road trips are just as good in their own peculiar way. Partly because distances are so short. If you drive for an hour anywhere in the UK you will invariably pass a castle, an ancient battlefield, incredible churches, beautiful villages, lovely countryside. And many excellent pubs, these days with good food.
You will also pass plenty of ugly suburbs, tatty farms, traffic jams, and so on, but nowhere is perfect.
And if you’re in your own car you can take many of the comforts of home.
The best bit is deciding where to stay next - that night - over breakfast. Look at a map. Select a village or town. Go to booking.com. Sorted.
The British road trip. Heartily recommended (plague permitting)
British labelled Farm Assured Carrots....grown in Spain!
Because five families on the Sunday Times Rich List (min qualification £130 million) own 30% of the UK quota. None ever seen on a boat.
That kind of fishermen.
The Beatles, likewise, barely knew how to read music.
https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-uk-trade-investment-protection-eu-competition-rule-of-law-courts/
...Up until now, they have been able to use special bilateral investment protection agreements between countries that allow private arbitration panels to resolve disputes between the investor and the government of the country where the investment was made. Such disputes would include, for example, alleged discriminatory practice or a breach of protections the investor believes they are entitled to. But such arrangements are controversial — critics say private investor tribunals are secretive and allow corporations to escape legal responsibilities — and the EU has agreed to scrap them.
That has left some companies pondering incorporating in the U.K., where they could still use bilateral investment protection agreements with EU countries.
“Trust cannot be imposed,” Stephan Wernicke, chief legal officer for the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce said earlier this year. “Hence there are strong legal and economic arguments that EU companies will, following Brexit … launch bigger investments in certain EU member states only after having set up a [legal incorporation] in the U.K."
EU countries agreed to stop using private arbitration for investments within the EU following a judgment by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), the bloc’s highest court, that said EU laws offer sufficient protections...
I suspect however that some of the larger outfits with units and drivers stranded on both sides are frantically trying to sort this out - however because of the gridlock at both ends, I'd imagine that getting your unit into place to collect incomming trailers is also a major problem. Lots of unaccompanied trailers arriving without the means of getting them away will also cause the ports lots of issues.
But I digress. On the topic - Georgia - I have not given up hope of the Dems pulling it off. I really hope they do because to my mind this manifestation of the GOP are a disgrace and until they detrumpify should not be anywhere near power either at federal or state level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQS91wVdvYc&feature=youtu.be
I can't find a reliable estimate since the summer (and we hadn't ordered 40m then).
The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down and got the vaccines first. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
More than 90 soldiers will assist the trust by driving ambulances from Wednesday.
If that is the case, we are fecked. The virus is unbeatable. No lockdown will ever ‘work’, just slow the inevitable increase. The only way out is the jabs (if they are still effective, which is slightly questionable).
OTOH the Times also reports that scientists in the EU are skeptical about the real menace of this new mutant, and think we have over-reacted.
I guess this is one debate which will be concluded very soon, one way or another
PS: who knows if all ordered at one time etc
That's why episodes 4,5 and 6 came before 1,2 and 3.
The distribution isssue goes back for many years. My father grew up in Bexhill-on-Sea during the First World War. He said the local fishermen never supplied local shops as they found it far too fiddly - the catch all went in one consignment to London to be parcelled up and then returned to the shops in due course. Since most people like fish as fresh as possible, that seems even more of a pity than the carrots.
So the original point being made is still valid and your response Philip isn't is it?
Why couldnt we have done both?
They have ordered 200m doses BTW so bound to be cheaper
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-reach-agreement-supply-eu-200-million
No. Don't like it.
C'mon, Oxford!