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Less than three months ago 56% of Tory members in a CONHome poll said they backed Trump – politicalb

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  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599

    Mr. Eagles, I think it was from the same show that the funniest moment was when he asked two audience members if they were dating they gave different answers.

    That’ll be this one.
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=uvGVNlKLbWc
  • Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:



    To be fair to Jo Brand (yes, I know) it was a pre-recorded programme, so it was up to the editor which jokes made the cut and which stayed between the live audience and the participants.

    Anyone who’s ever attended a recording of HIGNFY or Mock The Week knows that there’s an awful lot of well-over-the-line jokes told in these settings, that no-one expects to actually be aired.

    I prefer Jo Brand to the endless minor public school, Oxbridge wankers doing what passes for comedy on R4. And, of course, I don't think Jo was recommending it as a course of action. She was looking for a gag & did not think.

    There is a long tradition of throwing flour or eggs or rotting vegetables as political protest.

    And, of course, a well-aimed egg can cheer the hearts of millions.

    But, even joking about throwing acid takes the cheeriness away.
    Very true. It was in poor taste and landed badly, but that’s what comedians do. I’m not sure she ever expected it to air, but the editors and the BBC thought it was fine.

    Which tells us a lot more about the BBC, than it does about the comedian.

    Frankie Boyle’s infamous “Princess Diana Joke” on MTW wasn’t seen for several years after it was recorded, was finally released only on an 18-rated outtakes DVD, never shown on TV.
    Serious question...Who is a really good stand-up these days? That has the material, can judge a room, take on the hecklers etc? So many of the regulars on these panel shows are very poor live comedians.

    The best I have seen in the past few years is Ross Noble, but because so much of it is improv, he can also miss badly as well. Far too many that were ok, have a bit like Scott n Paste, been driven made by Brexit and can only do Brexit is shit, Orange man bad stuff, and you can feel it in the audience people don't want that. Its divisive and you can only hear so many ways of they are shit jokes before you have heard them all.

    I saw Mark Watson 18 months ago, and he had at least the sense to have twigged nobody wants that and came out and said you guys pay your money to have a night off from the real world, so I am not doing anything fights over Brexit, instead this show is all about something much more depressing my divorce.
    I’ve been watching a load of comedy to stay sane over the past year, Netflix in particular has done a great job of bringing standup to a global audience, there’s a few dozen one-hour specials up there now.

    The West Coast Americans all got into podcasting as California shut down, led by Rogan’s success. Listening to two or three comedians play off each other for a couple of hours can be very entertaining.

    Of the British comics, the standout for dealing with a crowd is still Jimmy Carr, who will be very rude indeed to anyone who interrupts his show, or who looks out of place in the first few rows. Australian Jim Jeffries is also very good at crowd work, as is American Anthony Jeselnik.

    There’s been a few hits and misses of how to do comedy during a pandemic - zoom comedy definitely doesn’t work, the late-night TV hosts working from home were also misses, drive-through cinema comedy (pioneered in the US by Bert Kreischer) worked quite well, and the best of the online formats has been the 30-jokes-a-minute YouTube monologues of Andrew Schulz - who was rewarded with a Netflix end-of-year show for his efforts.
    I've seen Jimmy Carr live so many times, he's brilliant but I do love his put downs to hecklers. One I remember from 2005 in Newcastle.

    Heckler: I've fucked your Mum

    Jimmy Carr: Well my Mum's 65, you're what 19, I'd say that's a great result for my Mum.

    He even cracked a 7/7 joke which even I gasped about and his response was brilliant.
    “If you want my comeback, you’ll have to scrape it from your mum’s teeth”
    That's another one.

    Another favourite.

    Heckler: “I’ve fucked your mum!”

    Jimmy Carr: “Ah, I was actually told you would be here tonight, by your mum while I was fucking her.

    At least, I think she was talking to me. I wasn’t the only one there.”
    My favourite heckler put down was from Cornish comedian Jethro "Aint it a shame when cousins marry"
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited January 2021
    HYUFD said:

    As I said before I would have been in the 22.5% of Tory members who would have voted for Biden, though I would still have voted Republican for Congress.

    Overall however while 46.9% of US voters voted for Trump, only 13% of UK voters wanted Trump to win and only 26% of Conservative voters wanted Trump to win (and I suspect many if not most of those voted UKIP in 2015)

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1314158566228492288?s=20

    There is no source I have seen that says 22.5% of Tory members would have voted for Biden, but that poll does adequately demonstrate why ContinuityIDS is entirely unrepresentative of the Conservative Party.

    Let us hope its "surveys" are never used as evidence ever again.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,881
    edited January 2021

    Carnyx said:

    But were they really armed with much more than flags and offensive haircuts?
    Pipe bombs. for a start, will do.
    But were they real, or just (as I read) two lookalikes? Sure, you wouldn't want to stand near one in case, but it is hardly the survivaists coming to town armed to the teeth with automatic weaponry, grenades and ammunition strung around their bodies. Not exactly Rambo doing a guided tour of Congress....
    I think that issue is now resolved.

    Edit: certainly for the political centre as a whole. It's of course possible that one or two others were lookalike, or were misidentified (very common in cnfused situations such as the London attacks of different years).

    But why a lookalike? Think about that.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375
    For info the MHRA have confirmed that the Oxford Astrazenaca vaccine does not cause any adverse reactions so there is no requirement to watch the person for 15 minutes after the injection. Hence drive through vaccination centres will happen.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:



    To be fair to Jo Brand (yes, I know) it was a pre-recorded programme, so it was up to the editor which jokes made the cut and which stayed between the live audience and the participants.

    Anyone who’s ever attended a recording of HIGNFY or Mock The Week knows that there’s an awful lot of well-over-the-line jokes told in these settings, that no-one expects to actually be aired.

    I prefer Jo Brand to the endless minor public school, Oxbridge wankers doing what passes for comedy on R4. And, of course, I don't think Jo was recommending it as a course of action. She was looking for a gag & did not think.

    There is a long tradition of throwing flour or eggs or rotting vegetables as political protest.

    And, of course, a well-aimed egg can cheer the hearts of millions.

    But, even joking about throwing acid takes the cheeriness away.
    Very true. It was in poor taste and landed badly, but that’s what comedians do. I’m not sure she ever expected it to air, but the editors and the BBC thought it was fine.

    Which tells us a lot more about the BBC, than it does about the comedian.

    Frankie Boyle’s infamous “Princess Diana Joke” on MTW wasn’t seen for several years after it was recorded, was finally released only on an 18-rated outtakes DVD, never shown on TV.
    Serious question...Who is a really good stand-up these days? That has the material, can judge a room, take on the hecklers etc? So many of the regulars on these panel shows are very poor live comedians.

    The best I have seen in the past few years is Ross Noble, but because so much of it is improv, he can also miss badly as well. Far too many that were ok, have a bit like Scott n Paste, been driven made by Brexit and can only do Brexit is shit, Orange man bad stuff, and you can feel it in the audience people don't want that. Its divisive and you can only hear so many ways of they are shit jokes before you have heard them all.

    I saw Mark Watson 18 months ago, and he had at least the sense to have twigged nobody wants that and came out and said you guys pay your money to have a night off from the real world, so I am not doing anything fights over Brexit, instead this show is all about something much more depressing my divorce.

    I used to like Mark Thomas live, but how he is much older, he doesn't really have the tales to tell about all his experiences on joining crazies on a protest. His show about his wife beating dad who loved opera and died a horrible death although not his funniest work, was incredibly moving.
    I saw Stewart Lee a few years ago, he was very funny. I've not seen Kevin Bridges live but the bits of his shows I've seen on YouTube etc look good.
    Nipping in to share with this great site full of great people with impeccable taste one of Lee's greatest hits. If he were Pulp this would be Common People. I know you've seen it but it will slay anybody who hasn't -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a17duTUK6qw
    Unslain. OK 5 second gag spun out to 5 minutes. Not even Disco 2000.
  • Erhhhh...what about the surgery Woody visited this morning that hadn't got theirs. PHE have been a shit show during this pandemic.

    https://twitter.com/PHE_uk/status/1347162770865876994?s=20

  • Brendan's method is extremely formulaic these days: identify something that annoys the vaguely progressive, and then make the tortuous argument that it is, in fact, all their fault.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,682

    For info the MHRA have confirmed that the Oxford Astrazenaca vaccine does not cause any adverse reactions so there is no requirement to watch the person for 15 minutes after the injection. Hence drive through vaccination centres will happen.

    That's good news. Our local surguery set up a fantastic drive through flu clinic at a local disused airfield in the autumn. Ran like clockwork - superb effort.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,600
    edited January 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Personally I don't see the fascination with putting down hecklers.

    I'd rather just listen to the funny comedian tell jokes.

    Billy Conolly tells of a prolonged bout with someone yelling from the audience. Turns out the guy had slipped and hurt himself and was screaming in agony for 20 minutes
    I saw Billy Connolly at Durham around 1980. It was February, the weather was snowy/icy/fatally slippy (as it was for about five months of the year in Durham). Mr. C had travelled from Cumbria to get there and had the most shitty of days in doing so. He was not in a good mood. It wasn't hidden. Still, somebody just had to poke the rattlesnake with a stick.

    He went on the most foul-mouthed rant at this heckler you can imagine. On and on and on.

    And on.

    It seemed to be what he needed to regain his equilibrium. After that, he was back on form.

    We had a great time. Apart from the heckler, who looked like the Bolton sigil.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,092
    edited January 2021
    Just wondering, is it right for the BBC (and other media outlets) effectively "doxing" these people, rather than let the authorities deal with them? Did they highlight names of those who have rioted elsewhere? I seemed to remember they refused to hand over footage to the authorities over London riots, when they wanted help to try and identify criminals.

    Capitol riots: Who broke into the building?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/55572805
  • Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    But were they really armed with much more than flags and offensive haircuts?
    Pipe bombs. for a start, will do.
    But were they real, or just (as I read) two lookalikes? Sure, you wouldn't want to stand near one in case, but it is hardly the survivaists coming to town armed to the teeth with automatic weaponry, grenades and ammunition strung around their bodies. Not exactly Rambo doing a guided tour of Congress....
    I think that issue is now resolved.

    Edit: certainly for the political centre as a whole. It's of course possible that one or two others were lookalike, or were misidentified (very common in cnfused situations such as the London attacks of different years).

    But why a lookalike? Think about that.
    At least we now know that terrorists wearing fake suicide vests should be given a pass.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,881

    Just wondering, is it right for the BBC to effectively "doxing" these people, rather than let the authorities deal with them?

    Capitol riots: Who broke into the building?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/55572805

    Did they not create a public figure status for themselves?

    And what about the CCTV on the innumerable Cromewatch programmes and hidden cams in the documentaries abouyt roofers having a shite on the roof, or peeing in the water cistern?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,213
    edited January 2021
    mwadams said:

    kinabalu said:

    Yep, I'm afraid this says something about Conservative Party members and what it says is not great. Also striking was the related survey which had 32% of Leavers and 4% of Remainers STRONGLY supporting Donald Trump. This was for me a massively useful piece of data. We often bandy around charge and counter charge about Brexit and racism on here and so it helps to have the numbers. And I put my hand up to being educated by them. I used to like the line from Wilf Sell - "Not all Leavers are racist but all racists are Leavers" - but after seeing the hard facts it was necessary to revise and soften this to "Only about a third of Leavers are racist and there were a relatively small number of racists who voted Remain."

    "Are openly, actively racist" perhaps :smile:
    Sort of. Or more how I'd put it is that few in this country are wholly free of racism (except young people) but only a proportion of those that aren't are sufficiently infected to justify the harder noun description, "a" racist.

    And this will correlate very closely with STRONG support for Donald Trump. Not just common or garden support but strong support. So, with this survey I refer to, bingo we have it. We can say with a high degree of confidence that about 1 in 3 Leavers and 1 in 25 Remainers are racists.

    Which is useful, I think.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,600
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    But were they really armed with much more than flags and offensive haircuts?
    Pipe bombs. for a start, will do.
    But were they real, or just (as I read) two lookalikes? Sure, you wouldn't want to stand near one in case, but it is hardly the survivaists coming to town armed to the teeth with automatic weaponry, grenades and ammunition strung around their bodies. Not exactly Rambo doing a guided tour of Congress....
    I think that issue is now resolved.

    Edit: certainly for the political centre as a whole. It's of course possible that one or two others were lookalike, or were misidentified (very common in cnfused situations such as the London attacks of different years).

    But why a lookalike? Think about that.
    A lookalike pipe-bomb is a....pipe?
  • not_on_firenot_on_fire Posts: 4,449
    Conor Lamb is one to watch for the Dems. Could easily be a presidential candidate in the 2030s.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,881

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    But were they really armed with much more than flags and offensive haircuts?
    Pipe bombs. for a start, will do.
    But were they real, or just (as I read) two lookalikes? Sure, you wouldn't want to stand near one in case, but it is hardly the survivaists coming to town armed to the teeth with automatic weaponry, grenades and ammunition strung around their bodies. Not exactly Rambo doing a guided tour of Congress....
    I think that issue is now resolved.

    Edit: certainly for the political centre as a whole. It's of course possible that one or two others were lookalike, or were misidentified (very common in cnfused situations such as the London attacks of different years).

    But why a lookalike? Think about that.
    A lookalike pipe-bomb is a....pipe?
    Why would you carry around a length of pipe with wire and the ends taped over in a sensitive situation like that? There are at least four motives that I can think of, depending on what is in it.
  • They surely must be near herd immunity in the EPL by now...

    Aston Villa have experienced a "significant" coronavirus outbreak at the club on the eve of their FA Cup third-round tie with Liverpool.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55575321
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,881

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    But were they really armed with much more than flags and offensive haircuts?
    Pipe bombs. for a start, will do.
    But were they real, or just (as I read) two lookalikes? Sure, you wouldn't want to stand near one in case, but it is hardly the survivaists coming to town armed to the teeth with automatic weaponry, grenades and ammunition strung around their bodies. Not exactly Rambo doing a guided tour of Congress....
    I think that issue is now resolved.

    Edit: certainly for the political centre as a whole. It's of course possible that one or two others were lookalike, or were misidentified (very common in cnfused situations such as the London attacks of different years).

    But why a lookalike? Think about that.
    At least we now know that terrorists wearing fake suicide vests should be given a pass.
    An interesting position for a PBTory to hold.
  • And there are reports that Ireland isn't even anywhere near reporting all their cases as their systems can't cope with the numbers.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,487

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:



    To be fair to Jo Brand (yes, I know) it was a pre-recorded programme, so it was up to the editor which jokes made the cut and which stayed between the live audience and the participants.

    Anyone who’s ever attended a recording of HIGNFY or Mock The Week knows that there’s an awful lot of well-over-the-line jokes told in these settings, that no-one expects to actually be aired.

    I prefer Jo Brand to the endless minor public school, Oxbridge wankers doing what passes for comedy on R4. And, of course, I don't think Jo was recommending it as a course of action. She was looking for a gag & did not think.

    There is a long tradition of throwing flour or eggs or rotting vegetables as political protest.

    And, of course, a well-aimed egg can cheer the hearts of millions.

    But, even joking about throwing acid takes the cheeriness away.
    Very true. It was in poor taste and landed badly, but that’s what comedians do. I’m not sure she ever expected it to air, but the editors and the BBC thought it was fine.

    Which tells us a lot more about the BBC, than it does about the comedian.

    Frankie Boyle’s infamous “Princess Diana Joke” on MTW wasn’t seen for several years after it was recorded, was finally released only on an 18-rated outtakes DVD, never shown on TV.
    Serious question...Who is a really good stand-up these days? That has the material, can judge a room, take on the hecklers etc? So many of the regulars on these panel shows are very poor live comedians.

    The best I have seen in the past few years is Ross Noble, but because so much of it is improv, he can also miss badly as well. Far too many that were ok, have a bit like Scott n Paste, been driven made by Brexit and can only do Brexit is shit, Orange man bad stuff, and you can feel it in the audience people don't want that. Its divisive and you can only hear so many ways of they are shit jokes before you have heard them all.

    I saw Mark Watson 18 months ago, and he had at least the sense to have twigged nobody wants that and came out and said you guys pay your money to have a night off from the real world, so I am not doing anything fights over Brexit, instead this show is all about something much more depressing my divorce.
    I’ve been watching a load of comedy to stay sane over the past year, Netflix in particular has done a great job of bringing standup to a global audience, there’s a few dozen one-hour specials up there now.

    The West Coast Americans all got into podcasting as California shut down, led by Rogan’s success. Listening to two or three comedians play off each other for a couple of hours can be very entertaining.

    Of the British comics, the standout for dealing with a crowd is still Jimmy Carr, who will be very rude indeed to anyone who interrupts his show, or who looks out of place in the first few rows. Australian Jim Jeffries is also very good at crowd work, as is American Anthony Jeselnik.

    There’s been a few hits and misses of how to do comedy during a pandemic - zoom comedy definitely doesn’t work, the late-night TV hosts working from home were also misses, drive-through cinema comedy (pioneered in the US by Bert Kreischer) worked quite well, and the best of the online formats has been the 30-jokes-a-minute YouTube monologues of Andrew Schulz - who was rewarded with a Netflix end-of-year show for his efforts.
    I've seen Jimmy Carr live so many times, he's brilliant but I do love his put downs to hecklers. One I remember from 2005 in Newcastle.

    Heckler: I've fucked your Mum

    Jimmy Carr: Well my Mum's 65, you're what 19, I'd say that's a great result for my Mum.

    He even cracked a 7/7 joke which even I gasped about and his response was brilliant.
    I saw him once in the Isle of Wight.

    A little too vulgar for my tastes, but I agree he's very brave; he'll calmly tackle anyone no matter how aggressive.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599

    They surely must be near herd immunity in the EPL by now...

    Aston Villa have experienced a "significant" coronavirus outbreak at the club on the eve of their FA Cup third-round tie with Liverpool.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55575321

    Why on Earth have the club chairmen not insisted on putting all the players in secure hotels? Astonishingly high rates of infection among sportsmen.
  • Is that the Rev Ian Parsley? A kind of herbal tea version of the now deceased chappy with a similar name
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,487
    edited January 2021
    rkrkrk said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:



    To be fair to Jo Brand (yes, I know) it was a pre-recorded programme, so it was up to the editor which jokes made the cut and which stayed between the live audience and the participants.

    Anyone who’s ever attended a recording of HIGNFY or Mock The Week knows that there’s an awful lot of well-over-the-line jokes told in these settings, that no-one expects to actually be aired.

    I prefer Jo Brand to the endless minor public school, Oxbridge wankers doing what passes for comedy on R4. And, of course, I don't think Jo was recommending it as a course of action. She was looking for a gag & did not think.

    There is a long tradition of throwing flour or eggs or rotting vegetables as political protest.

    And, of course, a well-aimed egg can cheer the hearts of millions.

    But, even joking about throwing acid takes the cheeriness away.
    Very true. It was in poor taste and landed badly, but that’s what comedians do. I’m not sure she ever expected it to air, but the editors and the BBC thought it was fine.

    Which tells us a lot more about the BBC, than it does about the comedian.

    Frankie Boyle’s infamous “Princess Diana Joke” on MTW wasn’t seen for several years after it was recorded, was finally released only on an 18-rated outtakes DVD, never shown on TV.
    Serious question...Who is a really good stand-up these days? That has the material, can judge a room, take on the hecklers etc? So many of the regulars on these panel shows are very poor live comedians.

    The best I have seen in the past few years is Ross Noble, but because so much of it is improv, he can also miss badly as well. Far too many that were ok, have a bit like Scott n Paste, been driven made by Brexit and can only do Brexit is shit, Orange man bad stuff, and you can feel it in the audience people don't want that. Its divisive and you can only hear so many ways of they are shit jokes before you have heard them all.

    I saw Mark Watson 18 months ago, and he had at least the sense to have twigged nobody wants that and came out and said you guys pay your money to have a night off from the real world, so I am not doing anything fights over Brexit, instead this show is all about something much more depressing my divorce.

    I used to like Mark Thomas live, but how he is much older, he doesn't really have the tales to tell about all his experiences on joining crazies on a protest. His show about his wife beating dad who loved opera and died a horrible death although not his funniest work, was incredibly moving.
    I saw Stewart Lee a few years ago, he was very funny. I've not seen Kevin Bridges live but the bits of his shows I've seen on YouTube etc look good.
    Nipping in to share with this great site full of great people with impeccable taste one of Lee's greatest hits. If he were Pulp this would be Common People. I know you've seen it but it will slay anybody who hasn't -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a17duTUK6qw
    Honestly I don't really get it... everyone (left wing) tells me how funny Stewart Lee is and how clever he is... but he's merely moderately amusing to me.

    When I saw him live, he had absolute mastery over the audience, but I didn't actually spend that much time laughing.
    Stewart Lee is smart. He specialises in making humour out of being offensive to as much of his audience as possible. Sometimes, if he doesn't get a rise, he'll change tack so he does.

    It's a very risky sort of humour, but he thrives on it.

    EDIT: I agree the least funny stuff is the UKIP stuff, which seems to be the only stuff that is shared these days by left-wing friends and is very cliched.
  • Sandpit said:

    They surely must be near herd immunity in the EPL by now...

    Aston Villa have experienced a "significant" coronavirus outbreak at the club on the eve of their FA Cup third-round tie with Liverpool.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55575321

    Why on Earth have the club chairmen not insisted on putting all the players in secure hotels? Astonishingly high rates of infection among sportsmen.
    Saturday's FA Cup third-round tie between Southampton and Shrewsbury is off after a significant number of Shrews players and staff tested positive for coronavirus.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55563342
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,092
    edited January 2021

    Good plan & good politics by Labour:

    twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1347194559462256640?s=20

    But realistically what are they going to do? Send some tweets and...? He is hardly going to tweet, lets not vaccinate Britain (with these Big Pharma made vaccines), he isn't Jezza.
  • rkrkrk said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:



    To be fair to Jo Brand (yes, I know) it was a pre-recorded programme, so it was up to the editor which jokes made the cut and which stayed between the live audience and the participants.

    Anyone who’s ever attended a recording of HIGNFY or Mock The Week knows that there’s an awful lot of well-over-the-line jokes told in these settings, that no-one expects to actually be aired.

    I prefer Jo Brand to the endless minor public school, Oxbridge wankers doing what passes for comedy on R4. And, of course, I don't think Jo was recommending it as a course of action. She was looking for a gag & did not think.

    There is a long tradition of throwing flour or eggs or rotting vegetables as political protest.

    And, of course, a well-aimed egg can cheer the hearts of millions.

    But, even joking about throwing acid takes the cheeriness away.
    Very true. It was in poor taste and landed badly, but that’s what comedians do. I’m not sure she ever expected it to air, but the editors and the BBC thought it was fine.

    Which tells us a lot more about the BBC, than it does about the comedian.

    Frankie Boyle’s infamous “Princess Diana Joke” on MTW wasn’t seen for several years after it was recorded, was finally released only on an 18-rated outtakes DVD, never shown on TV.
    Serious question...Who is a really good stand-up these days? That has the material, can judge a room, take on the hecklers etc? So many of the regulars on these panel shows are very poor live comedians.

    The best I have seen in the past few years is Ross Noble, but because so much of it is improv, he can also miss badly as well. Far too many that were ok, have a bit like Scott n Paste, been driven made by Brexit and can only do Brexit is shit, Orange man bad stuff, and you can feel it in the audience people don't want that. Its divisive and you can only hear so many ways of they are shit jokes before you have heard them all.

    I saw Mark Watson 18 months ago, and he had at least the sense to have twigged nobody wants that and came out and said you guys pay your money to have a night off from the real world, so I am not doing anything fights over Brexit, instead this show is all about something much more depressing my divorce.

    I used to like Mark Thomas live, but how he is much older, he doesn't really have the tales to tell about all his experiences on joining crazies on a protest. His show about his wife beating dad who loved opera and died a horrible death although not his funniest work, was incredibly moving.
    I saw Stewart Lee a few years ago, he was very funny. I've not seen Kevin Bridges live but the bits of his shows I've seen on YouTube etc look good.
    Nipping in to share with this great site full of great people with impeccable taste one of Lee's greatest hits. If he were Pulp this would be Common People. I know you've seen it but it will slay anybody who hasn't -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a17duTUK6qw
    Honestly I don't really get it... everyone (left wing) tells me how funny Stewart Lee is and how clever he is... but he's merely moderately amusing to me.

    When I saw him live, he had absolute mastery over the audience, but I didn't actually spend that much time laughing.
    Stewart Lee is smart. He specialises in making humour out of being offensive to as much of his audience as possible. Sometimes, if he doesn't get a rise, he'll change tack so he does.

    It's a very risky sort of humour, but he thrives on it.

    EDIT: I agree the least funny stuff is the UKIP stuff, which seems to be the only stuff that is shared these days by left-wing friends and is very cliched.
    Is it really possible to be cliched about UKIP?
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375
    edited January 2021
    Remember Boris will be stood next to a man wearing camouflage gear with his sleeves rolled up tonight. Labour will struggle to beat that.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,600
    Sandpit said:

    They surely must be near herd immunity in the EPL by now...

    Aston Villa have experienced a "significant" coronavirus outbreak at the club on the eve of their FA Cup third-round tie with Liverpool.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55575321

    Why on Earth have the club chairmen not insisted on putting all the players in secure hotels? Astonishingly high rates of infection among sportsmen.
    It's almost as if you pay someone a six figure sum each week and they think that the normal rules don't apply to entitled folk like them....
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992
    From Wiki:

    It was at the Tunnel Club that comedian Jim Tavare once began his act with the unwise opener, "Hello, I'm a schizophrenic" – to be met with the lightning rejoinder from a heckler in that night's audience, "Well, you can both fuck off then!".[7]
  • TresTres Posts: 2,702

    Just wondering, is it right for the BBC (and other media outlets) effectively "doxing" these people, rather than let the authorities deal with them? Did they highlight names of those who have rioted elsewhere? I seemed to remember they refused to hand over footage to the authorities over London riots, when they wanted help to try and identify criminals.

    Capitol riots: Who broke into the building?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/55572805

    They are just reporting whats all over social media anyway. But if the authorities ain't going to arrest them they are fair game.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,092
    edited January 2021

    Sandpit said:

    They surely must be near herd immunity in the EPL by now...

    Aston Villa have experienced a "significant" coronavirus outbreak at the club on the eve of their FA Cup third-round tie with Liverpool.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55575321

    Why on Earth have the club chairmen not insisted on putting all the players in secure hotels? Astonishingly high rates of infection among sportsmen.
    It's almost as if you pay someone a six figure sum each week and they think that the normal rules don't apply to entitled folk like them....
    The big takeaway from watching things like the Spurs documentary or listening to Peter Crouch podcast, highlights just how abnormal players lives are these days. They are literally provided absolutely everything from food to new pants.

    Crouch talks about with Liverpool for foreign away games, he literally would just have to turn up at the meeting spot with a wash bag, his passport, his visa, his tickets, his clothes, everything had already been sorted for him.

    Dele Alli on the Spurs documentary talks about that during lockdown he actually had to cook for himself for the first time, he did beans on toast, he had neve done baked beans before.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,213
    rkrkrk said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:



    To be fair to Jo Brand (yes, I know) it was a pre-recorded programme, so it was up to the editor which jokes made the cut and which stayed between the live audience and the participants.

    Anyone who’s ever attended a recording of HIGNFY or Mock The Week knows that there’s an awful lot of well-over-the-line jokes told in these settings, that no-one expects to actually be aired.

    I prefer Jo Brand to the endless minor public school, Oxbridge wankers doing what passes for comedy on R4. And, of course, I don't think Jo was recommending it as a course of action. She was looking for a gag & did not think.

    There is a long tradition of throwing flour or eggs or rotting vegetables as political protest.

    And, of course, a well-aimed egg can cheer the hearts of millions.

    But, even joking about throwing acid takes the cheeriness away.
    Very true. It was in poor taste and landed badly, but that’s what comedians do. I’m not sure she ever expected it to air, but the editors and the BBC thought it was fine.

    Which tells us a lot more about the BBC, than it does about the comedian.

    Frankie Boyle’s infamous “Princess Diana Joke” on MTW wasn’t seen for several years after it was recorded, was finally released only on an 18-rated outtakes DVD, never shown on TV.
    Serious question...Who is a really good stand-up these days? That has the material, can judge a room, take on the hecklers etc? So many of the regulars on these panel shows are very poor live comedians.

    The best I have seen in the past few years is Ross Noble, but because so much of it is improv, he can also miss badly as well. Far too many that were ok, have a bit like Scott n Paste, been driven made by Brexit and can only do Brexit is shit, Orange man bad stuff, and you can feel it in the audience people don't want that. Its divisive and you can only hear so many ways of they are shit jokes before you have heard them all.

    I saw Mark Watson 18 months ago, and he had at least the sense to have twigged nobody wants that and came out and said you guys pay your money to have a night off from the real world, so I am not doing anything fights over Brexit, instead this show is all about something much more depressing my divorce.

    I used to like Mark Thomas live, but how he is much older, he doesn't really have the tales to tell about all his experiences on joining crazies on a protest. His show about his wife beating dad who loved opera and died a horrible death although not his funniest work, was incredibly moving.
    I saw Stewart Lee a few years ago, he was very funny. I've not seen Kevin Bridges live but the bits of his shows I've seen on YouTube etc look good.
    Nipping in to share with this great site full of great people with impeccable taste one of Lee's greatest hits. If he were Pulp this would be Common People. I know you've seen it but it will slay anybody who hasn't -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a17duTUK6qw
    Honestly I don't really get it... everyone (left wing) tells me how funny Stewart Lee is and how clever he is... but he's merely moderately amusing to me.

    When I saw him live, he had absolute mastery over the audience, but I didn't actually spend that much time laughing.
    A lot of people who aren't left wing like Lee. But of course humour is a personal thing. For me, he has it all. The delivery is skilled and forceful. He's charismatic. The material is clever but doesn't sacrifice laughs to be that way. He's on a mission to crease you up and if it makes a point fine. It's not the other way around, which is a trap some lefty comics can fall into.

    Who does do it for you then?
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468

    Remember Boris will be stood next to a man wearing camouflage gear with his sleeves rolled up tonight. Labour will struggle to beat that.
    I am struggling to understand what Labour's vaccination campaign is? Why is a Labour campaign needed when there is a national one? Genuine question.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,676

    I posted on here a few days ago my confidence that the UK vaccine programme would be a success.

    My view is based partly on the UK success with testing. After a decidedly rocky start, I see we are now conducting close 500,000 tests per day.

    No reason why we cannot hit a similar daily target for vaccinations; it will take time to reach those levels though.

    The testing will include the same people being tested again and again - health service workers, care home workers etc.
    Vaccination will involve finding and vaccinating different people on every occasion.
    Indeed Mrs BJ's carers now all get tested twice a week.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,487

    Scott_xP said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Personally I don't see the fascination with putting down hecklers.

    I'd rather just listen to the funny comedian tell jokes.

    Billy Conolly tells of a prolonged bout with someone yelling from the audience. Turns out the guy had slipped and hurt himself and was screaming in agony for 20 minutes
    I saw Billy Connolly at Durham around 1980. It was February, the weather was snowy/icy/fatally slippy (as it was for about five months of the year in Durham). Mr. C had travelled from Cumbria to get there and had the most shitty of days in doing so. He was not in a good mood. It wasn't hidden. Still, somebody just had to poke the rattlesnake with a stick.

    He went on the most foul-mouthed rant at this heckler you can imagine. On and on and on.

    And on.

    It seemed to be what he needed to regain his equilibrium. After that, he was back on form.

    We had a great time. Apart from the heckler, who looked like the Bolton sigil.
    I don't know why anyone does it.

    They always come off worse.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,092
    edited January 2021
    Tres said:

    Just wondering, is it right for the BBC (and other media outlets) effectively "doxing" these people, rather than let the authorities deal with them? Did they highlight names of those who have rioted elsewhere? I seemed to remember they refused to hand over footage to the authorities over London riots, when they wanted help to try and identify criminals.

    Capitol riots: Who broke into the building?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/55572805

    They are just reporting whats all over social media anyway. But if the authorities ain't going to arrest them they are fair game.
    I would be shocked if they haven't already been arrested or in the process of.

    As for "all over social media", things like VIP paedo ring stuff was spread all over social media, doesn't mean the BBC should report it. Footballers and other celebs being very naughty is often spread as well. And only Saturday, Starmer was going to resign was spread all over twitter.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599

    Scott_xP said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Personally I don't see the fascination with putting down hecklers.

    I'd rather just listen to the funny comedian tell jokes.

    Billy Conolly tells of a prolonged bout with someone yelling from the audience. Turns out the guy had slipped and hurt himself and was screaming in agony for 20 minutes
    I saw Billy Connolly at Durham around 1980. It was February, the weather was snowy/icy/fatally slippy (as it was for about five months of the year in Durham). Mr. C had travelled from Cumbria to get there and had the most shitty of days in doing so. He was not in a good mood. It wasn't hidden. Still, somebody just had to poke the rattlesnake with a stick.

    He went on the most foul-mouthed rant at this heckler you can imagine. On and on and on.

    And on.

    It seemed to be what he needed to regain his equilibrium. After that, he was back on form.

    We had a great time. Apart from the heckler, who looked like the Bolton sigil.
    I don't know why anyone does it.

    They always come off worse.
    Frankie Boyle to a heckler:
    “I’m getting paid for being a c*** tonight, what’s your excuse?”
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,165
    edited January 2021
    It seems Trump has been allowed back on Twitter but he's gone silent. Let's hope he can make it a habit.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,092
    edited January 2021

    It seems Trump have been allowed back on Twitter but he's gone silent. Let's hope he can make it a habit.

    Maybe somebody has taken away his phone, so he can't get his tiny hands on it.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,487
    Sandpit said:

    Scott_xP said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Personally I don't see the fascination with putting down hecklers.

    I'd rather just listen to the funny comedian tell jokes.

    Billy Conolly tells of a prolonged bout with someone yelling from the audience. Turns out the guy had slipped and hurt himself and was screaming in agony for 20 minutes
    I saw Billy Connolly at Durham around 1980. It was February, the weather was snowy/icy/fatally slippy (as it was for about five months of the year in Durham). Mr. C had travelled from Cumbria to get there and had the most shitty of days in doing so. He was not in a good mood. It wasn't hidden. Still, somebody just had to poke the rattlesnake with a stick.

    He went on the most foul-mouthed rant at this heckler you can imagine. On and on and on.

    And on.

    It seemed to be what he needed to regain his equilibrium. After that, he was back on form.

    We had a great time. Apart from the heckler, who looked like the Bolton sigil.
    I don't know why anyone does it.

    They always come off worse.
    Frankie Boyle to a heckler:
    “I’m getting paid for being a c*** tonight, what’s your excuse?”
    I used to love Boyle, but (a) he's gone off the boil recently, and become too political and (b) he now thinks it's fine to pull up other comedians for offensive comedy whereas he built his comedy career on it for years.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,092
    edited January 2021

    Sandpit said:

    Scott_xP said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Personally I don't see the fascination with putting down hecklers.

    I'd rather just listen to the funny comedian tell jokes.

    Billy Conolly tells of a prolonged bout with someone yelling from the audience. Turns out the guy had slipped and hurt himself and was screaming in agony for 20 minutes
    I saw Billy Connolly at Durham around 1980. It was February, the weather was snowy/icy/fatally slippy (as it was for about five months of the year in Durham). Mr. C had travelled from Cumbria to get there and had the most shitty of days in doing so. He was not in a good mood. It wasn't hidden. Still, somebody just had to poke the rattlesnake with a stick.

    He went on the most foul-mouthed rant at this heckler you can imagine. On and on and on.

    And on.

    It seemed to be what he needed to regain his equilibrium. After that, he was back on form.

    We had a great time. Apart from the heckler, who looked like the Bolton sigil.
    I don't know why anyone does it.

    They always come off worse.
    Frankie Boyle to a heckler:
    “I’m getting paid for being a c*** tonight, what’s your excuse?”
    I used to love Boyle, but (a) he's gone off the boil recently, and become too political and (b) he now thinks it's fine to pull up other comedians for offensive comedy whereas he built his comedy career on it for years.
    There is something really weird about him getting upty about Ricky Gervais, after he had a career out of mocking Katie Price's disabled son, Rebeeca Addlington appearance....Its like Roy Chubby Brown complaining about Jim Davison doing some dodgy material.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,221
    TimT said:

    Nigelb said:

    SARS-CoV-2 RBD in vitro evolution follows contagious mutation spread, yet generates an able infection inhibitor
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.06.425392v1.full.pdf
    Abstract
    SARS-CoV-2 is constantly evolving, with more contagious mutations spreading rapidly. Using in vitro evolution to affinity maturate the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein towards ACE2, resulted in the more contagious mutations, S477N, E484K, and N501Y to be among the first selected. This includes the British and South-African variants. Plotting the binding affinity to ACE2 of selected RBD mutations against their incidence in the population shows a strong correlation between the two. Further in vitro evolution enhancing binding by 600- fold provides guidelines towards potentially new evolving mutations with even higher infectivity. Yet, the high-affinity RBD is also an efficient drug, inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection. The 2.9Å Cryo-EM structure of the high-affinity complex, including all rapidly spreading mutations provides structural basis for future drug development...

    ...While natural virus selection is not as efficient as in vitro selection, the gained information on the more critical mutations can be used as a tool to identify emerging mutations. We hypothesize that E484R will continue to spread and will become more dominant, especially in combination with N501Y. In contrast, we do not expect the rapid spread of S494P. Importantly, the mutation Q498R appeared in the library B4 after the incorporation of Tyr at position 501. This combination dramatically increased the affinity below 100 pM as is shown by the difference between RBD-32 and RBD-44 (Table 1). Notably, the wild-type RBD codon at position 498 is CAA, allowing for direct change to arginine codon CGA. R498 was not sampled yet by the virus (Fig. 2A) but its appearance should be carefully monitored. Moreover, R498 is located in a hypervariable location of the RBD (Fig. S11), which makes its appearance more plausible....

    ...An intriguing question is whether the spreading of the tighter binding SARS-CoV-2 variants in humans is accidental. From the similarity to yeast display selection, where stringent conditions are used, one may hypothesize that stringent selection is also driving the rapid spread of these mutations. Face masks of low quality (which are by far the most abundant) would provide such selection conditions, as they reduce exhaled viral titers, given tighter binding variants an advantage over WT to spread rapidly in the population (as a result of R0 of mutated viruses being >1, while <1 for WT viruses). This should be urgently investigated, as one may consider the mandatory use of higher quality face-masks, which will reduce viral titer to bellow infection levels (as indeed seen with medical personal who use such masks) and stop spreading these tighter binding virus mutations.</i>

    I hope they are biosafety-ing the shit out of this type of research. Of course it is extremely useful for both understanding infectivity and in providing directions for future pharma development, but its purpose is to develop more infectious strains of the virus more quickly than natural evolution does (hence its name, 'gain of function' research).

    I sincerely hope this was done in a BSL4 lab and only after development of extremely stringent risk management protocols, with personnel not only trained in the appropriate safety protocols, but given refresher courses before they started on the research.

    PS It is extremely worrying that this type of research paper has no discussion of the biosafety aspects - any acknowledgement of the risks, methods used to minimize them, or controls taken to contain any of the in vitro evolved strains. As a reviewer, I'd reject this paper out of hand until those issues were remedied.
    They were doing affinity maturation of the RBD protein only - no virus involved.
    (As the paper notes, the protein itself could be used as the basis for a drug, selectively binding to the ACE receptor, and preventing viral binding.)
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,487

    Sandpit said:

    Scott_xP said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Personally I don't see the fascination with putting down hecklers.

    I'd rather just listen to the funny comedian tell jokes.

    Billy Conolly tells of a prolonged bout with someone yelling from the audience. Turns out the guy had slipped and hurt himself and was screaming in agony for 20 minutes
    I saw Billy Connolly at Durham around 1980. It was February, the weather was snowy/icy/fatally slippy (as it was for about five months of the year in Durham). Mr. C had travelled from Cumbria to get there and had the most shitty of days in doing so. He was not in a good mood. It wasn't hidden. Still, somebody just had to poke the rattlesnake with a stick.

    He went on the most foul-mouthed rant at this heckler you can imagine. On and on and on.

    And on.

    It seemed to be what he needed to regain his equilibrium. After that, he was back on form.

    We had a great time. Apart from the heckler, who looked like the Bolton sigil.
    I don't know why anyone does it.

    They always come off worse.
    Frankie Boyle to a heckler:
    “I’m getting paid for being a c*** tonight, what’s your excuse?”
    I used to love Boyle, but (a) he's gone off the boil recently, and become too political and (b) he now thinks it's fine to pull up other comedians for offensive comedy whereas he built his comedy career on it for years.
    There is something really weird about him getting upty about Ricky Gervais, after he had a career out of mocking Katie Price's disabled son, Rebeeca Addlington appearance....Its like Roy Chubby Brown complaining about Jim Davison doing some dodgy material.
    Yes.

    For the record, I didn't find any of those jokes of his funny.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599

    Sandpit said:

    Scott_xP said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Personally I don't see the fascination with putting down hecklers.

    I'd rather just listen to the funny comedian tell jokes.

    Billy Conolly tells of a prolonged bout with someone yelling from the audience. Turns out the guy had slipped and hurt himself and was screaming in agony for 20 minutes
    I saw Billy Connolly at Durham around 1980. It was February, the weather was snowy/icy/fatally slippy (as it was for about five months of the year in Durham). Mr. C had travelled from Cumbria to get there and had the most shitty of days in doing so. He was not in a good mood. It wasn't hidden. Still, somebody just had to poke the rattlesnake with a stick.

    He went on the most foul-mouthed rant at this heckler you can imagine. On and on and on.

    And on.

    It seemed to be what he needed to regain his equilibrium. After that, he was back on form.

    We had a great time. Apart from the heckler, who looked like the Bolton sigil.
    I don't know why anyone does it.

    They always come off worse.
    Frankie Boyle to a heckler:
    “I’m getting paid for being a c*** tonight, what’s your excuse?”
    I used to love Boyle, but (a) he's gone off the boil recently, and become too political and (b) he now thinks it's fine to pull up other comedians for offensive comedy whereas he built his comedy career on it for years.
    Indeed, he was pretty much banned from TV for nearly a decade, until he got sober and woke. Like many, I much prefer the earlier, edgier Frankie, the one who would push the boundaries of comedy.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,092
    edited January 2021
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Scott_xP said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Personally I don't see the fascination with putting down hecklers.

    I'd rather just listen to the funny comedian tell jokes.

    Billy Conolly tells of a prolonged bout with someone yelling from the audience. Turns out the guy had slipped and hurt himself and was screaming in agony for 20 minutes
    I saw Billy Connolly at Durham around 1980. It was February, the weather was snowy/icy/fatally slippy (as it was for about five months of the year in Durham). Mr. C had travelled from Cumbria to get there and had the most shitty of days in doing so. He was not in a good mood. It wasn't hidden. Still, somebody just had to poke the rattlesnake with a stick.

    He went on the most foul-mouthed rant at this heckler you can imagine. On and on and on.

    And on.

    It seemed to be what he needed to regain his equilibrium. After that, he was back on form.

    We had a great time. Apart from the heckler, who looked like the Bolton sigil.
    I don't know why anyone does it.

    They always come off worse.
    Frankie Boyle to a heckler:
    “I’m getting paid for being a c*** tonight, what’s your excuse?”
    I used to love Boyle, but (a) he's gone off the boil recently, and become too political and (b) he now thinks it's fine to pull up other comedians for offensive comedy whereas he built his comedy career on it for years.
    Indeed, he was pretty much banned from TV for nearly a decade, until he got sober and woke. Like many, I much prefer the earlier, edgier Frankie, the one who would push the boundaries of comedy.
    Jim Jefferies is another, who made a name for being extremely offensive and sweary doesn't even come into it. It was bash the Muslims terrorists, bash the gun nuts, bash everybody in sight.

    Now he has a tv show is all right on, lets entrap / spin the alt-right types, up the woke social issues stuff.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    Nigelb said:

    TimT said:

    Nigelb said:

    SARS-CoV-2 RBD in vitro evolution follows contagious mutation spread, yet generates an able infection inhibitor
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.06.425392v1.full.pdf
    Abstract
    SARS-CoV-2 is constantly evolving, with more contagious mutations spreading rapidly. Using in vitro evolution to affinity maturate the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein towards ACE2, resulted in the more contagious mutations, S477N, E484K, and N501Y to be among the first selected. This includes the British and South-African variants. Plotting the binding affinity to ACE2 of selected RBD mutations against their incidence in the population shows a strong correlation between the two. Further in vitro evolution enhancing binding by 600- fold provides guidelines towards potentially new evolving mutations with even higher infectivity. Yet, the high-affinity RBD is also an efficient drug, inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection. The 2.9Å Cryo-EM structure of the high-affinity complex, including all rapidly spreading mutations provides structural basis for future drug development...

    ...While natural virus selection is not as efficient as in vitro selection, the gained information on the more critical mutations can be used as a tool to identify emerging mutations. We hypothesize that E484R will continue to spread and will become more dominant, especially in combination with N501Y. In contrast, we do not expect the rapid spread of S494P. Importantly, the mutation Q498R appeared in the library B4 after the incorporation of Tyr at position 501. This combination dramatically increased the affinity below 100 pM as is shown by the difference between RBD-32 and RBD-44 (Table 1). Notably, the wild-type RBD codon at position 498 is CAA, allowing for direct change to arginine codon CGA. R498 was not sampled yet by the virus (Fig. 2A) but its appearance should be carefully monitored. Moreover, R498 is located in a hypervariable location of the RBD (Fig. S11), which makes its appearance more plausible....

    ...An intriguing question is whether the spreading of the tighter binding SARS-CoV-2 variants in humans is accidental. From the similarity to yeast display selection, where stringent conditions are used, one may hypothesize that stringent selection is also driving the rapid spread of these mutations. Face masks of low quality (which are by far the most abundant) would provide such selection conditions, as they reduce exhaled viral titers, given tighter binding variants an advantage over WT to spread rapidly in the population (as a result of R0 of mutated viruses being >1, while <1 for WT viruses). This should be urgently investigated, as one may consider the mandatory use of higher quality face-masks, which will reduce viral titer to bellow infection levels (as indeed seen with medical personal who use such masks) and stop spreading these tighter binding virus mutations.</i>

    I hope they are biosafety-ing the shit out of this type of research. Of course it is extremely useful for both understanding infectivity and in providing directions for future pharma development, but its purpose is to develop more infectious strains of the virus more quickly than natural evolution does (hence its name, 'gain of function' research).

    I sincerely hope this was done in a BSL4 lab and only after development of extremely stringent risk management protocols, with personnel not only trained in the appropriate safety protocols, but given refresher courses before they started on the research.

    PS It is extremely worrying that this type of research paper has no discussion of the biosafety aspects - any acknowledgement of the risks, methods used to minimize them, or controls taken to contain any of the in vitro evolved strains. As a reviewer, I'd reject this paper out of hand until those issues were remedied.
    They were doing affinity maturation of the RBD protein only - no virus involved.
    (As the paper notes, the protein itself could be used as the basis for a drug, selectively binding to the ACE receptor, and preventing viral binding.)
    Thanks
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    edited January 2021



    Good plan & good politics by Labour:

    Actually, it is so unreasonable to expect Labour to get their shit together in Wales first ?

    If Labour manage to #LetsVaccinateWales then I might believe they could manage #LetsVaccinateBritain better than the Tories.

    But, it is so predictable what is happening. Out of the Tories, SNP, Labour and DUP/SF, who are the slowest?

    Labour are the slowest.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55573436

    We can guarantee that the one part of the country that Labour control will be last.

    If asked to guess, I'd say Scotland will finish vaccinating first, then N. Ireland, then England ... and a few months later Wales.

    In Wales, no vaccination centres have been announced & the plan is to publish vaccination data only once a week.

    When Welsh people speak to relatives & friends in England who are over 80 and being contacted, but their 80 year old Nain hasn’t heard anything, then they will start to get frustrated.

    There are real dangers here for Labour ...which SKS and his spinners will not be able to disguise.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599

    It seems Trump have been allowed back on Twitter but he's gone silent. Let's hope he can make it a habit.

    Maybe somebody has taken away his phone, so he can't get his tiny hands on it.
    I’d love to know who managed to talk him down earlier, Jared Kushner?

    He’s probably disappearing to Mar-a-Lago today, never to been seen nor heard from again in Washington.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,487
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Scott_xP said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Personally I don't see the fascination with putting down hecklers.

    I'd rather just listen to the funny comedian tell jokes.

    Billy Conolly tells of a prolonged bout with someone yelling from the audience. Turns out the guy had slipped and hurt himself and was screaming in agony for 20 minutes
    I saw Billy Connolly at Durham around 1980. It was February, the weather was snowy/icy/fatally slippy (as it was for about five months of the year in Durham). Mr. C had travelled from Cumbria to get there and had the most shitty of days in doing so. He was not in a good mood. It wasn't hidden. Still, somebody just had to poke the rattlesnake with a stick.

    He went on the most foul-mouthed rant at this heckler you can imagine. On and on and on.

    And on.

    It seemed to be what he needed to regain his equilibrium. After that, he was back on form.

    We had a great time. Apart from the heckler, who looked like the Bolton sigil.
    I don't know why anyone does it.

    They always come off worse.
    Frankie Boyle to a heckler:
    “I’m getting paid for being a c*** tonight, what’s your excuse?”
    I used to love Boyle, but (a) he's gone off the boil recently, and become too political and (b) he now thinks it's fine to pull up other comedians for offensive comedy whereas he built his comedy career on it for years.
    Indeed, he was pretty much banned from TV for nearly a decade, until he got sober and woke. Like many, I much prefer the earlier, edgier Frankie, the one who would push the boundaries of comedy.
    Yes, I liked that too - I just didn't like it when he got personally offensive or downright cruel.

    You can cleverly puncture taboos and be subversive without doing that.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,421

    And there are reports that Ireland isn't even anywhere near reporting all their cases as their systems can't cope with the numbers.
    Confirmed cases and positive swabs.

    https://covid19.shanehastings.eu/api/swabs/?c19tw

    The situation has possibly stabilised now, but still with a backlog of positive swab results to go through the record confirmation process.

    I hope Christmas was worth it.
  • TresTres Posts: 2,702

    Tres said:

    Just wondering, is it right for the BBC (and other media outlets) effectively "doxing" these people, rather than let the authorities deal with them? Did they highlight names of those who have rioted elsewhere? I seemed to remember they refused to hand over footage to the authorities over London riots, when they wanted help to try and identify criminals.

    Capitol riots: Who broke into the building?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/55572805

    They are just reporting whats all over social media anyway. But if the authorities ain't going to arrest them they are fair game.
    I would be shocked if they haven't already been arrested or in the process of.

    As for "all over social media", things like VIP paedo ring stuff was spread all over social media, doesn't mean the BBC should report it. Footballers and other celebs being very naughty is often spread as well. And only Saturday, Starmer was going to resign was spread all over twitter.
    So the BBC showing it's worth, by repeating the stories which are true, and ignoring the ones that are lies. A great use of today's 30p.
  • Tres said:

    Tres said:

    Just wondering, is it right for the BBC (and other media outlets) effectively "doxing" these people, rather than let the authorities deal with them? Did they highlight names of those who have rioted elsewhere? I seemed to remember they refused to hand over footage to the authorities over London riots, when they wanted help to try and identify criminals.

    Capitol riots: Who broke into the building?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/55572805

    They are just reporting whats all over social media anyway. But if the authorities ain't going to arrest them they are fair game.
    I would be shocked if they haven't already been arrested or in the process of.

    As for "all over social media", things like VIP paedo ring stuff was spread all over social media, doesn't mean the BBC should report it. Footballers and other celebs being very naughty is often spread as well. And only Saturday, Starmer was going to resign was spread all over twitter.
    So the BBC showing it's worth, by repeating the stories which are true, and ignoring the ones that are lies. A great use of today's 30p.
    Cliff Richard would like to have a word....
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599
    edited January 2021

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Scott_xP said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Personally I don't see the fascination with putting down hecklers.

    I'd rather just listen to the funny comedian tell jokes.

    Billy Conolly tells of a prolonged bout with someone yelling from the audience. Turns out the guy had slipped and hurt himself and was screaming in agony for 20 minutes
    I saw Billy Connolly at Durham around 1980. It was February, the weather was snowy/icy/fatally slippy (as it was for about five months of the year in Durham). Mr. C had travelled from Cumbria to get there and had the most shitty of days in doing so. He was not in a good mood. It wasn't hidden. Still, somebody just had to poke the rattlesnake with a stick.

    He went on the most foul-mouthed rant at this heckler you can imagine. On and on and on.

    And on.

    It seemed to be what he needed to regain his equilibrium. After that, he was back on form.

    We had a great time. Apart from the heckler, who looked like the Bolton sigil.
    I don't know why anyone does it.

    They always come off worse.
    Frankie Boyle to a heckler:
    “I’m getting paid for being a c*** tonight, what’s your excuse?”
    I used to love Boyle, but (a) he's gone off the boil recently, and become too political and (b) he now thinks it's fine to pull up other comedians for offensive comedy whereas he built his comedy career on it for years.
    Indeed, he was pretty much banned from TV for nearly a decade, until he got sober and woke. Like many, I much prefer the earlier, edgier Frankie, the one who would push the boundaries of comedy.
    Jim Jefferies is another, who made a name for being extremely offensive and sweary doesn't even come into it. It was bash the Muslims, bash the Jews, bash the gun nuts, bash everybody in sight.

    Now he has a tv show is all right on, lets entrap / spin the alt-right types, up the woke social issues stuff.
    His TV show was crap, but his standup is brilliant.

    So many comics fall into that trap, of needing to be a certain way to get on TV, because for quite a while (until Netflix) the networks were only interested in commissioning a comedy show with a particular viewpoint.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,600
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    But were they really armed with much more than flags and offensive haircuts?
    Pipe bombs. for a start, will do.
    But were they real, or just (as I read) two lookalikes? Sure, you wouldn't want to stand near one in case, but it is hardly the survivaists coming to town armed to the teeth with automatic weaponry, grenades and ammunition strung around their bodies. Not exactly Rambo doing a guided tour of Congress....
    I think that issue is now resolved.

    Edit: certainly for the political centre as a whole. It's of course possible that one or two others were lookalike, or were misidentified (very common in cnfused situations such as the London attacks of different years).

    But why a lookalike? Think about that.
    A lookalike pipe-bomb is a....pipe?
    Why would you carry around a length of pipe with wire and the ends taped over in a sensitive situation like that? There are at least four motives that I can think of, depending on what is in it.
    Apart from the uber-nutter who brought his pipe-bomb collection along, the Trumpsters weren't armed and didn't start shooting. For which we and American democracy can be eternally grateful. It was either incredibly prescient of the forces of law and order to know this about such a disparate group - suggesting they were VERY well informed from the inside. Or somebody took a hell of a risk. Not wanting to clad myself in tinfoil, but much still doesn't add up about yesterday.

    Because messy as yesterday was, we saw a breakdown of security systems that mean we could have been looking at dozens of dead Senators and Representatives. I'm not sure how today would be shaping up had they gone with greater ambitions than to trash some offices. It seems the Trumpsters had no expectation of getting anywhere near the heart of Government - and had no idea what to do when they did, other than take the Confederate flag for an impromptu tour of the building. That this seems the limited extent of their day out makes you say thank God - but also wonder how DID they get inside? And shudder at how different it could have been.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,221

    Nigelb said:

    SARS-CoV-2 RBD in vitro evolution follows contagious mutation spread, yet generates an able infection inhibitor
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.06.425392v1.full.pdf
    Abstract
    SARS-CoV-2 is constantly evolving, with more contagious mutations spreading rapidly. Using in vitro evolution to affinity maturate the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein towards ACE2, resulted in the more contagious mutations, S477N, E484K, and N501Y to be among the first selected. This includes the British and South-African variants. Plotting the binding affinity to ACE2 of selected RBD mutations against their incidence in the population shows a strong correlation between the two. Further in vitro evolution enhancing binding by 600- fold provides guidelines towards potentially new evolving mutations with even higher infectivity. Yet, the high-affinity RBD is also an efficient drug, inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection. The 2.9Å Cryo-EM structure of the high-affinity complex, including all rapidly spreading mutations provides structural basis for future drug development...

    ...While natural virus selection is not as efficient as in vitro selection, the gained information on the more critical mutations can be used as a tool to identify emerging mutations. We hypothesize that E484R will continue to spread and will become more dominant, especially in combination with N501Y. In contrast, we do not expect the rapid spread of S494P. Importantly, the mutation Q498R appeared in the library B4 after the incorporation of Tyr at position 501. This combination dramatically increased the affinity below 100 pM as is shown by the difference between RBD-32 and RBD-44 (Table 1). Notably, the wild-type RBD codon at position 498 is CAA, allowing for direct change to arginine codon CGA. R498 was not sampled yet by the virus (Fig. 2A) but its appearance should be carefully monitored. Moreover, R498 is located in a hypervariable location of the RBD (Fig. S11), which makes its appearance more plausible....

    ...An intriguing question is whether the spreading of the tighter binding SARS-CoV-2 variants in humans is accidental. From the similarity to yeast display selection, where stringent conditions are used, one may hypothesize that stringent selection is also driving the rapid spread of these mutations. Face masks of low quality (which are by far the most abundant) would provide such selection conditions, as they reduce exhaled viral titers, given tighter binding variants an advantage over WT to spread rapidly in the population (as a result of R0 of mutated viruses being >1, while <1 for WT viruses). This should be urgently investigated, as one may consider the mandatory use of higher quality face-masks, which will reduce viral titer to bellow infection levels (as indeed seen with medical personal who use such masks) and stop spreading these tighter binding virus mutations.</i>

    Any chance of a lay person's summary?
    Definitely (I'm a layperson myself, so don't assume its accuracy).

    Basically they've modelled the evolution of more infectious variants of a part of the spike protein, in a commonly used lab system for enhancing the receptor binding affinity of proteins, and not only duplicated the evolution of the RBD variants found in the recently reported more infectious virus strains, but shown that it's quite feasible for a far more infectious mutation to come about.

    The bit at the end is a speculation that the use of masks makes it harder for the virus to infect individuals, and that this might provide an evolutionary pressure for more infectious strains.
  • Sandpit said:

    Scott_xP said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Personally I don't see the fascination with putting down hecklers.

    I'd rather just listen to the funny comedian tell jokes.

    Billy Conolly tells of a prolonged bout with someone yelling from the audience. Turns out the guy had slipped and hurt himself and was screaming in agony for 20 minutes
    I saw Billy Connolly at Durham around 1980. It was February, the weather was snowy/icy/fatally slippy (as it was for about five months of the year in Durham). Mr. C had travelled from Cumbria to get there and had the most shitty of days in doing so. He was not in a good mood. It wasn't hidden. Still, somebody just had to poke the rattlesnake with a stick.

    He went on the most foul-mouthed rant at this heckler you can imagine. On and on and on.

    And on.

    It seemed to be what he needed to regain his equilibrium. After that, he was back on form.

    We had a great time. Apart from the heckler, who looked like the Bolton sigil.
    I don't know why anyone does it.

    They always come off worse.
    Frankie Boyle to a heckler:
    “I’m getting paid for being a c*** tonight, what’s your excuse?”
    Saw the poet John Hegley do a show (he's a quietly spoken man).

    Heckler: (incoherent drunken noises)

    JH: You need a microphone, mate (long pause)...shoved up your anus

  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,805
    Mr. Cwsc, talked briefly with a friend at Christmas and she was irked a 90 year old relative hadn't been vaccinated while some 80 year olds had been.

    It won't be just a Wales/Scotland/England thing but comparisons within areas too.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,355
    FPT
    Burgessian said:

    » show previous quotes
    Salmond is regarded as a bad smell, even by much (if not all) of his former fan club. I don't think he is altogether reconciled to being placed in The Donald Club of embarrassing has-beens, which is why the ScotParl investigation into the Salmond/SNP related murk is worth keeping an eye on. He has yet to testify.
    Maybe it will all come to nothing. And maybe not. I honestly don't know.

    Absolute bollox, typical unionist blinkered view.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,298
    kinabalu said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:



    To be fair to Jo Brand (yes, I know) it was a pre-recorded programme, so it was up to the editor which jokes made the cut and which stayed between the live audience and the participants.

    Anyone who’s ever attended a recording of HIGNFY or Mock The Week knows that there’s an awful lot of well-over-the-line jokes told in these settings, that no-one expects to actually be aired.

    I prefer Jo Brand to the endless minor public school, Oxbridge wankers doing what passes for comedy on R4. And, of course, I don't think Jo was recommending it as a course of action. She was looking for a gag & did not think.

    There is a long tradition of throwing flour or eggs or rotting vegetables as political protest.

    And, of course, a well-aimed egg can cheer the hearts of millions.

    But, even joking about throwing acid takes the cheeriness away.
    Very true. It was in poor taste and landed badly, but that’s what comedians do. I’m not sure she ever expected it to air, but the editors and the BBC thought it was fine.

    Which tells us a lot more about the BBC, than it does about the comedian.

    Frankie Boyle’s infamous “Princess Diana Joke” on MTW wasn’t seen for several years after it was recorded, was finally released only on an 18-rated outtakes DVD, never shown on TV.
    Serious question...Who is a really good stand-up these days? That has the material, can judge a room, take on the hecklers etc? So many of the regulars on these panel shows are very poor live comedians.

    The best I have seen in the past few years is Ross Noble, but because so much of it is improv, he can also miss badly as well. Far too many that were ok, have a bit like Scott n Paste, been driven made by Brexit and can only do Brexit is shit, Orange man bad stuff, and you can feel it in the audience people don't want that. Its divisive and you can only hear so many ways of they are shit jokes before you have heard them all.

    I saw Mark Watson 18 months ago, and he had at least the sense to have twigged nobody wants that and came out and said you guys pay your money to have a night off from the real world, so I am not doing anything fights over Brexit, instead this show is all about something much more depressing my divorce.

    I used to like Mark Thomas live, but how he is much older, he doesn't really have the tales to tell about all his experiences on joining crazies on a protest. His show about his wife beating dad who loved opera and died a horrible death although not his funniest work, was incredibly moving.
    I saw Stewart Lee a few years ago, he was very funny. I've not seen Kevin Bridges live but the bits of his shows I've seen on YouTube etc look good.
    Nipping in to share with this great site full of great people with impeccable taste one of Lee's greatest hits. If he were Pulp this would be Common People. I know you've seen it but it will slay anybody who hasn't -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a17duTUK6qw
    Honestly I don't really get it... everyone (left wing) tells me how funny Stewart Lee is and how clever he is... but he's merely moderately amusing to me.

    When I saw him live, he had absolute mastery over the audience, but I didn't actually spend that much time laughing.
    A lot of people who aren't left wing like Lee. But of course humour is a personal thing. For me, he has it all. The delivery is skilled and forceful. He's charismatic. The material is clever but doesn't sacrifice laughs to be that way. He's on a mission to crease you up and if it makes a point fine. It's not the other way around, which is a trap some lefty comics can fall into.

    Who does do it for you then?
    Dara O'Briain is my favourite. I've seen Dara live a few times and always enjoyed it.
    When 40%+ is audience participation, I feel like even seeing the same set multiple times is great.
    I also like panel shows more than the next man. This I found hilarious (particularly Dara's final burn).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HYxJp02W1w
  • I asked this question several times yesterday, and will ask it again:

    Is the British government gonna ban Donald Trumpsky from entering UK, on grounds that he is a racist extremist fomenting violence, and a danger to public safety and security?

    HMG has full power to do this AND has done it in the past, for example banning entry by KKK leader Bill Wilkerson back (I think) in the 1990s.

    OR is the outrage expressed by members of HMG, including the Home Secretary, strictly rhetorical, and part of an exercise designed to cover their tender hindquarters?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,204
    Elon Musk now world's richest man


  • Good plan & good politics by Labour:

    Actually, it is so unreasonable to expect Labour to get their shit together in Wales first ?

    If Labour manage to #LetsVaccinateWales then I might believe they could manage #LetsVaccinateBritain better than the Tories.

    But, it is so predictable what is happening. Out of the Tories, SNP, Labour and DUP/SF, who are the slowest?

    Labour are the slowest.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55573436

    We can guarantee that the one part of the country that Labour control will be last.

    If asked to guess, I'd say Scotland will finish vaccinating first, then N. Ireland, then England ... and a few months later Wales.

    In Wales, no vaccination centres have been announced & the plan is to publish vaccination data only once a week.

    When Welsh people speak to relatives & friends in England who are over 80 and being contacted, but their 80 year old Nain hasn’t heard anything, then they will start to get frustrated.

    There are real dangers here for Labour ...which SKS and his spinners will not be able to disguise.
    And my 81 year old wife has not heard anything at all
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,092
    edited January 2021
    Ed is getting better with his analysis....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgBU2751kn0
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,221

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    But were they really armed with much more than flags and offensive haircuts?
    Pipe bombs. for a start, will do.
    But were they real, or just (as I read) two lookalikes? Sure, you wouldn't want to stand near one in case, but it is hardly the survivaists coming to town armed to the teeth with automatic weaponry, grenades and ammunition strung around their bodies. Not exactly Rambo doing a guided tour of Congress....
    I think that issue is now resolved.

    Edit: certainly for the political centre as a whole. It's of course possible that one or two others were lookalike, or were misidentified (very common in cnfused situations such as the London attacks of different years).

    But why a lookalike? Think about that.
    A lookalike pipe-bomb is a....pipe?
    Why would you carry around a length of pipe with wire and the ends taped over in a sensitive situation like that? There are at least four motives that I can think of, depending on what is in it.
    Apart from the uber-nutter who brought his pipe-bomb collection along, the Trumpsters weren't armed and didn't start shooting. For which we and American democracy can be eternally grateful. It was either incredibly prescient of the forces of law and order to know this about such a disparate group - suggesting they were VERY well informed from the inside. Or somebody took a hell of a risk. Not wanting to clad myself in tinfoil, but much still doesn't add up about yesterday.

    Because messy as yesterday was, we saw a breakdown of security systems that mean we could have been looking at dozens of dead Senators and Representatives. I'm not sure how today would be shaping up had they gone with greater ambitions than to trash some offices. It seems the Trumpsters had no expectation of getting anywhere near the heart of Government - and had no idea what to do when they did, other than take the Confederate flag for an impromptu tour of the building. That this seems the limited extent of their day out makes you say thank God - but also wonder how DID they get inside? And shudder at how different it could have been.
    Was it the same guy, or another one, who had the rifle & molotov cocktails ?

    There are urgent questions to be answered about the lax security, particularly as the possibility of this, or something even worse happening was very well signalled.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    Mr. Cwsc, talked briefly with a friend at Christmas and she was irked a 90 year old relative hadn't been vaccinated while some 80 year olds had been.

    It won't be just a Wales/Scotland/England thing but comparisons within areas too.

    Sure.

    There will be rural/urban splits. And of course the geriatric London skiers have top priority :)

    But, I think we will get a good idea of the competencies of the various administrations (S, E, W, NI) by seeing who gets finished first.

    Or even who manages to vaccinate the 80+ year olds first.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,462
    Sandpit said:

    It seems Trump have been allowed back on Twitter but he's gone silent. Let's hope he can make it a habit.

    Maybe somebody has taken away his phone, so he can't get his tiny hands on it.
    I’d love to know who managed to talk him down earlier, Jared Kushner?

    He’s probably disappearing to Mar-a-Lago today, never to been seen nor heard from again in Washington.
    I wouldn't too surprised to see an 'alternative' Inauguration parade or similar on 20th.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Hancock - changed guidance in last few days Vial overfilled for 5 doses so many getting 6 doses out of each vial. Rather than lose doses after Priority 1 & 2 vaxed, any excess can be used on NHS staff/Social Care staff at end of day.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,165
    edited January 2021

    I asked this question several times yesterday, and will ask it again:

    Is the British government gonna ban Donald Trumpsky from entering UK, on grounds that he is a racist extremist fomenting violence, and a danger to public safety and security?

    HMG has full power to do this AND has done it in the past, for example banning entry by KKK leader Bill Wilkerson back (I think) in the 1990s.

    OR is the outrage expressed by members of HMG, including the Home Secretary, strictly rhetorical, and part of an exercise designed to cover their tender hindquarters?

    It's a good question, because it's still possible for him to arrive in Scotland claiming immunity just 12 days from now.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,213
    Tres said:

    Tres said:

    Just wondering, is it right for the BBC (and other media outlets) effectively "doxing" these people, rather than let the authorities deal with them? Did they highlight names of those who have rioted elsewhere? I seemed to remember they refused to hand over footage to the authorities over London riots, when they wanted help to try and identify criminals.

    Capitol riots: Who broke into the building?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/55572805

    They are just reporting whats all over social media anyway. But if the authorities ain't going to arrest them they are fair game.
    I would be shocked if they haven't already been arrested or in the process of.

    As for "all over social media", things like VIP paedo ring stuff was spread all over social media, doesn't mean the BBC should report it. Footballers and other celebs being very naughty is often spread as well. And only Saturday, Starmer was going to resign was spread all over twitter.
    So the BBC showing it's worth, by repeating the stories which are true, and ignoring the ones that are lies. A great use of today's 30p.
    A jewel, and I say that despite being a tad hacked off by their Chief Political Correspondent being in Johnson's pocket. If everyone watched only the BBC the world would be a duller place but it'd be a safer one. For example, if some poor misguided Qanon type turned up to Antiques Roadshow and started hollering at Fiona Bruce, it would be edited out and we would not see it. Is that a denial of free speech? Is it a restriction on consumer choice? No and no. It's quality control. Other outlets and platforms should take a leaf.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,221
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    SARS-CoV-2 RBD in vitro evolution follows contagious mutation spread, yet generates an able infection inhibitor
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.06.425392v1.full.pdf
    Abstract
    SARS-CoV-2 is constantly evolving, with more contagious mutations spreading rapidly. Using in vitro evolution to affinity maturate the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein towards ACE2, resulted in the more contagious mutations, S477N, E484K, and N501Y to be among the first selected. This includes the British and South-African variants. Plotting the binding affinity to ACE2 of selected RBD mutations against their incidence in the population shows a strong correlation between the two. Further in vitro evolution enhancing binding by 600- fold provides guidelines towards potentially new evolving mutations with even higher infectivity. Yet, the high-affinity RBD is also an efficient drug, inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection. The 2.9Å Cryo-EM structure of the high-affinity complex, including all rapidly spreading mutations provides structural basis for future drug development...

    ...While natural virus selection is not as efficient as in vitro selection, the gained information on the more critical mutations can be used as a tool to identify emerging mutations. We hypothesize that E484R will continue to spread and will become more dominant, especially in combination with N501Y. In contrast, we do not expect the rapid spread of S494P. Importantly, the mutation Q498R appeared in the library B4 after the incorporation of Tyr at position 501. This combination dramatically increased the affinity below 100 pM as is shown by the difference between RBD-32 and RBD-44 (Table 1). Notably, the wild-type RBD codon at position 498 is CAA, allowing for direct change to arginine codon CGA. R498 was not sampled yet by the virus (Fig. 2A) but its appearance should be carefully monitored. Moreover, R498 is located in a hypervariable location of the RBD (Fig. S11), which makes its appearance more plausible....

    ...An intriguing question is whether the spreading of the tighter binding SARS-CoV-2 variants in humans is accidental. From the similarity to yeast display selection, where stringent conditions are used, one may hypothesize that stringent selection is also driving the rapid spread of these mutations. Face masks of low quality (which are by far the most abundant) would provide such selection conditions, as they reduce exhaled viral titers, given tighter binding variants an advantage over WT to spread rapidly in the population (as a result of R0 of mutated viruses being >1, while <1 for WT viruses). This should be urgently investigated, as one may consider the mandatory use of higher quality face-masks, which will reduce viral titer to bellow infection levels (as indeed seen with medical personal who use such masks) and stop spreading these tighter binding virus mutations.</i>

    Any chance of a lay person's summary?
    Definitely (I'm a layperson myself, so don't assume its accuracy).

    Basically they've modelled the evolution of more infectious variants of a part of the spike protein, in a commonly used lab system* for enhancing the receptor binding affinity of proteins, and not only duplicated the evolution of the RBD variants found in the recently reported more infectious virus strains, but shown that it's quite feasible for a far more infectious mutation to come about.

    The bit at the end is a speculation that the use of masks makes it harder for the virus to infect individuals, and that this might provide an evolutionary pressure for more infectious strains.
    *"Yeast display"
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast_display
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,914
    Should we be surprised? There is a straight line through Trump through Johnson through the Brexiteers through the Cabinet to the Tory Party.

    The clues were all there in the xenophobic Brexit campaign.......
  • TresTres Posts: 2,702

    Tres said:

    Tres said:

    Just wondering, is it right for the BBC (and other media outlets) effectively "doxing" these people, rather than let the authorities deal with them? Did they highlight names of those who have rioted elsewhere? I seemed to remember they refused to hand over footage to the authorities over London riots, when they wanted help to try and identify criminals.

    Capitol riots: Who broke into the building?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/55572805

    They are just reporting whats all over social media anyway. But if the authorities ain't going to arrest them they are fair game.
    I would be shocked if they haven't already been arrested or in the process of.

    As for "all over social media", things like VIP paedo ring stuff was spread all over social media, doesn't mean the BBC should report it. Footballers and other celebs being very naughty is often spread as well. And only Saturday, Starmer was going to resign was spread all over twitter.
    So the BBC showing it's worth, by repeating the stories which are true, and ignoring the ones that are lies. A great use of today's 30p.
    Cliff Richard would like to have a word....
    Why, because SYP knew he was a friend of Savile?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,381

    Mr. Cwsc, talked briefly with a friend at Christmas and she was irked a 90 year old relative hadn't been vaccinated while some 80 year olds had been.

    It won't be just a Wales/Scotland/England thing but comparisons within areas too.

    Sure.

    There will be rural/urban splits. And of course the geriatric London skiers have top priority :)

    But, I think we will get a good idea of the competencies of the various administrations (S, E, W, NI) by seeing who gets finished first.

    Or even who manages to vaccinate the 80+ year olds first.
    Don't worry. Gething and Drakeford will have a handle on vaccinations when they return from Gstad on Monday!
  • That's the same data that has been there all along - on the https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

    They have just added the numbers to some other pages as well.
    That data is ten days behind the current date, isn;t it?

    Didn't Bojo promise sceptical tory MPs day by day updates?
    Yes. Today's England update is available. https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/. About 300k in the 2nd week of the Xmas break.

    Yes. From Monday.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599

    Sandpit said:

    It seems Trump have been allowed back on Twitter but he's gone silent. Let's hope he can make it a habit.

    Maybe somebody has taken away his phone, so he can't get his tiny hands on it.
    I’d love to know who managed to talk him down earlier, Jared Kushner?

    He’s probably disappearing to Mar-a-Lago today, never to been seen nor heard from again in Washington.
    I wouldn't too surprised to see an 'alternative' Inauguration parade or similar on 20th.
    Don’t give him ideas!!
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172



    Good plan & good politics by Labour:

    Actually, it is so unreasonable to expect Labour to get their shit together in Wales first ?

    If Labour manage to #LetsVaccinateWales then I might believe they could manage #LetsVaccinateBritain better than the Tories.

    But, it is so predictable what is happening. Out of the Tories, SNP, Labour and DUP/SF, who are the slowest?

    Labour are the slowest.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55573436

    We can guarantee that the one part of the country that Labour control will be last.

    If asked to guess, I'd say Scotland will finish vaccinating first, then N. Ireland, then England ... and a few months later Wales.

    In Wales, no vaccination centres have been announced & the plan is to publish vaccination data only once a week.

    When Welsh people speak to relatives & friends in England who are over 80 and being contacted, but their 80 year old Nain hasn’t heard anything, then they will start to get frustrated.

    There are real dangers here for Labour ...which SKS and his spinners will not be able to disguise.
    And my 81 year old wife has not heard anything at all
    A Tory in North Wales. So, she must be on Drakeford's list at Priority 20.

    Most of the Welsh ones have been in the Labour controlled areas (Aneurin Bevan & Swansea Bay Health Boards)

    For whatever reason :)
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    It's the plain truth. Those with belated epiphanies are right that the holdouts basically acted it out like a scripted drama. They wont wanted it to have been quite so dramatic a conflagration, but they wanted Trump to light the fire.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,462



    Good plan & good politics by Labour:

    Actually, it is so unreasonable to expect Labour to get their shit together in Wales first ?

    If Labour manage to #LetsVaccinateWales then I might believe they could manage #LetsVaccinateBritain better than the Tories.

    But, it is so predictable what is happening. Out of the Tories, SNP, Labour and DUP/SF, who are the slowest?

    Labour are the slowest.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55573436

    We can guarantee that the one part of the country that Labour control will be last.

    If asked to guess, I'd say Scotland will finish vaccinating first, then N. Ireland, then England ... and a few months later Wales.

    In Wales, no vaccination centres have been announced & the plan is to publish vaccination data only once a week.

    When Welsh people speak to relatives & friends in England who are over 80 and being contacted, but their 80 year old Nain hasn’t heard anything, then they will start to get frustrated.

    There are real dangers here for Labour ...which SKS and his spinners will not be able to disguise.
    This 82 yr old Tadcu living in England hasn't been vaccinated either.

    Incidentally, I understand Hancock turned up to a surgery yesterday (I think) expecting to see vaccinations with the Oxford etc vaccine. However, the vaccine hadn't been delivered and an angry GP gave hime a piece of her mind. The broadcast shows him being berated, but the sound is turned off. However, the body language is unmistakable.
  • Performative malice maybe a wee bit of a mouthful, but only one more syllable than virtue signalling which trips from the lips of the motley crew at a rapid-fire rate.

    https://twitter.com/DavieGreig/status/1347202607908052994?s=20
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,410

    They surely must be near herd immunity in the EPL by now...

    Aston Villa have experienced a "significant" coronavirus outbreak at the club on the eve of their FA Cup third-round tie with Liverpool.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55575321

    And yet EFC don't have a single positive. Despite us storming the Capitol last night.
    Maybe it's about the club culture too?
  • WSL: Manchester City v West Ham and Aston Villa v Arsenal postponed over Covid-19 cases - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55566813
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,165
    edited January 2021
    Scott_xP said:
    It's Twitter that's been his principal conduit, though. And so far today he seems to be in voluntary abstinence, which isn't something you'd usually associate with Trump.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,213
    rkrkrk said:

    kinabalu said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:



    To be fair to Jo Brand (yes, I know) it was a pre-recorded programme, so it was up to the editor which jokes made the cut and which stayed between the live audience and the participants.

    Anyone who’s ever attended a recording of HIGNFY or Mock The Week knows that there’s an awful lot of well-over-the-line jokes told in these settings, that no-one expects to actually be aired.

    I prefer Jo Brand to the endless minor public school, Oxbridge wankers doing what passes for comedy on R4. And, of course, I don't think Jo was recommending it as a course of action. She was looking for a gag & did not think.

    There is a long tradition of throwing flour or eggs or rotting vegetables as political protest.

    And, of course, a well-aimed egg can cheer the hearts of millions.

    But, even joking about throwing acid takes the cheeriness away.
    Very true. It was in poor taste and landed badly, but that’s what comedians do. I’m not sure she ever expected it to air, but the editors and the BBC thought it was fine.

    Which tells us a lot more about the BBC, than it does about the comedian.

    Frankie Boyle’s infamous “Princess Diana Joke” on MTW wasn’t seen for several years after it was recorded, was finally released only on an 18-rated outtakes DVD, never shown on TV.
    Serious question...Who is a really good stand-up these days? That has the material, can judge a room, take on the hecklers etc? So many of the regulars on these panel shows are very poor live comedians.

    The best I have seen in the past few years is Ross Noble, but because so much of it is improv, he can also miss badly as well. Far too many that were ok, have a bit like Scott n Paste, been driven made by Brexit and can only do Brexit is shit, Orange man bad stuff, and you can feel it in the audience people don't want that. Its divisive and you can only hear so many ways of they are shit jokes before you have heard them all.

    I saw Mark Watson 18 months ago, and he had at least the sense to have twigged nobody wants that and came out and said you guys pay your money to have a night off from the real world, so I am not doing anything fights over Brexit, instead this show is all about something much more depressing my divorce.

    I used to like Mark Thomas live, but how he is much older, he doesn't really have the tales to tell about all his experiences on joining crazies on a protest. His show about his wife beating dad who loved opera and died a horrible death although not his funniest work, was incredibly moving.
    I saw Stewart Lee a few years ago, he was very funny. I've not seen Kevin Bridges live but the bits of his shows I've seen on YouTube etc look good.
    Nipping in to share with this great site full of great people with impeccable taste one of Lee's greatest hits. If he were Pulp this would be Common People. I know you've seen it but it will slay anybody who hasn't -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a17duTUK6qw
    Honestly I don't really get it... everyone (left wing) tells me how funny Stewart Lee is and how clever he is... but he's merely moderately amusing to me.

    When I saw him live, he had absolute mastery over the audience, but I didn't actually spend that much time laughing.
    A lot of people who aren't left wing like Lee. But of course humour is a personal thing. For me, he has it all. The delivery is skilled and forceful. He's charismatic. The material is clever but doesn't sacrifice laughs to be that way. He's on a mission to crease you up and if it makes a point fine. It's not the other way around, which is a trap some lefty comics can fall into.

    Who does do it for you then?
    Dara O'Briain is my favourite. I've seen Dara live a few times and always enjoyed it.
    When 40%+ is audience participation, I feel like even seeing the same set multiple times is great.
    I also like panel shows more than the next man. This I found hilarious (particularly Dara's final burn).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HYxJp02W1w
    Yes, I found that funny. Totally different sort of thing from a Lee riff. Not political. Ensemble repartee. All of it - and them - sharp.
  • In London, half of all patients being treated in hospital have Covid.

    BBC News - Covid: Half of patients at some hospitals have virus
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55575100
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126

    Performative malice maybe a wee bit of a mouthful, but only one more syllable than virtue signalling which trips from the lips of the motley crew at a rapid-fire rate.

    https://twitter.com/DavieGreig/status/1347202607908052994?s=20

    It's good, but I dont think it quite works. Virtue signalling works for left and right as while they may dispute it is empty signalling, they are definitely displaying what they consider a virtue. But few would admit to engaging in malice, but object that it is not performative.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,165
    edited January 2021

    Performative malice maybe a wee bit of a mouthful, but only one more syllable than virtue signalling which trips from the lips of the motley crew at a rapid-fire rate.

    https://twitter.com/DavieGreig/status/1347202607908052994?s=20

    Performative malice covers Trump very well. What the definition below doesn't cover, though, is that he's always seeking to disorientate, and gradually shift boundaries and acceptability, by blurring the performative with the genuinely deadly.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,751
    Scott_xP said:
    I hope they have carefully weighed the likely medical effects.
This discussion has been closed.