While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
It would be nice to think that we'd be rid of all this crap come June 21st, but I fear that you may be waiting a very long time.
All restrictions will be lifted on 21 June - you disagree?
So it turns out PB is full of antisocial weirdoes who hate pubs, laughter, cafes, wine, native British oysters and a damn good boozy lunch?!
No wonder you all loved lockdown.
SORRY GUYS IT'S OVER. THE EXTROVERTS ARE BACK
Don't be an idiot.
Some of us love going to restaurants and hotel bars over pubs with our mates and colleagues.
I'm sorry, but preferring a "hotel bar" to a pub is like preferring elevator music to the Pogues live in Brixton on St Patrick's Day
Jeez Denise
You've never had drinks in The Fumoir in Claridge's.
Hotel bars are much nicer than pubs. FACT.
Who the hell wants to go to a “nice” pub.
Anyone who has ever been to an Australian pub!
When I first went to Victoria, myself and a Scottish doctor who I knew from Med School. We met at the clock's and went into the nearest pub. Grim formica, chairs bolted to the floor, all male and all drunk. We supped up and left fairly sharpish.
NZ pubs weren't much better. The bar in "Once Were Warriors" was fairly accurate social realism.
The pubs in NZ are almost universally shite. It mortally limits the whole country. Great landscapes, pisspoor pubs.
NZ is interesting. Some friends have moved there and never looked back (in fact, to some extent, they drop out of global modern life at the same time) whereas I know others who've come back inside 18 months - bored to tits.
Yes, lots of people do end up coming back fairly quickly. It looks good, but is incredibly frustrating. Many towns have no decent pub or restaurant.
The secret of successful emigration is psychological. Live as locals do. Forget restaurants and pubs, and history. If you want that, stay in Europe.
Embrace the new country, and live as the locals do, tramping, drinking Speights out of the bottle, staying in huts on the track, even go hunt pigs from horseback. I did all those things, but only on a one year visa, so had to come home.
A friend who has moved there says that’s the whole thing: they don’t do that stuff much. Mostly it’s identikit barbecues in people’s yards, which he has to drive to. Not much horseback pig-hunting, or hut-tramping going down, by all accounts.
So immediately there’s a drink driving issue. Or someone has to miss out.
Exactly.
The last NZ’ers I met were a couple on a train in Italy. It turned out they were both NZ police officers and had met on the job, and still worked at the same police station in some place I’d not heard of but it didn’t sound very big.
So I made a joke about how their town is coping with such a high proportion of their police force away on an extended european holiday, and they assured me there were dozens of police there and they made their home town sound as if it was more crime-ridden than downtown Baltimore. Whether this is true or not, i have no idea.
While I was there, there were a number of country towns dominated by Bikie gangs, dealing drugs and fighting each other. In part it was the welfare system. You could rent a house cheaply on the dole, or even buy outright, as there was no work in the small towns, and nothing to do but feud.
My late uncle emigrated out there in the 70s. Had a quiet life, running various small businesses and a bit of farming. Lifestyle would have been unrecognisable from his North London origins, especially back in those days. Suited him, I guess.
The countryside, and nature is stunning, and I'd go back for another extended holiday in a heartbeat. Cultured, it is not though, and while the local produce is high quality the lack of the variety and multicultural food we take for granted here would be difficult... Auckland and Wellington may be slightly better on that front, to be fair.
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
London is definitely alive tonight. The noisiest it has been since last summer. Possibly since the Plague began
So, I guess a modeller will be turning up all over the media in a day or two to say the additional activity above what they were expecting means there will be a massive enormous case surge in early July and so we had better lockdown again now just be careful.
Fuck them. And fuck their weapon of choice, the lockdown sledgehammer. How about they discover some subtlety in fighting the tail end of the Plague.
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
“All restrictions” is the language chosen by the government in the public arena. If people voluntarily wear masks then there’s not much you can do about that. But it should not be mandatory, according to the language they themselves have chosen.
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
It would be nice to think that we'd be rid of all this crap come June 21st, but I fear that you may be waiting a very long time.
All restrictions will be lifted on 21 June - you disagree?
Technically not before...
I know “no earlier than”, except of course everyone is planning for that day, and have booked holidays and weddings based on it being that day. So that day it must be. Why would it not be?
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Over how many years?
Well, Whitty and Co. expect some restrictions next winter, but who knows. I didn't expect much of a second wave.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
So it turns out PB is full of antisocial weirdoes who hate pubs, laughter, cafes, wine, native British oysters and a damn good boozy lunch?!
No wonder you all loved lockdown.
SORRY GUYS IT'S OVER. THE EXTROVERTS ARE BACK
Don't be an idiot.
Some of us love going to restaurants and hotel bars over pubs with our mates and colleagues.
I'm sorry, but preferring a "hotel bar" to a pub is like preferring elevator music to the Pogues live in Brixton on St Patrick's Day
Jeez Denise
You've never had drinks in The Fumoir in Claridge's.
Hotel bars are much nicer than pubs. FACT.
Who the hell wants to go to a “nice” pub.
Anyone who has ever been to an Australian pub!
When I first went to Victoria, myself and a Scottish doctor who I knew from Med School. We met at the clock's and went into the nearest pub. Grim formica, chairs bolted to the floor, all male and all drunk. We supped up and left fairly sharpish.
NZ pubs weren't much better. The bar in "Once Were Warriors" was fairly accurate social realism.
The pubs in NZ are almost universally shite. It mortally limits the whole country. Great landscapes, pisspoor pubs.
NZ is interesting. Some friends have moved there and never looked back (in fact, to some extent, they drop out of global modern life at the same time) whereas I know others who've come back inside 18 months - bored to tits.
Yes, lots of people do end up coming back fairly quickly. It looks good, but is incredibly frustrating. Many towns have no decent pub or restaurant.
The secret of successful emigration is psychological. Live as locals do. Forget restaurants and pubs, and history. If you want that, stay in Europe.
Embrace the new country, and live as the locals do, tramping, drinking Speights out of the bottle, staying in huts on the track, even go hunt pigs from horseback. I did all those things, but only on a one year visa, so had to come home.
A friend who has moved there says that’s the whole thing: they don’t do that stuff much. Mostly it’s identikit barbecues in people’s yards, which he has to drive to. Not much horseback pig-hunting, or hut-tramping going down, by all accounts.
So immediately there’s a drink driving issue. Or someone has to miss out.
Exactly.
The last NZ’ers I met were a couple on a train in Italy. It turned out they were both NZ police officers and had met on the job, and still worked at the same police station in some place I’d not heard of but it didn’t sound very big.
So I made a joke about how their town is coping with such a high proportion of their police force away on an extended european holiday, and they assured me there were dozens of police there and they made their home town sound as if it was more crime-ridden than downtown Baltimore. Whether this is true or not, i have no idea.
While I was there, there were a number of country towns dominated by Bikie gangs, dealing drugs and fighting each other. In part it was the welfare system. You could rent a house cheaply on the dole, or even buy outright, as there was no work in the small towns, and nothing to do but feud.
My late uncle emigrated out there in the 70s. Had a quiet life, running various small businesses and a bit of farming. Lifestyle would have been unrecognisable from his North London origins, especially back in those days. Suited him, I guess.
The countryside, and nature is stunning, and I'd go back for another extended holiday in a heartbeat. Cultured, it is not though, and while the local produce is high quality the lack of the variety and multicultural food we take for granted here would be difficult... Auckland and Wellington may be slightly better on that front, to be fair.
Thank you so much
My eldest and his partner fell in love with NZ, as we did on our four visits and indeed his former partner still lives there
The earthquakes, their aftermath, and the ever present fear of more earthquakes shattered their dreams
Time for Big Joe to take his place in history and ban guns in the US. Amend the Bill of Rights.
The great achievement in this country is that hardly any criminals have guns, which means that ordinary people don't feel the need to own them to protect themselves. Americans are never going to give up their guns as long as most criminals there have them.
It's amazing how just one night at the pub can make people feel better about the world. My wife and I met some friends at the pub tonight and the year of lockdown just faded away. It was like the scene in Lord of the Rings where gandalf lifts the spell over theoden. We're not back to being 100% but this is already much closer.
The whole place was buzzing, but glad I wore my winter parka because it's not warm out!
It's amazing how just one night at the pub can make people feel better about the world. My wife and I met some friends at the pub tonight and the year of lockdown just faded away. It was like the scene in Lord of the Rings where gandalf lifts the spell over theoden. We're not back to being 100% but this is already much closer.
The whole place was buzzing, but glad I wore my winter parka because it's not warm out!
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Over how many years?
Well, Whitty and Co. expect some restrictions next winter, but who knows. I didn't expect much of a second wave.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
Re: Hartlepool, cannot claim any expertise beyond actually having spent maybe 15 minutes there over 20 years ago.
However, that will NOT stop me from sharing my learned commentary!
On the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Democrats have dominated the legislature since the Eisenhower Administration, but where voters regularly elect Republicans as Governor, for example Mitt Romney and current incumbent Charlie Baker (reportedly poised to launch a bid for US Senate).
Somewhat similar to how Harlepool has a Conservative mayor?
Another possible comparison in another quarter, is fact that (based on a map I saw days ago) the Social Democrats in Germany currently control quite a few local city & district councils, including in wide swaths of the country where they have done (and apparently still are doing) far less well in state AND federal elections.
So whither the Harlepool by-election? So far still in lap o' the gods territory.
Splitting tickets is relative common in the US. Voters don't always like to put all their eggs into one partisan basket and there's a feeling that if your usually-preferred party has a lock on the state legislature, it can be savvy to elect a moderate candidate from the other party to keep 'em honest. So Republican governors in otherwise true-blue New England states like Massachusetts or Rhode Island is a thing from time to time, as is Democratic governors of red states. I think Louisiana and Kansas are cases at the moment.
So it turns out PB is full of antisocial weirdoes who hate pubs, laughter, cafes, wine, native British oysters and a damn good boozy lunch?!
No wonder you all loved lockdown.
SORRY GUYS IT'S OVER. THE EXTROVERTS ARE BACK
Don't be an idiot.
Some of us love going to restaurants and hotel bars over pubs with our mates and colleagues.
I'm sorry, but preferring a "hotel bar" to a pub is like preferring elevator music to the Pogues live in Brixton on St Patrick's Day
Jeez Denise
You've never had drinks in The Fumoir in Claridge's.
Hotel bars are much nicer than pubs. FACT.
Who the hell wants to go to a “nice” pub.
Anyone who has ever been to an Australian pub!
When I first went to Victoria, myself and a Scottish doctor who I knew from Med School. We met at the clock's and went into the nearest pub. Grim formica, chairs bolted to the floor, all male and all drunk. We supped up and left fairly sharpish.
NZ pubs weren't much better. The bar in "Once Were Warriors" was fairly accurate social realism.
The pubs in NZ are almost universally shite. It mortally limits the whole country. Great landscapes, pisspoor pubs.
NZ is interesting. Some friends have moved there and never looked back (in fact, to some extent, they drop out of global modern life at the same time) whereas I know others who've come back inside 18 months - bored to tits.
Yes, lots of people do end up coming back fairly quickly. It looks good, but is incredibly frustrating. Many towns have no decent pub or restaurant.
The secret of successful emigration is psychological. Live as locals do. Forget restaurants and pubs, and history. If you want that, stay in Europe.
Embrace the new country, and live as the locals do, tramping, drinking Speights out of the bottle, staying in huts on the track, even go hunt pigs from horseback. I did all those things, but only on a one year visa, so had to come home.
A friend who has moved there says that’s the whole thing: they don’t do that stuff much. Mostly it’s identikit barbecues in people’s yards, which he has to drive to. Not much horseback pig-hunting, or hut-tramping going down, by all accounts.
So immediately there’s a drink driving issue. Or someone has to miss out.
Exactly.
The last NZ’ers I met were a couple on a train in Italy. It turned out they were both NZ police officers and had met on the job, and still worked at the same police station in some place I’d not heard of but it didn’t sound very big.
So I made a joke about how their town is coping with such a high proportion of their police force away on an extended european holiday, and they assured me there were dozens of police there and they made their home town sound as if it was more crime-ridden than downtown Baltimore. Whether this is true or not, i have no idea.
While I was there, there were a number of country towns dominated by Bikie gangs, dealing drugs and fighting each other. In part it was the welfare system. You could rent a house cheaply on the dole, or even buy outright, as there was no work in the small towns, and nothing to do but feud.
That sounds pretty much what they said. I was imagining hobbits and stunning scenery and quiet country folk and they were recounting their lives that were straight from Miami vice.
It was funny because I was travelling with the dog, and they had a young daughter who as soon as she saw it said “oh no, not a dog”, not expecting that I’d turn out to be English. I just smiled and replied straight back in English that he isn’t any trouble. Which he wasn’t, just going to sleep under the seat; their kid was far more annoying to have in the train. But it did mean that the NZ cops spent the rest of the journey being super friendly to make up for their embarassment.
Both are true simultaneously. I could watch the sun set over the Southern Alps under an azure sky, while gangs were knocking lumps off each other making a busy night of suturing.
I think the British equivalent to rural crime is our down at heel coastal resorts. There are similar drug, delinquency, poverty and unemployment issues in some.
The nadir was the eighties, and to an extent the image has persisted, despite slow progress in many of them. There’s still poverty and unemployment is seasonal, but they’re not the crime and drug hotspots that they once were. Can you believe that the Spyglass, which you probably know, was in the ‘80s a semi-derelict squat and notorious drug den? Right on that prime spot at the end of the Esplanade.
It's amazing how just one night at the pub can make people feel better about the world. My wife and I met some friends at the pub tonight and the year of lockdown just faded away. It was like the scene in Lord of the Rings where gandalf lifts the spell over theoden. We're not back to being 100% but this is already much closer.
The whole place was buzzing, but glad I wore my winter parka because it's not warm out!
Time for Big Joe to take his place in history and ban guns in the US. Amend the Bill of Rights.
The great achievement in this country is that hardly any criminals have guns, which means that ordinary people don't feel the need to own them to protect themselves. Americans are never going to give up their guns as long as most criminals there have them.
You ban the guns, you find the guns and you destroy the guns.
Time for Big Joe to take his place in history and ban guns in the US. Amend the Bill of Rights.
It would be fantastic but I cannot see it happening sadly
Pace TSE, the typo in 'the right to bear arms' is that bear should be bare. And what better time to correct it than at the height of the warp speed roll-out. Two policy goals with one little drop of correction fluid.
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Which is why we all have to go out and enjoy life as normally as we can NOW. Yes it is annoying we still sometimes have to wear masks, yes it is annoying we have to open windows to cold air, yes it is annoying we might - Ye Gods - have to check in with QR codes (or vaxports!) but they allow us - me - to have nice amusing pub lunches, and a semblance of normality, which will get better.
We must be vigilant in making sure these strictures do not linger. But refusing to do anything until they are all gone is dim. And economically ruinous
Opening up will be an annoyingly slow process, but at least it is process in the right direction, and irreversible (we hope) after the worst global health crisis in a century.
Baby steps, but good steps. And drunken steps. We can do this
Leon, listen to yourself! You're the guy in the films who is tempted over to the the other side by a momentary pleasure ... only to regret it later when he realises his betrayal.
Seriously, though, I know I'm not doing my bit to help the hospitality sector recover, and I'm sad about that, but I don't think I'm being "dim". I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself knowing I was enjoying a Matt Hancock approved pint.
I will forever resent the covid-induced, permamant changes to our way of live for they will remain in place and they are already unnecessary.
Re: Hartlepool, cannot claim any expertise beyond actually having spent maybe 15 minutes there over 20 years ago.
However, that will NOT stop me from sharing my learned commentary!
On the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Democrats have dominated the legislature since the Eisenhower Administration, but where voters regularly elect Republicans as Governor, for example Mitt Romney and current incumbent Charlie Baker (reportedly poised to launch a bid for US Senate).
Somewhat similar to how Harlepool has a Conservative mayor?
Another possible comparison in another quarter, is fact that (based on a map I saw days ago) the Social Democrats in Germany currently control quite a few local city & district councils, including in wide swaths of the country where they have done (and apparently still are doing) far less well in state AND federal elections.
So whither the Harlepool by-election? So far still in lap o' the gods territory.
On general recent GE polling: Labour hold - they are doing better than at the GE when they held it. On constituency polling (1 small one): Tory win, but allowing for usual margin of error it could be between very close and biggish Tory win. So it all depends on GOTV and the split of former Brexit votes (lots of them). The small poll suggests that former Brexit voters are not returning to Labour, but you have to ask if will they turn out at all. Labour candidate doesn't seem stellar. Conclusion: Personally I think Labour narrow hold but on the evidence it looks about 60/40 in favour of the Tories.
By and large everyone is predicting that their party will lose. A good sign that no-one has a clue? However the thought that Labour are playing down the significance of losing (which in truth is of course enormous) suggests it may be worse for them than I am suggesting. I should think they have a decent idea. The Tories will say nothing in advance as they have nothing to lose.
It's amazing how just one night at the pub can make people feel better about the world. My wife and I met some friends at the pub tonight and the year of lockdown just faded away. It was like the scene in Lord of the Rings where gandalf lifts the spell over theoden. We're not back to being 100% but this is already much closer.
The whole place was buzzing, but glad I wore my winter parka because it's not warm out!
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Over how many years?
Well, Whitty and Co. expect some restrictions next winter, but who knows. I didn't expect much of a second wave.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
It's amazing how just one night at the pub can make people feel better about the world. My wife and I met some friends at the pub tonight and the year of lockdown just faded away. It was like the scene in Lord of the Rings where gandalf lifts the spell over theoden. We're not back to being 100% but this is already much closer.
The whole place was buzzing, but glad I wore my winter parka because it's not warm out!
It's amazing how just one night at the pub can make people feel better about the world. My wife and I met some friends at the pub tonight and the year of lockdown just faded away. It was like the scene in Lord of the Rings where gandalf lifts the spell over theoden. We're not back to being 100% but this is already much closer.
The whole place was buzzing, but glad I wore my winter parka because it's not warm out!
It's amazing how just one night at the pub can make people feel better about the world. My wife and I met some friends at the pub tonight and the year of lockdown just faded away. It was like the scene in Lord of the Rings where gandalf lifts the spell over theoden. We're not back to being 100% but this is already much closer.
The whole place was buzzing, but glad I wore my winter parka because it's not warm out!
Re: Hartlepool, cannot claim any expertise beyond actually having spent maybe 15 minutes there over 20 years ago.
However, that will NOT stop me from sharing my learned commentary!
On the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Democrats have dominated the legislature since the Eisenhower Administration, but where voters regularly elect Republicans as Governor, for example Mitt Romney and current incumbent Charlie Baker (reportedly poised to launch a bid for US Senate).
Somewhat similar to how Harlepool has a Conservative mayor?
Another possible comparison in another quarter, is fact that (based on a map I saw days ago) the Social Democrats in Germany currently control quite a few local city & district councils, including in wide swaths of the country where they have done (and apparently still are doing) far less well in state AND federal elections.
So whither the Harlepool by-election? So far still in lap o' the gods territory.
Splitting tickets is relative common in the US. Voters don't always like to put all their eggs into one partisan basket and there's a feeling that if your usually-preferred party has a lock on the state legislature, it can be savvy to elect a moderate candidate from the other party to keep 'em honest. So Republican governors in otherwise true-blue New England states like Massachusetts or Rhode Island is a thing from time to time, as is Democratic governors of red states. I think Louisiana and Kansas are cases at the moment.
I may have missed this earlier in the thread but have the Conservatives put forward at least one candidate in each Ward? If so, the Conservative voter would have a Conservative candidate in both elections. And of course there is a PCC election at the same time. The key point is that the Party has a candidate on every ballot paper that the elector will receive.
It's amazing how just one night at the pub can make people feel better about the world. My wife and I met some friends at the pub tonight and the year of lockdown just faded away. It was like the scene in Lord of the Rings where gandalf lifts the spell over theoden. We're not back to being 100% but this is already much closer.
The whole place was buzzing, but glad I wore my winter parka because it's not warm out!
Yay for us! Celebrate getting closer!
I thought the red arrows are grounded
Sheathed, surely?
Quivered?
Yes, you are right. I must have been thinking of swords for some reason
Although I could claim the British Museum in my defence:
So it turns out PB is full of antisocial weirdoes who hate pubs, laughter, cafes, wine, native British oysters and a damn good boozy lunch?!
No wonder you all loved lockdown.
SORRY GUYS IT'S OVER. THE EXTROVERTS ARE BACK
Don't be an idiot.
Some of us love going to restaurants and hotel bars over pubs with our mates and colleagues.
I'm sorry, but preferring a "hotel bar" to a pub is like preferring elevator music to the Pogues live in Brixton on St Patrick's Day
Jeez Denise
You've never had drinks in The Fumoir in Claridge's.
Hotel bars are much nicer than pubs. FACT.
Who the hell wants to go to a “nice” pub.
Anyone who has ever been to an Australian pub!
When I first went to Victoria, myself and a Scottish doctor who I knew from Med School. We met at the clock's and went into the nearest pub. Grim formica, chairs bolted to the floor, all male and all drunk. We supped up and left fairly sharpish.
NZ pubs weren't much better. The bar in "Once Were Warriors" was fairly accurate social realism.
The pubs in NZ are almost universally shite. It mortally limits the whole country. Great landscapes, pisspoor pubs.
NZ is interesting. Some friends have moved there and never looked back (in fact, to some extent, they drop out of global modern life at the same time) whereas I know others who've come back inside 18 months - bored to tits.
Yes, lots of people do end up coming back fairly quickly. It looks good, but is incredibly frustrating. Many towns have no decent pub or restaurant.
The secret of successful emigration is psychological. Live as locals do. Forget restaurants and pubs, and history. If you want that, stay in Europe.
Embrace the new country, and live as the locals do, tramping, drinking Speights out of the bottle, staying in huts on the track, even go hunt pigs from horseback. I did all those things, but only on a one year visa, so had to come home.
A friend who has moved there says that’s the whole thing: they don’t do that stuff much. Mostly it’s identikit barbecues in people’s yards, which he has to drive to. Not much horseback pig-hunting, or hut-tramping going down, by all accounts.
So immediately there’s a drink driving issue. Or someone has to miss out.
Exactly.
The last NZ’ers I met were a couple on a train in Italy. It turned out they were both NZ police officers and had met on the job, and still worked at the same police station in some place I’d not heard of but it didn’t sound very big.
So I made a joke about how their town is coping with such a high proportion of their police force away on an extended european holiday, and they assured me there were dozens of police there and they made their home town sound as if it was more crime-ridden than downtown Baltimore. Whether this is true or not, i have no idea.
While I was there, there were a number of country towns dominated by Bikie gangs, dealing drugs and fighting each other. In part it was the welfare system. You could rent a house cheaply on the dole, or even buy outright, as there was no work in the small towns, and nothing to do but feud.
My late uncle emigrated out there in the 70s. Had a quiet life, running various small businesses and a bit of farming. Lifestyle would have been unrecognisable from his North London origins, especially back in those days. Suited him, I guess.
The countryside, and nature is stunning, and I'd go back for another extended holiday in a heartbeat. Cultured, it is not though, and while the local produce is high quality the lack of the variety and multicultural food we take for granted here would be difficult... Auckland and Wellington may be slightly better on that front, to be fair.
Thank you so much
My eldest and his partner fell in love with NZ, as we did on our four visits and indeed his former partner still lives there
The earthquakes, their aftermath, and the ever present fear of more earthquakes shattered their dreams
Yes, I can see why many fall for the place. Have fond memories of Christchurch from when I was there a decade ago. So sad to consider the multiple tragedies that have befallen it. Hoping to get back to visit family when they open up again.
The thing I found about NZ is that it's so similar to the UK in many ways, that it lulls one into a false sense of security, and then the differences seem all the more prominent. Kind of an uncanny valley. The more direct, Australian like voice, even in official communications. The adverts in prime time for farming products. Rugby everywhere. The brilliant innovations that are the steak and cheese, and egg and bacon pie. Fantastic.
It's amazing how just one night at the pub can make people feel better about the world. My wife and I met some friends at the pub tonight and the year of lockdown just faded away. It was like the scene in Lord of the Rings where gandalf lifts the spell over theoden. We're not back to being 100% but this is already much closer.
The whole place was buzzing, but glad I wore my winter parka because it's not warm out!
Yay for us! Celebrate getting closer!
I thought the red arrows are grounded
Sheathed, surely?
Quivered?
Yes, you are right. I must have been thinking of swords for some reason
Time for Big Joe to take his place in history and ban guns in the US. Amend the Bill of Rights.
The great achievement in this country is that hardly any criminals have guns, which means that ordinary people don't feel the need to own them to protect themselves. Americans are never going to give up their guns as long as most criminals there have them.
You ban the guns, you find the guns and you destroy the guns.
Your alternative plan is?
I think that Americans have clearly decided that the right to keep weapons designed for no other purpose other than killing people, is more important than the safety of not being shot at. Shootouts are the American way, as are the even more numerous gun suicides.
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Over how many years?
Well, Whitty and Co. expect some restrictions next winter, but who knows. I didn't expect much of a second wave.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
Where is the research that shows it is resistant to the vaccines? Not the article, the actual research.
Immune escape doesn't necessarily mean vaccines. I think in India it is mostly in previously affected.
According to the BBC article I have just read, what evidence there is suggests any reinfection is generally very mild in nature.
There seems to be very little/no authoritative research on it, just speculation by scientists. That, sadly, has been one of the problems of the pandemic: speculation by scientists being presented as fact.
Time for Big Joe to take his place in history and ban guns in the US. Amend the Bill of Rights.
The great achievement in this country is that hardly any criminals have guns, which means that ordinary people don't feel the need to own them to protect themselves. Americans are never going to give up their guns as long as most criminals there have them.
You ban the guns, you find the guns and you destroy the guns.
Your alternative plan is?
I think that Americans have clearly decided that the right to keep weapons designed for no other purpose other than killing people, is more important than the safety of not being shot at. Shootouts are the American way, as are the even more numerous gun suicides.
So it’s a natural law of physics/biology that this madness should continue? I think not. The defeatism on gun-use in the States saddens me. It can be stopped. It must be.
I may have missed this earlier in the thread but have the Conservatives put forward at least one candidate in each Ward? If so, the Conservative voter would have a Conservative candidate in both elections. And of course there is a PCC election at the same time. The key point is that the Party has a candidate on every ballot paper that the elector will receive.
The Tories have a candidate in every ward apart from Throston where their candidate withdrew.
Re: Hartlepool, cannot claim any expertise beyond actually having spent maybe 15 minutes there over 20 years ago.
However, that will NOT stop me from sharing my learned commentary!
On the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Democrats have dominated the legislature since the Eisenhower Administration, but where voters regularly elect Republicans as Governor, for example Mitt Romney and current incumbent Charlie Baker (reportedly poised to launch a bid for US Senate).
Somewhat similar to how Harlepool has a Conservative mayor?
Another possible comparison in another quarter, is fact that (based on a map I saw days ago) the Social Democrats in Germany currently control quite a few local city & district councils, including in wide swaths of the country where they have done (and apparently still are doing) far less well in state AND federal elections.
So whither the Harlepool by-election? So far still in lap o' the gods territory.
On general recent GE polling: Labour hold - they are doing better than at the GE when they held it. On constituency polling (1 small one): Tory win, but allowing for usual margin of error it could be between very close and biggish Tory win. So it all depends on GOTV and the split of former Brexit votes (lots of them). The small poll suggests that former Brexit voters are not returning to Labour, but you have to ask if will they turn out at all. Labour candidate doesn't seem stellar. Conclusion: Personally I think Labour narrow hold but on the evidence it looks about 60/40 in favour of the Tories.
By and large everyone is predicting that their party will lose. A good sign that no-one has a clue? However the thought that Labour are playing down the significance of losing (which in truth is of course enormous) suggests it may be worse for them than I am suggesting. I should think they have a decent idea. The Tories will say nothing in advance as they have nothing to lose.
I am certain that my party will lose!
Tory gain for me. That Brexit Party vote is not going to Labour.
So it turns out PB is full of antisocial weirdoes who hate pubs, laughter, cafes, wine, native British oysters and a damn good boozy lunch?!
No wonder you all loved lockdown.
SORRY GUYS IT'S OVER. THE EXTROVERTS ARE BACK
Don't be an idiot.
Some of us love going to restaurants and hotel bars over pubs with our mates and colleagues.
I'm sorry, but preferring a "hotel bar" to a pub is like preferring elevator music to the Pogues live in Brixton on St Patrick's Day
Jeez Denise
You've never had drinks in The Fumoir in Claridge's.
Hotel bars are much nicer than pubs. FACT.
Who the hell wants to go to a “nice” pub.
Anyone who has ever been to an Australian pub!
When I first went to Victoria, myself and a Scottish doctor who I knew from Med School. We met at the clock's and went into the nearest pub. Grim formica, chairs bolted to the floor, all male and all drunk. We supped up and left fairly sharpish.
NZ pubs weren't much better. The bar in "Once Were Warriors" was fairly accurate social realism.
The pubs in NZ are almost universally shite. It mortally limits the whole country. Great landscapes, pisspoor pubs.
NZ is interesting. Some friends have moved there and never looked back (in fact, to some extent, they drop out of global modern life at the same time) whereas I know others who've come back inside 18 months - bored to tits.
Yes, lots of people do end up coming back fairly quickly. It looks good, but is incredibly frustrating. Many towns have no decent pub or restaurant.
The secret of successful emigration is psychological. Live as locals do. Forget restaurants and pubs, and history. If you want that, stay in Europe.
Embrace the new country, and live as the locals do, tramping, drinking Speights out of the bottle, staying in huts on the track, even go hunt pigs from horseback. I did all those things, but only on a one year visa, so had to come home.
A friend who has moved there says that’s the whole thing: they don’t do that stuff much. Mostly it’s identikit barbecues in people’s yards, which he has to drive to. Not much horseback pig-hunting, or hut-tramping going down, by all accounts.
So immediately there’s a drink driving issue. Or someone has to miss out.
Exactly.
The last NZ’ers I met were a couple on a train in Italy. It turned out they were both NZ police officers and had met on the job, and still worked at the same police station in some place I’d not heard of but it didn’t sound very big.
So I made a joke about how their town is coping with such a high proportion of their police force away on an extended european holiday, and they assured me there were dozens of police there and they made their home town sound as if it was more crime-ridden than downtown Baltimore. Whether this is true or not, i have no idea.
While I was there, there were a number of country towns dominated by Bikie gangs, dealing drugs and fighting each other. In part it was the welfare system. You could rent a house cheaply on the dole, or even buy outright, as there was no work in the small towns, and nothing to do but feud.
My late uncle emigrated out there in the 70s. Had a quiet life, running various small businesses and a bit of farming. Lifestyle would have been unrecognisable from his North London origins, especially back in those days. Suited him, I guess.
The countryside, and nature is stunning, and I'd go back for another extended holiday in a heartbeat. Cultured, it is not though, and while the local produce is high quality the lack of the variety and multicultural food we take for granted here would be difficult... Auckland and Wellington may be slightly better on that front, to be fair.
Thank you so much
My eldest and his partner fell in love with NZ, as we did on our four visits and indeed his former partner still lives there
The earthquakes, their aftermath, and the ever present fear of more earthquakes shattered their dreams
Yes, I can see why many fall for the place. Have fond memories of Christchurch from when I was there a decade ago. So sad to consider the multiple tragedies that have befallen it. Hoping to get back to visit family when they open up again.
The thing I found about NZ is that it's so similar to the UK in many ways, that it lulls one into a false sense of security, and then the differences seem all the more prominent. Kind of an uncanny valley. The more direct, Australian like voice, even in official communications. The adverts in prime time for farming products. Rugby everywhere. The brilliant innovations that are the steak and cheese, and egg and bacon pie. Fantastic.
The most striking similarity for me was that the first 13 species of wild birds I saw were all imports from the UK!! Sparrows, starlings, finches - all introduced to remind the settlers of home.
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Over how many years?
Well, Whitty and Co. expect some restrictions next winter, but who knows. I didn't expect much of a second wave.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
Where is the research that shows it is resistant to the vaccines? Not the article, the actual research.
Immune escape doesn't necessarily mean vaccines. I think in India it is mostly in previously affected.
According to the BBC article I have just read, what evidence there is suggests any reinfection is generally very mild in nature.
There seems to be very little/no authoritative research on it, just speculation by scientists. That, sadly, has been one of the problems of the pandemic: speculation by scientists being presented as fact.
The kind of 'facts' that scientists present us in this area come with p-numbers, so differ from speculation only by degree.
Re: Hartlepool, cannot claim any expertise beyond actually having spent maybe 15 minutes there over 20 years ago.
However, that will NOT stop me from sharing my learned commentary!
On the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Democrats have dominated the legislature since the Eisenhower Administration, but where voters regularly elect Republicans as Governor, for example Mitt Romney and current incumbent Charlie Baker (reportedly poised to launch a bid for US Senate).
Somewhat similar to how Harlepool has a Conservative mayor?
Another possible comparison in another quarter, is fact that (based on a map I saw days ago) the Social Democrats in Germany currently control quite a few local city & district councils, including in wide swaths of the country where they have done (and apparently still are doing) far less well in state AND federal elections.
So whither the Harlepool by-election? So far still in lap o' the gods territory.
On general recent GE polling: Labour hold - they are doing better than at the GE when they held it. On constituency polling (1 small one): Tory win, but allowing for usual margin of error it could be between very close and biggish Tory win. So it all depends on GOTV and the split of former Brexit votes (lots of them). The small poll suggests that former Brexit voters are not returning to Labour, but you have to ask if will they turn out at all. Labour candidate doesn't seem stellar. Conclusion: Personally I think Labour narrow hold but on the evidence it looks about 60/40 in favour of the Tories.
By and large everyone is predicting that their party will lose. A good sign that no-one has a clue? However the thought that Labour are playing down the significance of losing (which in truth is of course enormous) suggests it may be worse for them than I am suggesting. I should think they have a decent idea. The Tories will say nothing in advance as they have nothing to lose.
I am certain that my party will lose!
Tory gain for me. That Brexit Party vote is not going to Labour.
My guess is that Labour will just edge it after a recount, but it could go either way.
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Over how many years?
Well, Whitty and Co. expect some restrictions next winter, but who knows. I didn't expect much of a second wave.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
Where is the research that shows it is resistant to the vaccines? Not the article, the actual research.
Immune escape doesn't necessarily mean vaccines. I think in India it is mostly in previously affected.
According to the BBC article I have just read, what evidence there is suggests any reinfection is generally very mild in nature.
There seems to be very little/no authoritative research on it, just speculation by scientists. That, sadly, has been one of the problems of the pandemic: speculation by scientists being presented as fact.
I’d be worried if there were suddenly a lot of serious cases (hospital and death) in those with definite prior Covid. That has not been the case yet anywhere (including manaus) which I think suffered from poor reporting.
I may have missed this earlier in the thread but have the Conservatives put forward at least one candidate in each Ward? If so, the Conservative voter would have a Conservative candidate in both elections. And of course there is a PCC election at the same time. The key point is that the Party has a candidate on every ballot paper that the elector will receive.
Yes (though in fact apparently one ward has no conservative council candidate), but having a full slate of candidates for the council wouldn't diminsh the vote elsewhere, and not even having enough local candidates to theoretically take control of the council is not very positive - I've often seen outcomes for parties where they'd have won additional seats easily, if only they had enough candidates.
So it turns out PB is full of antisocial weirdoes who hate pubs, laughter, cafes, wine, native British oysters and a damn good boozy lunch?!
No wonder you all loved lockdown.
SORRY GUYS IT'S OVER. THE EXTROVERTS ARE BACK
Don't be an idiot.
Some of us love going to restaurants and hotel bars over pubs with our mates and colleagues.
I'm sorry, but preferring a "hotel bar" to a pub is like preferring elevator music to the Pogues live in Brixton on St Patrick's Day
Jeez Denise
You've never had drinks in The Fumoir in Claridge's.
Hotel bars are much nicer than pubs. FACT.
Who the hell wants to go to a “nice” pub.
Anyone who has ever been to an Australian pub!
When I first went to Victoria, myself and a Scottish doctor who I knew from Med School. We met at the clock's and went into the nearest pub. Grim formica, chairs bolted to the floor, all male and all drunk. We supped up and left fairly sharpish.
NZ pubs weren't much better. The bar in "Once Were Warriors" was fairly accurate social realism.
The pubs in NZ are almost universally shite. It mortally limits the whole country. Great landscapes, pisspoor pubs.
NZ is interesting. Some friends have moved there and never looked back (in fact, to some extent, they drop out of global modern life at the same time) whereas I know others who've come back inside 18 months - bored to tits.
Yes, lots of people do end up coming back fairly quickly. It looks good, but is incredibly frustrating. Many towns have no decent pub or restaurant.
The secret of successful emigration is psychological. Live as locals do. Forget restaurants and pubs, and history. If you want that, stay in Europe.
Embrace the new country, and live as the locals do, tramping, drinking Speights out of the bottle, staying in huts on the track, even go hunt pigs from horseback. I did all those things, but only on a one year visa, so had to come home.
A friend who has moved there says that’s the whole thing: they don’t do that stuff much. Mostly it’s identikit barbecues in people’s yards, which he has to drive to. Not much horseback pig-hunting, or hut-tramping going down, by all accounts.
So immediately there’s a drink driving issue. Or someone has to miss out.
Exactly.
The last NZ’ers I met were a couple on a train in Italy. It turned out they were both NZ police officers and had met on the job, and still worked at the same police station in some place I’d not heard of but it didn’t sound very big.
So I made a joke about how their town is coping with such a high proportion of their police force away on an extended european holiday, and they assured me there were dozens of police there and they made their home town sound as if it was more crime-ridden than downtown Baltimore. Whether this is true or not, i have no idea.
While I was there, there were a number of country towns dominated by Bikie gangs, dealing drugs and fighting each other. In part it was the welfare system. You could rent a house cheaply on the dole, or even buy outright, as there was no work in the small towns, and nothing to do but feud.
My late uncle emigrated out there in the 70s. Had a quiet life, running various small businesses and a bit of farming. Lifestyle would have been unrecognisable from his North London origins, especially back in those days. Suited him, I guess.
The countryside, and nature is stunning, and I'd go back for another extended holiday in a heartbeat. Cultured, it is not though, and while the local produce is high quality the lack of the variety and multicultural food we take for granted here would be difficult... Auckland and Wellington may be slightly better on that front, to be fair.
Thank you so much
My eldest and his partner fell in love with NZ, as we did on our four visits and indeed his former partner still lives there
The earthquakes, their aftermath, and the ever present fear of more earthquakes shattered their dreams
Yes, I can see why many fall for the place. Have fond memories of Christchurch from when I was there a decade ago. So sad to consider the multiple tragedies that have befallen it. Hoping to get back to visit family when they open up again.
The thing I found about NZ is that it's so similar to the UK in many ways, that it lulls one into a false sense of security, and then the differences seem all the more prominent. Kind of an uncanny valley. The more direct, Australian like voice, even in official communications. The adverts in prime time for farming products. Rugby everywhere. The brilliant innovations that are the steak and cheese, and egg and bacon pie. Fantastic.
The most striking similarity for me was that the first 13 species of wild birds I saw were all imports from the UK!! Sparrows, starlings, finches - all introduced to remind the settlers of home.
Realtime report from the trenches of north London,
Today felt pivotal in all ways. Like, say, Stalingrad. BUT MORE IMPORTANT
It started off cold, grey and wintry (like almost every day this year), I went to my celebratory pub lunch with a pal in trepidation, and wearing thermals. The pub, in Highgate, had roofed over their beer garden and rigged up patio heaters for all. It was cold.
But the buzz, as soon as you walked in, was obvious. People staring at pints - pints! - in amazement. Waiters and waitresses giggly and excited. The long expected moment, arriving, finally.
Half a dozen fine British oysters, a plate of griddled padron peppers, some good sourdough, a thick Galician fish stew and 1 and a half bottles of Picpoul later, I can report that London is reborn. There is noise everywhere. The sun is properly out. Spring is here. The beer gardens are rocking and someone is playing the bagpipes.
Happy Unlockdownmas, War is Over
Why not just have a lager?
How often does a fucking plague end?
Lager????
A couple then. Or bitter.
Just that your complex, opulent choices seemed at odds with what an English public house is meant to be all about.
To me anyway.
I am an Englishman, an English pub is what I choose it to be. Literally
And for me the best do fine oysters
It's a sense of looseness and entitlement I just don't have.
I'm austere. When I visit a pub I drink pints of beer and that's it. Maybe switch to vodka when I can take no more volume but definitely not oysters or fine wines.
Sad. Really.
Really sad.
Way to be. It's authentic. That's what's most important in life.
But anyway, time for my evening of flesh & blood activities to commence.
That's fair, up to you
I wonder how much of this is a faint but definite gradation by age and class.
I am maybe 10 years younger than you AT MOST. You are northern, I am southern
I grew up and moved to London not long before the gastropub revolution started: the Eagle, in Farringdon.
It was supposedly the first but a few had been round before then (they just didn't nail the formula, bare chairs, handwritten menu, open kitchen)
So I spent my formative years expecting cool new pubs to have decent food, because in London, in my 20s and 30s, they did
Et voila
We're about the same age and I've been in London since I was 17 so this does not explain it. No, I sense it's something more elemental and quintessentially English. The old Cavalier v Roundhead schism. A good way to understand the difference and the dynamic is to think of yourself as Michael Winner and me as Oliver Cromwell.
Time for Big Joe to take his place in history and ban guns in the US. Amend the Bill of Rights.
The great achievement in this country is that hardly any criminals have guns, which means that ordinary people don't feel the need to own them to protect themselves. Americans are never going to give up their guns as long as most criminals there have them.
You ban the guns, you find the guns and you destroy the guns.
Your alternative plan is?
I think that Americans have clearly decided that the right to keep weapons designed for no other purpose other than killing people, is more important than the safety of not being shot at. Shootouts are the American way, as are the even more numerous gun suicides.
So it’s a natural law of physics/biology that this madness should continue? I think not. The defeatism on gun-use in the States saddens me. It can be stopped. It must be.
No. In the American view, people being shot is considered part of the price of freedom.
There is also the problem that American police are not very reliable, so many Americans feel the need to protect themselves.
Time for Big Joe to take his place in history and ban guns in the US. Amend the Bill of Rights.
The great achievement in this country is that hardly any criminals have guns, which means that ordinary people don't feel the need to own them to protect themselves. Americans are never going to give up their guns as long as most criminals there have them.
You ban the guns, you find the guns and you destroy the guns.
Your alternative plan is?
I think that Americans have clearly decided that the right to keep weapons designed for no other purpose other than killing people, is more important than the safety of not being shot at. Shootouts are the American way, as are the even more numerous gun suicides.
So it’s a natural law of physics/biology that this madness should continue? I think not. The defeatism on gun-use in the States saddens me. It can be stopped. It must be.
Ask yourself why Obama after 8 years was unable to make inroads on the right to bear arms. It needs more than action from Biden.
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Over how many years?
Well, Whitty and Co. expect some restrictions next winter, but who knows. I didn't expect much of a second wave.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
Where is the research that shows it is resistant to the vaccines? Not the article, the actual research.
Immune escape doesn't necessarily mean vaccines. I think in India it is mostly in previously affected.
According to the BBC article I have just read, what evidence there is suggests any reinfection is generally very mild in nature.
There seems to be very little/no authoritative research on it, just speculation by scientists. That, sadly, has been one of the problems of the pandemic: speculation by scientists being presented as fact.
Even that wouldn't be so bad. The worst is speculation by anyone with an (even irrelevant) PhD or medical degree being presented as fact.
So it turns out PB is full of antisocial weirdoes who hate pubs, laughter, cafes, wine, native British oysters and a damn good boozy lunch?!
No wonder you all loved lockdown.
SORRY GUYS IT'S OVER. THE EXTROVERTS ARE BACK
Don't be an idiot.
Some of us love going to restaurants and hotel bars over pubs with our mates and colleagues.
I'm sorry, but preferring a "hotel bar" to a pub is like preferring elevator music to the Pogues live in Brixton on St Patrick's Day
Jeez Denise
You've never had drinks in The Fumoir in Claridge's.
Hotel bars are much nicer than pubs. FACT.
Who the hell wants to go to a “nice” pub.
Anyone who has ever been to an Australian pub!
When I first went to Victoria, myself and a Scottish doctor who I knew from Med School. We met at the clock's and went into the nearest pub. Grim formica, chairs bolted to the floor, all male and all drunk. We supped up and left fairly sharpish.
NZ pubs weren't much better. The bar in "Once Were Warriors" was fairly accurate social realism.
The pubs in NZ are almost universally shite. It mortally limits the whole country. Great landscapes, pisspoor pubs.
NZ is interesting. Some friends have moved there and never looked back (in fact, to some extent, they drop out of global modern life at the same time) whereas I know others who've come back inside 18 months - bored to tits.
Yes, lots of people do end up coming back fairly quickly. It looks good, but is incredibly frustrating. Many towns have no decent pub or restaurant.
The secret of successful emigration is psychological. Live as locals do. Forget restaurants and pubs, and history. If you want that, stay in Europe.
Embrace the new country, and live as the locals do, tramping, drinking Speights out of the bottle, staying in huts on the track, even go hunt pigs from horseback. I did all those things, but only on a one year visa, so had to come home.
A friend who has moved there says that’s the whole thing: they don’t do that stuff much. Mostly it’s identikit barbecues in people’s yards, which he has to drive to. Not much horseback pig-hunting, or hut-tramping going down, by all accounts.
So immediately there’s a drink driving issue. Or someone has to miss out.
Exactly.
The last NZ’ers I met were a couple on a train in Italy. It turned out they were both NZ police officers and had met on the job, and still worked at the same police station in some place I’d not heard of but it didn’t sound very big.
So I made a joke about how their town is coping with such a high proportion of their police force away on an extended european holiday, and they assured me there were dozens of police there and they made their home town sound as if it was more crime-ridden than downtown Baltimore. Whether this is true or not, i have no idea.
While I was there, there were a number of country towns dominated by Bikie gangs, dealing drugs and fighting each other. In part it was the welfare system. You could rent a house cheaply on the dole, or even buy outright, as there was no work in the small towns, and nothing to do but feud.
My late uncle emigrated out there in the 70s. Had a quiet life, running various small businesses and a bit of farming. Lifestyle would have been unrecognisable from his North London origins, especially back in those days. Suited him, I guess.
The countryside, and nature is stunning, and I'd go back for another extended holiday in a heartbeat. Cultured, it is not though, and while the local produce is high quality the lack of the variety and multicultural food we take for granted here would be difficult... Auckland and Wellington may be slightly better on that front, to be fair.
Thank you so much
My eldest and his partner fell in love with NZ, as we did on our four visits and indeed his former partner still lives there
The earthquakes, their aftermath, and the ever present fear of more earthquakes shattered their dreams
Yes, I can see why many fall for the place. Have fond memories of Christchurch from when I was there a decade ago. So sad to consider the multiple tragedies that have befallen it. Hoping to get back to visit family when they open up again.
The thing I found about NZ is that it's so similar to the UK in many ways, that it lulls one into a false sense of security, and then the differences seem all the more prominent. Kind of an uncanny valley. The more direct, Australian like voice, even in official communications. The adverts in prime time for farming products. Rugby everywhere. The brilliant innovations that are the steak and cheese, and egg and bacon pie. Fantastic.
The most striking similarity for me was that the first 13 species of wild birds I saw were all imports from the UK!! Sparrows, starlings, finches - all introduced to remind the settlers of home.
I bet that did wonders for the native species.
Rats, cats and dogs were the bigger problem for native species.
And the idiot who introduced wasps! Beyond belief.
Ireland will only administer the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine to people over 60, the country’s chief medical officer said Monday, after it was linked to rare blood clotting cases, according to AFP.
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Over how many years?
Well, Whitty and Co. expect some restrictions next winter, but who knows. I didn't expect much of a second wave.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
Where is the research that shows it is resistant to the vaccines? Not the article, the actual research.
Immune escape doesn't necessarily mean vaccines. I think in India it is mostly in previously affected.
According to the BBC article I have just read, what evidence there is suggests any reinfection is generally very mild in nature.
There seems to be very little/no authoritative research on it, just speculation by scientists. That, sadly, has been one of the problems of the pandemic: speculation by scientists being presented as fact.
I’d be worried if there were suddenly a lot of serious cases (hospital and death) in those with definite prior Covid. That has not been the case yet anywhere (including manaus) which I think suffered from poor reporting.
It is similar to the age thing. There was a loud drumbeat in the UK earlier in the winter, “covid in-patients are getting younger” “covid victims are getting younger”. It was then presented as fact that the age profile of covid had changed.
Then, weeks later, someone ploughed into the actual data.
Time for Big Joe to take his place in history and ban guns in the US. Amend the Bill of Rights.
The great achievement in this country is that hardly any criminals have guns, which means that ordinary people don't feel the need to own them to protect themselves. Americans are never going to give up their guns as long as most criminals there have them.
You ban the guns, you find the guns and you destroy the guns.
Your alternative plan is?
I think that Americans have clearly decided that the right to keep weapons designed for no other purpose other than killing people, is more important than the safety of not being shot at. Shootouts are the American way, as are the even more numerous gun suicides.
So it’s a natural law of physics/biology that this madness should continue? I think not. The defeatism on gun-use in the States saddens me. It can be stopped. It must be.
Ask yourself why Obama after 8 years was unable to make inroads on the right to bear arms. It needs more than action from Biden.
Because, ultimately, Obama was a rather shite President?
Time for Big Joe to take his place in history and ban guns in the US. Amend the Bill of Rights.
The great achievement in this country is that hardly any criminals have guns, which means that ordinary people don't feel the need to own them to protect themselves. Americans are never going to give up their guns as long as most criminals there have them.
You ban the guns, you find the guns and you destroy the guns.
Your alternative plan is?
I think that Americans have clearly decided that the right to keep weapons designed for no other purpose other than killing people, is more important than the safety of not being shot at. Shootouts are the American way, as are the even more numerous gun suicides.
So it’s a natural law of physics/biology that this madness should continue? I think not. The defeatism on gun-use in the States saddens me. It can be stopped. It must be.
No. In the American view, people being shot is considered part of the price of freedom.
There is also the problem that American police are not very reliable, so many Americans feel the need to protect themselves.
So it turns out PB is full of antisocial weirdoes who hate pubs, laughter, cafes, wine, native British oysters and a damn good boozy lunch?!
No wonder you all loved lockdown.
SORRY GUYS IT'S OVER. THE EXTROVERTS ARE BACK
Don't be an idiot.
Some of us love going to restaurants and hotel bars over pubs with our mates and colleagues.
I'm sorry, but preferring a "hotel bar" to a pub is like preferring elevator music to the Pogues live in Brixton on St Patrick's Day
Jeez Denise
You've never had drinks in The Fumoir in Claridge's.
Hotel bars are much nicer than pubs. FACT.
Who the hell wants to go to a “nice” pub.
Anyone who has ever been to an Australian pub!
When I first went to Victoria, myself and a Scottish doctor who I knew from Med School. We met at the clock's and went into the nearest pub. Grim formica, chairs bolted to the floor, all male and all drunk. We supped up and left fairly sharpish.
NZ pubs weren't much better. The bar in "Once Were Warriors" was fairly accurate social realism.
The pubs in NZ are almost universally shite. It mortally limits the whole country. Great landscapes, pisspoor pubs.
NZ is interesting. Some friends have moved there and never looked back (in fact, to some extent, they drop out of global modern life at the same time) whereas I know others who've come back inside 18 months - bored to tits.
Yes, lots of people do end up coming back fairly quickly. It looks good, but is incredibly frustrating. Many towns have no decent pub or restaurant.
The secret of successful emigration is psychological. Live as locals do. Forget restaurants and pubs, and history. If you want that, stay in Europe.
Embrace the new country, and live as the locals do, tramping, drinking Speights out of the bottle, staying in huts on the track, even go hunt pigs from horseback. I did all those things, but only on a one year visa, so had to come home.
A friend who has moved there says that’s the whole thing: they don’t do that stuff much. Mostly it’s identikit barbecues in people’s yards, which he has to drive to. Not much horseback pig-hunting, or hut-tramping going down, by all accounts.
So immediately there’s a drink driving issue. Or someone has to miss out.
Exactly.
The last NZ’ers I met were a couple on a train in Italy. It turned out they were both NZ police officers and had met on the job, and still worked at the same police station in some place I’d not heard of but it didn’t sound very big.
So I made a joke about how their town is coping with such a high proportion of their police force away on an extended european holiday, and they assured me there were dozens of police there and they made their home town sound as if it was more crime-ridden than downtown Baltimore. Whether this is true or not, i have no idea.
While I was there, there were a number of country towns dominated by Bikie gangs, dealing drugs and fighting each other. In part it was the welfare system. You could rent a house cheaply on the dole, or even buy outright, as there was no work in the small towns, and nothing to do but feud.
My late uncle emigrated out there in the 70s. Had a quiet life, running various small businesses and a bit of farming. Lifestyle would have been unrecognisable from his North London origins, especially back in those days. Suited him, I guess.
The countryside, and nature is stunning, and I'd go back for another extended holiday in a heartbeat. Cultured, it is not though, and while the local produce is high quality the lack of the variety and multicultural food we take for granted here would be difficult... Auckland and Wellington may be slightly better on that front, to be fair.
Thank you so much
My eldest and his partner fell in love with NZ, as we did on our four visits and indeed his former partner still lives there
The earthquakes, their aftermath, and the ever present fear of more earthquakes shattered their dreams
Yes, I can see why many fall for the place. Have fond memories of Christchurch from when I was there a decade ago. So sad to consider the multiple tragedies that have befallen it. Hoping to get back to visit family when they open up again.
The thing I found about NZ is that it's so similar to the UK in many ways, that it lulls one into a false sense of security, and then the differences seem all the more prominent. Kind of an uncanny valley. The more direct, Australian like voice, even in official communications. The adverts in prime time for farming products. Rugby everywhere. The brilliant innovations that are the steak and cheese, and egg and bacon pie. Fantastic.
The most striking similarity for me was that the first 13 species of wild birds I saw were all imports from the UK!! Sparrows, starlings, finches - all introduced to remind the settlers of home.
So long as NZ has those Australian magpies - the ones that aren’t actually magpies and sound like no european bird - it’ll never sound like home. It was the sound of them in Australia that always made me feel a long way from the UK
Is it me, or has everyone who spent the last four months telling us Lockdown would never end, spent today telling us Lockdown will never end from a pub.
Time for Big Joe to take his place in history and ban guns in the US. Amend the Bill of Rights.
The great achievement in this country is that hardly any criminals have guns, which means that ordinary people don't feel the need to own them to protect themselves. Americans are never going to give up their guns as long as most criminals there have them.
You ban the guns, you find the guns and you destroy the guns.
Your alternative plan is?
I think that Americans have clearly decided that the right to keep weapons designed for no other purpose other than killing people, is more important than the safety of not being shot at. Shootouts are the American way, as are the even more numerous gun suicides.
So it’s a natural law of physics/biology that this madness should continue? I think not. The defeatism on gun-use in the States saddens me. It can be stopped. It must be.
No. In the American view, people being shot is considered part of the price of freedom.
There is also the problem that American police are not very reliable, so many Americans feel the need to protect themselves.
I don’t think you speak for America.
And I know you don’t speak for all Americans.
The lack of action, or reversal of progress in some cases, rather speaks to the views of the general body of the american people, even if the views they (or some of them) actually express. As we've noted before, outsiders can be simply ignorant, and we often are with america, but on this issue some potential solutions to at least mitigate the problem seem pretty apparent, if there was the will to do it. It is not unreasonable to conclude a lack of will.
Realtime report from the trenches of north London,
Today felt pivotal in all ways. Like, say, Stalingrad. BUT MORE IMPORTANT
It started off cold, grey and wintry (like almost every day this year), I went to my celebratory pub lunch with a pal in trepidation, and wearing thermals. The pub, in Highgate, had roofed over their beer garden and rigged up patio heaters for all. It was cold.
But the buzz, as soon as you walked in, was obvious. People staring at pints - pints! - in amazement. Waiters and waitresses giggly and excited. The long expected moment, arriving, finally.
Half a dozen fine British oysters, a plate of griddled padron peppers, some good sourdough, a thick Galician fish stew and 1 and a half bottles of Picpoul later, I can report that London is reborn. There is noise everywhere. The sun is properly out. Spring is here. The beer gardens are rocking and someone is playing the bagpipes.
Happy Unlockdownmas, War is Over
Why not just have a lager?
How often does a fucking plague end?
Lager????
A couple then. Or bitter.
Just that your complex, opulent choices seemed at odds with what an English public house is meant to be all about.
To me anyway.
I am an Englishman, an English pub is what I choose it to be. Literally
And for me the best do fine oysters
It's a sense of looseness and entitlement I just don't have.
I'm austere. When I visit a pub I drink pints of beer and that's it. Maybe switch to vodka when I can take no more volume but definitely not oysters or fine wines.
Sad. Really.
Really sad.
Way to be. It's authentic. That's what's most important in life.
But anyway, time for my evening of flesh & blood activities to commence.
That's fair, up to you
I wonder how much of this is a faint but definite gradation by age and class.
I am maybe 10 years younger than you AT MOST. You are northern, I am southern
I grew up and moved to London not long before the gastropub revolution started: the Eagle, in Farringdon.
It was supposedly the first but a few had been round before then (they just didn't nail the formula, bare chairs, handwritten menu, open kitchen)
So I spent my formative years expecting cool new pubs to have decent food, because in London, in my 20s and 30s, they did
Et voila
We're about the same age and I've been in London since I was 17 so this does not explain it. No, I sense it's something more elemental and quintessentially English. The old Cavalier v Roundhead schism. A good way to understand the difference and the dynamic is to think of yourself as Michael Winner and me as Oliver Cromwell.
This is one of the most bizarre conversations ever to grace PB in its 17 year history.
I may have missed this earlier in the thread but have the Conservatives put forward at least one candidate in each Ward? If so, the Conservative voter would have a Conservative candidate in both elections. And of course there is a PCC election at the same time. The key point is that the Party has a candidate on every ballot paper that the elector will receive.
Insofar as I can make out, Hartlepool appears to elect its entire council in one go rather than in thirds. There are thirty outgoing councillors (no idea if there are any vacancies) and it appears that they're going to be electing thirty-six new ones next month - three from each of twelve wards. The SOPN indicates that the Tories are fielding one candidate in every ward except for the Rural West ward, where they have three sitting councillors who are all standing for re-election. This would imply that the Conservatives are fielding 14 of 36 seats, and not 13 of 31 as suggested by the thread header. Relevant sources:
Beyond that, we obviously have the Hartlepool by-election, the PCC election for the Cleveland force area, and the Tees Valley mayoral election. So yes: every "lucky" elector in Hartlepool gets the chance to vote Conservative at least four times.
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Over how many years?
Well, Whitty and Co. expect some restrictions next winter, but who knows. I didn't expect much of a second wave.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
Where is the research that shows it is resistant to the vaccines? Not the article, the actual research.
Immune escape doesn't necessarily mean vaccines. I think in India it is mostly in previously affected.
According to the BBC article I have just read, what evidence there is suggests any reinfection is generally very mild in nature.
There seems to be very little/no authoritative research on it, just speculation by scientists. That, sadly, has been one of the problems of the pandemic: speculation by scientists being presented as fact.
Even that wouldn't be so bad. The worst is speculation by anyone with an (even irrelevant) PhD or medical degree being presented as fact.
I am not a lockdown enthusiast, and am keen to end it sooner and more completely. My only exception to this is borders. These should stay closed until the variants are better understood in terms of immune escape. There are signals that the AZN has less effect on the South African version, for example. We need more data on this.
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Over how many years?
Well, Whitty and Co. expect some restrictions next winter, but who knows. I didn't expect much of a second wave.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
Where is the research that shows it is resistant to the vaccines? Not the article, the actual research.
Immune escape doesn't necessarily mean vaccines. I think in India it is mostly in previously affected.
According to the BBC article I have just read, what evidence there is suggests any reinfection is generally very mild in nature.
There seems to be very little/no authoritative research on it, just speculation by scientists. That, sadly, has been one of the problems of the pandemic: speculation by scientists being presented as fact.
Even that wouldn't be so bad. The worst is speculation by anyone with an (even irrelevant) PhD or medical degree being presented as fact.
I am not a lockdown enthusiast, and am keen to end it sooner and more completely. My only exception to this is borders. These should stay closed until the variants are better understood in terms of immune escape. There are signals that the AZN has less effect on the South African version, for example. We need more data on this.
Realtime report from the trenches of north London,
Today felt pivotal in all ways. Like, say, Stalingrad. BUT MORE IMPORTANT
It started off cold, grey and wintry (like almost every day this year), I went to my celebratory pub lunch with a pal in trepidation, and wearing thermals. The pub, in Highgate, had roofed over their beer garden and rigged up patio heaters for all. It was cold.
But the buzz, as soon as you walked in, was obvious. People staring at pints - pints! - in amazement. Waiters and waitresses giggly and excited. The long expected moment, arriving, finally.
Half a dozen fine British oysters, a plate of griddled padron peppers, some good sourdough, a thick Galician fish stew and 1 and a half bottles of Picpoul later, I can report that London is reborn. There is noise everywhere. The sun is properly out. Spring is here. The beer gardens are rocking and someone is playing the bagpipes.
Happy Unlockdownmas, War is Over
Why not just have a lager?
How often does a fucking plague end?
Lager????
A couple then. Or bitter.
Just that your complex, opulent choices seemed at odds with what an English public house is meant to be all about.
To me anyway.
I am an Englishman, an English pub is what I choose it to be. Literally
And for me the best do fine oysters
It's a sense of looseness and entitlement I just don't have.
I'm austere. When I visit a pub I drink pints of beer and that's it. Maybe switch to vodka when I can take no more volume but definitely not oysters or fine wines.
Sad. Really.
Really sad.
Way to be. It's authentic. That's what's most important in life.
But anyway, time for my evening of flesh & blood activities to commence.
That's fair, up to you
I wonder how much of this is a faint but definite gradation by age and class.
I am maybe 10 years younger than you AT MOST. You are northern, I am southern
I grew up and moved to London not long before the gastropub revolution started: the Eagle, in Farringdon.
It was supposedly the first but a few had been round before then (they just didn't nail the formula, bare chairs, handwritten menu, open kitchen)
So I spent my formative years expecting cool new pubs to have decent food, because in London, in my 20s and 30s, they did
Et voila
We're about the same age and I've been in London since I was 17 so this does not explain it. No, I sense it's something more elemental and quintessentially English. The old Cavalier v Roundhead schism. A good way to understand the difference and the dynamic is to think of yourself as Michael Winner and me as Oliver Cromwell.
This is one of the most bizarre conversations ever to grace PB in its 17 year history.
I'm just disappointed not to have a Civil War comparison with Leon to go with the Cromwell comparison. I was thinking Henry Marten, but he was a republican
Marten enjoyed good living. He had a contemporary reputation as a heavy drinker and was widely said to be a man of loose morals.[2] According to John Aubrey he was "a great lover of pretty girls to whom he was so liberal that he spent the greatest part of his estate" upon them
Re: Hartlepool, cannot claim any expertise beyond actually having spent maybe 15 minutes there over 20 years ago.
However, that will NOT stop me from sharing my learned commentary!
On the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Democrats have dominated the legislature since the Eisenhower Administration, but where voters regularly elect Republicans as Governor, for example Mitt Romney and current incumbent Charlie Baker (reportedly poised to launch a bid for US Senate).
Somewhat similar to how Harlepool has a Conservative mayor?
Another possible comparison in another quarter, is fact that (based on a map I saw days ago) the Social Democrats in Germany currently control quite a few local city & district councils, including in wide swaths of the country where they have done (and apparently still are doing) far less well in state AND federal elections.
So whither the Harlepool by-election? So far still in lap o' the gods territory.
On general recent GE polling: Labour hold - they are doing better than at the GE when they held it. On constituency polling (1 small one): Tory win, but allowing for usual margin of error it could be between very close and biggish Tory win. So it all depends on GOTV and the split of former Brexit votes (lots of them). The small poll suggests that former Brexit voters are not returning to Labour, but you have to ask if will they turn out at all. Labour candidate doesn't seem stellar. Conclusion: Personally I think Labour narrow hold but on the evidence it looks about 60/40 in favour of the Tories.
By and large everyone is predicting that their party will lose. A good sign that no-one has a clue? However the thought that Labour are playing down the significance of losing (which in truth is of course enormous) suggests it may be worse for them than I am suggesting. I should think they have a decent idea. The Tories will say nothing in advance as they have nothing to lose.
I have put a lot into this and I'm calling a Tory win.
But I disagree with the significance of that being enormous. Not now. It would have gone Tory at the GE but for the BXP vote and the GE was not long ago. The Cons have delivered a good hard Brexit and we are coming out of the pandemic thanks to vaccines for which the government is getting the credit. These things outweigh the electoral benefit to Labour of not having Corbyn. Starmer has not yet cut through. He's a neutral at best. Johnson OTOH is an asset.
No, this is a Tory seat right now. It's the capital of WWC Leave. The Tories own that demographic. They will win it. Perhaps quite easily. The greater genuine significance is if I'm wrong and they don't. If Labour hold on. That would tell us that they are not quite as doomed longer term - eg for GE24 - as many are thinking.
Realtime report from the trenches of north London,
Today felt pivotal in all ways. Like, say, Stalingrad. BUT MORE IMPORTANT
It started off cold, grey and wintry (like almost every day this year), I went to my celebratory pub lunch with a pal in trepidation, and wearing thermals. The pub, in Highgate, had roofed over their beer garden and rigged up patio heaters for all. It was cold.
But the buzz, as soon as you walked in, was obvious. People staring at pints - pints! - in amazement. Waiters and waitresses giggly and excited. The long expected moment, arriving, finally.
Half a dozen fine British oysters, a plate of griddled padron peppers, some good sourdough, a thick Galician fish stew and 1 and a half bottles of Picpoul later, I can report that London is reborn. There is noise everywhere. The sun is properly out. Spring is here. The beer gardens are rocking and someone is playing the bagpipes.
Happy Unlockdownmas, War is Over
Why not just have a lager?
How often does a fucking plague end?
Lager????
A couple then. Or bitter.
Just that your complex, opulent choices seemed at odds with what an English public house is meant to be all about.
To me anyway.
I am an Englishman, an English pub is what I choose it to be. Literally
And for me the best do fine oysters
It's a sense of looseness and entitlement I just don't have.
I'm austere. When I visit a pub I drink pints of beer and that's it. Maybe switch to vodka when I can take no more volume but definitely not oysters or fine wines.
Sad. Really.
Really sad.
Way to be. It's authentic. That's what's most important in life.
But anyway, time for my evening of flesh & blood activities to commence.
That's fair, up to you
I wonder how much of this is a faint but definite gradation by age and class.
I am maybe 10 years younger than you AT MOST. You are northern, I am southern
I grew up and moved to London not long before the gastropub revolution started: the Eagle, in Farringdon.
It was supposedly the first but a few had been round before then (they just didn't nail the formula, bare chairs, handwritten menu, open kitchen)
So I spent my formative years expecting cool new pubs to have decent food, because in London, in my 20s and 30s, they did
Et voila
We're about the same age and I've been in London since I was 17 so this does not explain it. No, I sense it's something more elemental and quintessentially English. The old Cavalier v Roundhead schism. A good way to understand the difference and the dynamic is to think of yourself as Michael Winner and me as Oliver Cromwell.
This is one of the most bizarre conversations ever to grace PB in its 17 year history.
So it turns out PB is full of antisocial weirdoes who hate pubs, laughter, cafes, wine, native British oysters and a damn good boozy lunch?!
No wonder you all loved lockdown.
SORRY GUYS IT'S OVER. THE EXTROVERTS ARE BACK
Don't be an idiot.
Some of us love going to restaurants and hotel bars over pubs with our mates and colleagues.
I'm sorry, but preferring a "hotel bar" to a pub is like preferring elevator music to the Pogues live in Brixton on St Patrick's Day
Jeez Denise
Only saw them at the Brixton Academy at Christmas, 1988.
Also saw them in Birmingham same time in 1987. The place had a Christmas tree just off the to the left of the stage. Mosh-pit side. I vividly remember the entire audience moving as one, and at some point, the whole body of people changed direction like a typewriter going ping and the entire carriage resetting. The momentum of hundreds of people hit me with sufficient force, I was hurled into that Christmas tree.
Fucking brilliant gigs, And me, sober, the only person who can remember anything about them!
So, it turns out there are things about cities you like...
Liked.
I grew up.
If love of live music is a sign of immaturity, then I embrace immaturity.
So it turns out PB is full of antisocial weirdoes who hate pubs, laughter, cafes, wine, native British oysters and a damn good boozy lunch?!
No wonder you all loved lockdown.
SORRY GUYS IT'S OVER. THE EXTROVERTS ARE BACK
Don't be an idiot.
Some of us love going to restaurants and hotel bars over pubs with our mates and colleagues.
I'm sorry, but preferring a "hotel bar" to a pub is like preferring elevator music to the Pogues live in Brixton on St Patrick's Day
Jeez Denise
Only saw them at the Brixton Academy at Christmas, 1988.
Also saw them in Birmingham same time in 1987. The place had a Christmas tree just off the to the left of the stage. Mosh-pit side. I vividly remember the entire audience moving as one, and at some point, the whole body of people changed direction like a typewriter going ping and the entire carriage resetting. The momentum of hundreds of people hit me with sufficient force, I was hurled into that Christmas tree.
Fucking brilliant gigs, And me, sober, the only person who can remember anything about them!
So, it turns out there are things about cities you like...
Liked.
I grew up.
If love of live music is a sign of immaturity, then I embrace immaturity.
I may have missed this earlier in the thread but have the Conservatives put forward at least one candidate in each Ward? If so, the Conservative voter would have a Conservative candidate in both elections. And of course there is a PCC election at the same time. The key point is that the Party has a candidate on every ballot paper that the elector will receive.
Yes (though in fact apparently one ward has no conservative council candidate), but having a full slate of candidates for the council wouldn't diminsh the vote elsewhere, and not even having enough local candidates to theoretically take control of the council is not very positive - I've often seen outcomes for parties where they'd have won additional seats easily, if only they had enough candidates.
Hartlepool is a rather exotic authority though. The present composition includes Labour, Tories, Socialist Labour (the Scargill mob, I believe,) all manner of independents and small local independent groups, the For Britain Movement (minor far-right party that broke away from Ukip,) another minor party founded by some army veterans, and RefUK. Labour are fielding a lot more candidates for the council than the Conservatives, but whether they'll get significantly closer to winning control is anyone's guess.
Time for Big Joe to take his place in history and ban guns in the US. Amend the Bill of Rights.
The great achievement in this country is that hardly any criminals have guns, which means that ordinary people don't feel the need to own them to protect themselves. Americans are never going to give up their guns as long as most criminals there have them.
You ban the guns, you find the guns and you destroy the guns.
Your alternative plan is?
I think that Americans have clearly decided that the right to keep weapons designed for no other purpose other than killing people, is more important than the safety of not being shot at. Shootouts are the American way, as are the even more numerous gun suicides.
So it’s a natural law of physics/biology that this madness should continue? I think not. The defeatism on gun-use in the States saddens me. It can be stopped. It must be.
Ask yourself why Obama after 8 years was unable to make inroads on the right to bear arms. It needs more than action from Biden.
After the Aurora shooting I thought what will it take to change the minds of Americans? I wondered if something like Dunblane would do it, God forbid it obviously, and then Sandy Hook happened. If America will tolerate small children being massacred no conceivable shooting incident will change their minds. Since Sandy Hook further incidents like the large scale shootings in Orlando and Las Vegas (nearly 500 shot) have reinforced my view. I honestly believe that even something like Beslan occuring, with hundreds dead, wouldn't change America.
Realtime report from the trenches of north London,
Today felt pivotal in all ways. Like, say, Stalingrad. BUT MORE IMPORTANT
It started off cold, grey and wintry (like almost every day this year), I went to my celebratory pub lunch with a pal in trepidation, and wearing thermals. The pub, in Highgate, had roofed over their beer garden and rigged up patio heaters for all. It was cold.
But the buzz, as soon as you walked in, was obvious. People staring at pints - pints! - in amazement. Waiters and waitresses giggly and excited. The long expected moment, arriving, finally.
Half a dozen fine British oysters, a plate of griddled padron peppers, some good sourdough, a thick Galician fish stew and 1 and a half bottles of Picpoul later, I can report that London is reborn. There is noise everywhere. The sun is properly out. Spring is here. The beer gardens are rocking and someone is playing the bagpipes.
Happy Unlockdownmas, War is Over
Why not just have a lager?
How often does a fucking plague end?
Lager????
A couple then. Or bitter.
Just that your complex, opulent choices seemed at odds with what an English public house is meant to be all about.
To me anyway.
I am an Englishman, an English pub is what I choose it to be. Literally
And for me the best do fine oysters
It's a sense of looseness and entitlement I just don't have.
I'm austere. When I visit a pub I drink pints of beer and that's it. Maybe switch to vodka when I can take no more volume but definitely not oysters or fine wines.
Sad. Really.
Really sad.
Way to be. It's authentic. That's what's most important in life.
But anyway, time for my evening of flesh & blood activities to commence.
That's fair, up to you
I wonder how much of this is a faint but definite gradation by age and class.
I am maybe 10 years younger than you AT MOST. You are northern, I am southern
I grew up and moved to London not long before the gastropub revolution started: the Eagle, in Farringdon.
It was supposedly the first but a few had been round before then (they just didn't nail the formula, bare chairs, handwritten menu, open kitchen)
So I spent my formative years expecting cool new pubs to have decent food, because in London, in my 20s and 30s, they did
Et voila
We're about the same age and I've been in London since I was 17 so this does not explain it. No, I sense it's something more elemental and quintessentially English. The old Cavalier v Roundhead schism. A good way to understand the difference and the dynamic is to think of yourself as Michael Winner and me as Oliver Cromwell.
This is one of the most bizarre conversations ever to grace PB in its 17 year history.
Especially since the bloke I'm talking to seems to have disappeared.
So it turns out PB is full of antisocial weirdoes who hate pubs, laughter, cafes, wine, native British oysters and a damn good boozy lunch?!
No wonder you all loved lockdown.
SORRY GUYS IT'S OVER. THE EXTROVERTS ARE BACK
Don't be an idiot.
Some of us love going to restaurants and hotel bars over pubs with our mates and colleagues.
I'm sorry, but preferring a "hotel bar" to a pub is like preferring elevator music to the Pogues live in Brixton on St Patrick's Day
Jeez Denise
You've never had drinks in The Fumoir in Claridge's.
Hotel bars are much nicer than pubs. FACT.
Who the hell wants to go to a “nice” pub.
Anyone who has ever been to an Australian pub!
When I first went to Victoria, myself and a Scottish doctor who I knew from Med School. We met at the clock's and went into the nearest pub. Grim formica, chairs bolted to the floor, all male and all drunk. We supped up and left fairly sharpish.
NZ pubs weren't much better. The bar in "Once Were Warriors" was fairly accurate social realism.
The pubs in NZ are almost universally shite. It mortally limits the whole country. Great landscapes, pisspoor pubs.
NZ is interesting. Some friends have moved there and never looked back (in fact, to some extent, they drop out of global modern life at the same time) whereas I know others who've come back inside 18 months - bored to tits.
Yes, lots of people do end up coming back fairly quickly. It looks good, but is incredibly frustrating. Many towns have no decent pub or restaurant.
The secret of successful emigration is psychological. Live as locals do. Forget restaurants and pubs, and history. If you want that, stay in Europe.
Embrace the new country, and live as the locals do, tramping, drinking Speights out of the bottle, staying in huts on the track, even go hunt pigs from horseback. I did all those things, but only on a one year visa, so had to come home.
A friend who has moved there says that’s the whole thing: they don’t do that stuff much. Mostly it’s identikit barbecues in people’s yards, which he has to drive to. Not much horseback pig-hunting, or hut-tramping going down, by all accounts.
So immediately there’s a drink driving issue. Or someone has to miss out.
That'll be me then..... Life's Designated Driver. Ferrying around pissed people. What joy.....
Of course, in cities there is Uber and public transport.
But your services to pissed people are recognised and appreciated.
Re: Hartlepool, cannot claim any expertise beyond actually having spent maybe 15 minutes there over 20 years ago.
However, that will NOT stop me from sharing my learned commentary!
On the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Democrats have dominated the legislature since the Eisenhower Administration, but where voters regularly elect Republicans as Governor, for example Mitt Romney and current incumbent Charlie Baker (reportedly poised to launch a bid for US Senate).
Somewhat similar to how Harlepool has a Conservative mayor?
Another possible comparison in another quarter, is fact that (based on a map I saw days ago) the Social Democrats in Germany currently control quite a few local city & district councils, including in wide swaths of the country where they have done (and apparently still are doing) far less well in state AND federal elections.
So whither the Harlepool by-election? So far still in lap o' the gods territory.
On general recent GE polling: Labour hold - they are doing better than at the GE when they held it. On constituency polling (1 small one): Tory win, but allowing for usual margin of error it could be between very close and biggish Tory win. So it all depends on GOTV and the split of former Brexit votes (lots of them). The small poll suggests that former Brexit voters are not returning to Labour, but you have to ask if will they turn out at all. Labour candidate doesn't seem stellar. Conclusion: Personally I think Labour narrow hold but on the evidence it looks about 60/40 in favour of the Tories.
By and large everyone is predicting that their party will lose. A good sign that no-one has a clue? However the thought that Labour are playing down the significance of losing (which in truth is of course enormous) suggests it may be worse for them than I am suggesting. I should think they have a decent idea. The Tories will say nothing in advance as they have nothing to lose.
I have put a lot into this and I'm calling a Tory win.
But I disagree with the significance of that being enormous. Not now. It would have gone Tory at the GE but for the BXP vote and the GE was not long ago. The Cons have delivered a good hard Brexit and we are coming out of the pandemic thanks to vaccines for which the government is getting the credit. These things outweigh the electoral benefit to Labour of not having Corbyn. Starmer has not yet cut through. He's a neutral at best. Johnson OTOH is an asset.
No, this is a Tory seat right now. It's the capital of WWC Leave. The Tories own that demographic. They will win it. Perhaps quite easily. The greater genuine significance is if I'm wrong and they don't. If Labour hold on. That would tell us that they are not quite as doomed longer term - eg for GE24 - as many are thinking.
See, some people DO have a clue. ☺
Although the notion that the Tories will win at a canter does rather rest on the 2019 BXP vote (a) bothering to turn out and (b) breaking heavily for the Conservatives if they do. Motivation to vote in the first place seems like the greater issue.
I'm sticking to a modest Labour win on a very low turnout. But we shall know the truth of it soon enough.
It's hard not to look at the Scotland covid numbers and wonder "what the fuck is it we're waiting for here?"
For England to fuck up.....
Quite. If things go badly down South then Sturgeon's loyal voters will praise her for being cautious. If, on the other hand, and as we all hope, they go well, then Sturgeon's loyal voters will still forgive her for being cautious anyway. She has nothing to lose by foot dragging, especially with the UK Government picking up the tab for furlough.
Breaking: Phase I is over. All over 50s, all vulnerable, all health and social care workers have been vaccinated.
Open indoors no later than 3 weeks from now. Wasting May only opening up late May is criminal.
I am quite sure we will be made to wait the full five weeks anyway. That I can put up with. It's the likelihood of substantial restrictions (with ID cards yet to come) continuing post-June 21st that really troubles me.
I'm not happy to put up with it. Enough is enough.
May is one of the best months of the year and to have it pissed away out of stubbornness is ridiculous. The data can not defend us being locked down anymore, its intolerable.
It's hard not to look at the Scotland covid numbers and wonder "what the fuck is it we're waiting for here?"
For England to fuck up.....
Quite. If things go badly down South then Sturgeon's loyal voters will praise her for being cautious. If, on the other hand, and as we all hope, they go well, then Sturgeon's loyal voters will still forgive her for being cautious anyway. She has nothing to lose by foot dragging, especially with the UK Government picking up the tab for furlough.
Because of the election we don't even have the opportunity of a journalist asking a difficult question at the daily briefing.
I'm not happy to put up with it. Enough is enough.
May is one of the best months of the year and to have it pissed away out of stubbornness is ridiculous. The data can not defend us being locked down anymore, its intolerable.
It's hard not to look at the Scotland covid numbers and wonder "what the fuck is it we're waiting for here?"
For England to fuck up.....
Quite. If things go badly down South then Sturgeon's loyal voters will praise her for being cautious. If, on the other hand, and as we all hope, they go well, then Sturgeon's loyal voters will still forgive her for being cautious anyway. She has nothing to lose by foot dragging, especially with the UK Government picking up the tab for furlough.
There is anger in Wales that England has opened up as Drakeford keeps lockdown and of course to border towns fury as Welsh residents can now drive into England and enjoy English freedoms
While I'm pleased for Leon, I won't be going to the pub until things are back to normal, and that's proper normal; no social distancing, no masks, no mandatory sitting outside and no ID cards. I refuse to feel grateful to government ministers for drip-feeding us back our right to go about our lives unhindered well past the point where covid restrictions should have been be lifted. I still can't legally visit my own house, with my own family in my own car FFS!
A very dangerous, authoritarian precedent has been set through all this and I worry that our compliance and willingness to take part in state-sponsored demonstrations of appreciation has changed our culture for the worse.
Maybe it's just me being weird ... but remain very pissed off about how this has been and is being handled.
Yes, I think it will be a while before normality is permitted. June 21st won't be the end of masks and social distancing, one way systems, perspex screens at bars etc etc.
It will all fizzle out much more slowly than that.
Over how many years?
Well, Whitty and Co. expect some restrictions next winter, but who knows. I didn't expect much of a second wave.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
Where is the research that shows it is resistant to the vaccines? Not the article, the actual research.
Immune escape doesn't necessarily mean vaccines. I think in India it is mostly in previously affected.
According to the BBC article I have just read, what evidence there is suggests any reinfection is generally very mild in nature.
There seems to be very little/no authoritative research on it, just speculation by scientists. That, sadly, has been one of the problems of the pandemic: speculation by scientists being presented as fact.
The kind of 'facts' that scientists present us in this area come with p-numbers, so differ from speculation only by degree.
The worst example of this being the flurry of stories about the South Africa variant evading the Pfizer vaccine - based upon a higher proportion of people in hospitals having the SA strain than other strains.
Which suggests - sure - that Pfizer is less efficacious against the SA strain. But it omits the really rather important point that the vaccine still seems to have absolutely crushed the 'R' of all the virus variants, and Israel is rapidly heading towards negligible CV19 cases despite the most open economy in the Western developed world.
It also says there will be an impact due to the Employment tribunal result and there are other tax issues in the UK (which is the VAT case we talked about on Friday).
Run rate
I love run rate
We have a concept called Pro Forma Adjusted Run Rate EBITDA (also known as “Rothschild Run Rate”) which roughly translates as “these forecasts are utter bullshit”
It's hard not to look at the Scotland covid numbers and wonder "what the fuck is it we're waiting for here?"
For England to fuck up.....
Quite. If things go badly down South then Sturgeon's loyal voters will praise her for being cautious. If, on the other hand, and as we all hope, they go well, then Sturgeon's loyal voters will still forgive her for being cautious anyway. She has nothing to lose by foot dragging, especially with the UK Government picking up the tab for furlough.
There is anger in Wales that England has opened up as Drakeford keeps lockdown and of course to border towns fury as Welsh residents can now drive into England and enjoy English freedoms
Welsh business is furious
Now: First Minister Drakeford, propped up by a Lib Dem Next month: First Minister Drakeford, propped up by Plaid Cymru
Both Scotland and Wales have a single, immovable governing party. The only point of transitory interest is whether that party wins outright, or has to co-opt a junior partner. The rest is noise.
EDIT: That said, the opposition in England has grown so feeble that we might be headed in that direction ourselves, too. This really isn't at all healthy.
It's hard not to look at the Scotland covid numbers and wonder "what the fuck is it we're waiting for here?"
For England to fuck up.....
Quite. If things go badly down South then Sturgeon's loyal voters will praise her for being cautious. If, on the other hand, and as we all hope, they go well, then Sturgeon's loyal voters will still forgive her for being cautious anyway. She has nothing to lose by foot dragging, especially with the UK Government picking up the tab for furlough.
There is anger in Wales that England has opened up as Drakeford keeps lockdown and of course to border towns fury as Welsh residents can now drive into England and enjoy English freedoms
Welsh business is furious
You can go to England for non essential travel. Are you going to Chester to get on the beers?
Re: Hartlepool, cannot claim any expertise beyond actually having spent maybe 15 minutes there over 20 years ago.
However, that will NOT stop me from sharing my learned commentary!
On the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Democrats have dominated the legislature since the Eisenhower Administration, but where voters regularly elect Republicans as Governor, for example Mitt Romney and current incumbent Charlie Baker (reportedly poised to launch a bid for US Senate).
Somewhat similar to how Harlepool has a Conservative mayor?
Another possible comparison in another quarter, is fact that (based on a map I saw days ago) the Social Democrats in Germany currently control quite a few local city & district councils, including in wide swaths of the country where they have done (and apparently still are doing) far less well in state AND federal elections.
So whither the Harlepool by-election? So far still in lap o' the gods territory.
On general recent GE polling: Labour hold - they are doing better than at the GE when they held it. On constituency polling (1 small one): Tory win, but allowing for usual margin of error it could be between very close and biggish Tory win. So it all depends on GOTV and the split of former Brexit votes (lots of them). The small poll suggests that former Brexit voters are not returning to Labour, but you have to ask if will they turn out at all. Labour candidate doesn't seem stellar. Conclusion: Personally I think Labour narrow hold but on the evidence it looks about 60/40 in favour of the Tories.
By and large everyone is predicting that their party will lose. A good sign that no-one has a clue? However the thought that Labour are playing down the significance of losing (which in truth is of course enormous) suggests it may be worse for them than I am suggesting. I should think they have a decent idea. The Tories will say nothing in advance as they have nothing to lose.
I have put a lot into this and I'm calling a Tory win.
But I disagree with the significance of that being enormous. Not now. It would have gone Tory at the GE but for the BXP vote and the GE was not long ago. The Cons have delivered a good hard Brexit and we are coming out of the pandemic thanks to vaccines for which the government is getting the credit. These things outweigh the electoral benefit to Labour of not having Corbyn. Starmer has not yet cut through. He's a neutral at best. Johnson OTOH is an asset.
No, this is a Tory seat right now. It's the capital of WWC Leave. The Tories own that demographic. They will win it. Perhaps quite easily. The greater genuine significance is if I'm wrong and they don't. If Labour hold on. That would tell us that they are not quite as doomed longer term - eg for GE24 - as many are thinking.
See, some people DO have a clue. ☺
Although the notion that the Tories will win at a canter does rather rest on the 2019 BXP vote (a) bothering to turn out and (b) breaking heavily for the Conservatives if they do. Motivation to vote in the first place seems like the greater issue.
I'm sticking to a modest Labour win on a very low turnout. But we shall know the truth of it soon enough.
Assuming the Brexit Party vote goes Tory then it should be an easy Tory win, in 2019 the combined Tory and Brexit Party vote was 55% in Hartlepool, even higher than the combined Tory and Brexit Party vote of 46% across the UK as a whole.
Hartlepool was also 69.6% Leave in 2016, one of the highest Leave votes in the country.
If Labour are able to still hold Hartlepool therefore that will be a big boost to Starmer and a blow to Boris as it will show working class Leave voters are returning to their traditional Labour allegiance in the Red Wall now Brexit has been delivered
I'm not happy to put up with it. Enough is enough.
May is one of the best months of the year and to have it pissed away out of stubbornness is ridiculous. The data can not defend us being locked down anymore, its intolerable.
Just do what everyone else is and break the rules
I'm not just talking about the social rules, but businesses too. Many businesses can't afford to reopen if its outdoors only.
The hospitality industry has been on life support for the past year but not all months are created equal. January is shit, nobody missed that. On the other hand May is one of the best months of the year for the hospitality trade: with spring and the unofficial start of summer weather, 2 bank holidays, the end of the Premier League, Champions League semi final and final and so on.
And we're going to piss away most of that because of what? When there's negligible cases, negligible hospitalisations and negligible deaths - and all Phase I people are vaccinated.
All Phase I people have been vaccinated, that vaccine is live within 3 weeks, by Bank Holiday Monday we ought to see life and businesses reopened. Enough is enough. 😠
Re: Hartlepool, cannot claim any expertise beyond actually having spent maybe 15 minutes there over 20 years ago.
However, that will NOT stop me from sharing my learned commentary!
On the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Democrats have dominated the legislature since the Eisenhower Administration, but where voters regularly elect Republicans as Governor, for example Mitt Romney and current incumbent Charlie Baker (reportedly poised to launch a bid for US Senate).
Somewhat similar to how Harlepool has a Conservative mayor?
Another possible comparison in another quarter, is fact that (based on a map I saw days ago) the Social Democrats in Germany currently control quite a few local city & district councils, including in wide swaths of the country where they have done (and apparently still are doing) far less well in state AND federal elections.
So whither the Harlepool by-election? So far still in lap o' the gods territory.
On general recent GE polling: Labour hold - they are doing better than at the GE when they held it. On constituency polling (1 small one): Tory win, but allowing for usual margin of error it could be between very close and biggish Tory win. So it all depends on GOTV and the split of former Brexit votes (lots of them). The small poll suggests that former Brexit voters are not returning to Labour, but you have to ask if will they turn out at all. Labour candidate doesn't seem stellar. Conclusion: Personally I think Labour narrow hold but on the evidence it looks about 60/40 in favour of the Tories.
By and large everyone is predicting that their party will lose. A good sign that no-one has a clue? However the thought that Labour are playing down the significance of losing (which in truth is of course enormous) suggests it may be worse for them than I am suggesting. I should think they have a decent idea. The Tories will say nothing in advance as they have nothing to lose.
I have put a lot into this and I'm calling a Tory win.
But I disagree with the significance of that being enormous. Not now. It would have gone Tory at the GE but for the BXP vote and the GE was not long ago. The Cons have delivered a good hard Brexit and we are coming out of the pandemic thanks to vaccines for which the government is getting the credit. These things outweigh the electoral benefit to Labour of not having Corbyn. Starmer has not yet cut through. He's a neutral at best. Johnson OTOH is an asset.
No, this is a Tory seat right now. It's the capital of WWC Leave. The Tories own that demographic. They will win it. Perhaps quite easily. The greater genuine significance is if I'm wrong and they don't. If Labour hold on. That would tell us that they are not quite as doomed longer term - eg for GE24 - as many are thinking.
See, some people DO have a clue. ☺
Although the notion that the Tories will win at a canter does rather rest on the 2019 BXP vote (a) bothering to turn out and (b) breaking heavily for the Conservatives if they do. Motivation to vote in the first place seems like the greater issue.
I'm sticking to a modest Labour win on a very low turnout. But we shall know the truth of it soon enough.
Assuming the Brexit Party vote goes Tory then it should be an easy Tory win, in 2019 the combined Tory and Brexit Party vote was 55%, even higher the combined Tory and Brexit Party vote of 46% across the UK as a whole.
Hartlepool was also 69.6% Leave in 2016, one of the highest Leave votes in the country.
If Labour are able to still hold Hartlepool therefore that will be a big boost to Starmer and a blow to Boris as it will show working class Leave voters are returning to their traditional Labour allegience in the Red Wall now Brexit has been delivered
No HYUFD. LAB is a nailed on hold in Hartlepool. No comfort for LAB at all. Maybe if they win by 30%.
I'm not happy to put up with it. Enough is enough.
May is one of the best months of the year and to have it pissed away out of stubbornness is ridiculous. The data can not defend us being locked down anymore, its intolerable.
Just do what everyone else is and break the rules
I'm not just talking about the social rules, but businesses too. Many businesses can't afford to reopen if its outdoors only.
The hospitality industry has been on life support for the past year but not all months are created equal. January is shit, nobody missed that. On the other hand May is one of the best months of the year for the hospitality trade: with spring and the unofficial start of summer weather, 2 bank holidays, the end of the Premier League, Champions League semi final and final and so on.
And we're going to piss away most of that because of what? When there's negligible cases, negligible hospitalisations and negligible deaths - and all Phase I people are vaccinated.
All Phase I people have been vaccinated, that vaccine is live within 3 weeks, by Bank Holiday Monday we ought to see life and businesses reopened. Enough is enough. 😠
It's hard not to look at the Scotland covid numbers and wonder "what the fuck is it we're waiting for here?"
For England to fuck up.....
Quite. If things go badly down South then Sturgeon's loyal voters will praise her for being cautious. If, on the other hand, and as we all hope, they go well, then Sturgeon's loyal voters will still forgive her for being cautious anyway. She has nothing to lose by foot dragging, especially with the UK Government picking up the tab for furlough.
There is anger in Wales that England has opened up as Drakeford keeps lockdown and of course to border towns fury as Welsh residents can now drive into England and enjoy English freedoms
Welsh business is furious
You can go to England for non essential travel. Are you going to Chester to get on the beers?
I don't drink but I expect Wrexham may have seen an exodus of drinkers to Chester
Comments
My late uncle emigrated out there in the 70s. Had a quiet life, running various small businesses and a bit of farming. Lifestyle would have been unrecognisable from his North London origins, especially back in those days. Suited him, I guess.
The countryside, and nature is stunning, and I'd go back for another extended holiday in a heartbeat. Cultured, it is not though, and while the local produce is high quality the lack of the variety and multicultural food we take for granted here would be difficult... Auckland and Wellington may be slightly better on that front, to be fair.
The Indian variant worries me. I can see that hitting Leicester again, and it does seem to have a degree of immune escape.
https://twitter.com/globalhlthtwit/status/1381313381194469380?s=19
My eldest and his partner fell in love with NZ, as we did on our four visits and indeed his former partner still lives there
The earthquakes, their aftermath, and the ever present fear of more earthquakes shattered their dreams
The whole place was buzzing, but glad I wore my winter parka because it's not warm out!
110,000 people have complained, mostly about excess but also about Andrew, attire – and ease of complaining"
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/apr/12/bbcs-prince-philip-coverage-breaks-uk-tv-complaints-record
https://twitter.com/birb_k/status/1381278909191180289
I assume it's accurate. 12 states against vaxport.
Though I suspect I'll get around to it before you do.
Lesser gun control is legislatively possible, such as bans on assault rifles etc, but I suspect would get struck down by the SCOTUS.
Your alternative plan is?
Seriously, though, I know I'm not doing my bit to help the hospitality sector recover, and I'm sad about that, but I don't think I'm being "dim". I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself knowing I was enjoying a Matt Hancock approved pint.
I will forever resent the covid-induced, permamant changes to our way of live for they will remain in place and they are already unnecessary.
On constituency polling (1 small one): Tory win, but allowing for usual margin of error it could be between very close and biggish Tory win.
So it all depends on GOTV and the split of former Brexit votes (lots of them). The small poll suggests that former Brexit voters are not returning to Labour, but you have to ask if will they turn out at all.
Labour candidate doesn't seem stellar.
Conclusion: Personally I think Labour narrow hold but on the evidence it looks about 60/40 in favour of the Tories.
By and large everyone is predicting that their party will lose. A good sign that no-one has a clue? However the thought that Labour are playing down the significance of losing (which in truth is of course enormous) suggests it may be worse for them than I am suggesting. I should think they have a decent idea. The Tories will say nothing in advance as they have nothing to lose.
edit: snap Turbotubs!
Although I could claim the British Museum in my defence:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Am1947-27-2-b
The thing I found about NZ is that it's so similar to the UK in many ways, that it lulls one into a false sense of security, and then the differences seem all the more prominent. Kind of an uncanny valley. The more direct, Australian like voice, even in official communications. The adverts in prime time for farming products. Rugby everywhere. The brilliant innovations that are the steak and cheese, and egg and bacon pie. Fantastic.
There seems to be very little/no authoritative research on it, just speculation by scientists. That, sadly, has been one of the problems of the pandemic: speculation by scientists being presented as fact.
Talking of arming bears I have just been reminded (The Guardian) that Prince Philip once shot a tiger.
https://vote-2012.proboards.com/post/1082900/thread
Tory gain for me. That Brexit Party vote is not going to Labour.
That’s about 4-5% of them. Although, for context, about 6-700 have been closing each year for the past two decades.
There is also the problem that American police are not very reliable, so many Americans feel the need to protect themselves.
No prosecution - because the bodies couldn't be found on the Royal estate.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/07/monarchy.wildlife
And the idiot who introduced wasps! Beyond belief.
Then, weeks later, someone ploughed into the actual data.
The age profile hadn’t changed.
And I know you don’t speak for all Americans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYEYc8Ge3nw
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
Made me laugh anyway.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51135755
https://www.hartlepool.gov.uk/downloads/file/6766/notice_of_election_-_local_government_elections_6_may_2021
https://www.hartlepool.gov.uk/info/20033/elections_and_voting/1037/local_government_elections_-_6_may_2021/3
Beyond that, we obviously have the Hartlepool by-election, the PCC election for the Cleveland force area, and the Tees Valley mayoral election. So yes: every "lucky" elector in Hartlepool gets the chance to vote Conservative at least four times.
Marten enjoyed good living. He had a contemporary reputation as a heavy drinker and was widely said to be a man of loose morals.[2] According to John Aubrey he was "a great lover of pretty girls to whom he was so liberal that he spent the greatest part of his estate" upon them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Marten_(regicide)
But I disagree with the significance of that being enormous. Not now. It would have gone Tory at the GE but for the BXP vote and the GE was not long ago. The Cons have delivered a good hard Brexit and we are coming out of the pandemic thanks to vaccines for which the government is getting the credit. These things outweigh the electoral benefit to Labour of not having Corbyn. Starmer has not yet cut through. He's a neutral at best. Johnson OTOH is an asset.
No, this is a Tory seat right now. It's the capital of WWC Leave. The Tories own that demographic. They will win it. Perhaps quite easily. The greater genuine significance is if I'm wrong and they don't. If Labour hold on. That would tell us that they are not quite as doomed longer term - eg for GE24 - as many are thinking.
See, some people DO have a clue. ☺
It's hard not to look at the Scotland covid numbers and wonder "what the fuck is it we're waiting for here?"
Why do I bother, Andy? You tell me.
But your services to pissed people are recognised and appreciated.
I'm sticking to a modest Labour win on a very low turnout. But we shall know the truth of it soon enough.
Open indoors no later than 3 weeks from now. Wasting May only opening up late May is criminal.
No support for CON in Hartlepool.
LAB rampers on here suggesting CON win are wrong. LAB loss would be worse for them than Bermondsey 1983.
Thank u, next 👍
May is one of the best months of the year and to have it pissed away out of stubbornness is ridiculous. The data can not defend us being locked down anymore, its intolerable.
Absolutely sick of it now
Welsh business is furious
Which suggests - sure - that Pfizer is less efficacious against the SA strain. But it omits the really rather important point that the vaccine still seems to have absolutely crushed the 'R' of all the virus variants, and Israel is rapidly heading towards negligible CV19 cases despite the most open economy in the Western developed world.
I love run rate
We have a concept called Pro Forma Adjusted Run Rate EBITDA (also known as “Rothschild Run Rate”) which roughly translates as “these forecasts are utter bullshit”
Next month: First Minister Drakeford, propped up by Plaid Cymru
Both Scotland and Wales have a single, immovable governing party. The only point of transitory interest is whether that party wins outright, or has to co-opt a junior partner. The rest is noise.
EDIT: That said, the opposition in England has grown so feeble that we might be headed in that direction ourselves, too. This really isn't at all healthy.
Hartlepool was also 69.6% Leave in 2016, one of the highest Leave votes in the country.
If Labour are able to still hold Hartlepool therefore that will be a big boost to Starmer and a blow to Boris as it will show working class Leave voters are returning to their traditional Labour allegiance in the Red Wall now Brexit has been delivered
The hospitality industry has been on life support for the past year but not all months are created equal. January is shit, nobody missed that. On the other hand May is one of the best months of the year for the hospitality trade: with spring and the unofficial start of summer weather, 2 bank holidays, the end of the Premier League, Champions League semi final and final and so on.
And we're going to piss away most of that because of what? When there's negligible cases, negligible hospitalisations and negligible deaths - and all Phase I people are vaccinated.
All Phase I people have been vaccinated, that vaccine is live within 3 weeks, by Bank Holiday Monday we ought to see life and businesses reopened. Enough is enough. 😠