I told my wife the "my grandfather died in Auschwitz" joke last night.
She was not impressed.
It is, nonetheless, a brilliant joke. Subverting expectations and exploding taboos in two perfect lines
When I first saw it on a TV show the crowd was in shocked silence for about 3 seconds, then they roared with intense laughter
Got to be used in the right context tho. After someone has just been off-colour about the Holocaust you put on your appalled face - then go for it
I lived in this country for a year when I was 14/15.
One evening, on late night TV, I discovered Jerry Sadowitz.
Oh my god. I nearly died laughing.
Whatever happened to him?
I once almost sold him a bowler hat, didn't fit unfortunately, would have been a proud moment. I'd even have give him a discount ffs! He's fantastic live.
I completely missed the major revelation in this comment
You used to sell..... hats?!
The Mad Hatter of PB. Or rather one of mannnnnnnny!
Yes, I agree, it was time for him to go, even if the sight of his departure was, to many of us, like Churchill's funeral: one sensed the metaphorical cranes of Docklands lowered to honour him, as the floating bier of his timeless wit, the catafalque of his own reverberating oratory, passed inevitably down the rolling Thames, and on, ever on, onwards beyond Gallions Reach
We shall not see the like again, not in our evemore thrifty years on earth
Yes, I believe I saw the bier as it passed Horse End.
I'm told it ran aground at the Mucking Flats which seemed somehow apposite.
I've been in the same carriage of the London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly train as Angela Rayner, she didn't seem overly tall.
She travels first class?
It wouldn't surprise me, but I don't think she would have any middle class shame for doing so.
Indeed. Presumably it’s fairly normal for a member of the shadow cabinet to travel First Class. As a self-made woman who works probably 60+ hour weeks as a public representative I say fair play to her.
"Obesity 'a major factor' in risk of hospitalisation and death from COVID A study looking at seven million UK people finds the impact of a high BMI on the severity of COVID is worse at younger ages.
I told my wife the "my grandfather died in Auschwitz" joke last night.
She was not impressed.
It is, nonetheless, a brilliant joke. Subverting expectations and exploding taboos in two perfect lines
When I first saw it on a TV show the crowd was in shocked silence for about 3 seconds, then they roared with intense laughter
Got to be used in the right context tho. After someone has just been off-colour about the Holocaust you put on your appalled face - then go for it
I lived in this country for a year when I was 14/15.
One evening, on late night TV, I discovered Jerry Sadowitz.
Oh my god. I nearly died laughing.
Whatever happened to him?
I once almost sold him a bowler hat, didn't fit unfortunately, would have been a proud moment. I'd even have give him a discount ffs! He's fantastic live.
I completely missed the major revelation in this comment
You used to sell..... hats?!
Had a wee vintage clothes shop in more youthful if penurious times.
That explains it, but I prefer to think of you as Foxy describes you, a would-be counter-jumper in a Glasgow milliners, sulkily selling yet another absurd bowler to yet another bellowing Orangeman, hence the finished product of a Nat that we see today
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Yes, I agree, it was time for him to go, even if the sight of his departure was, to many of us, like Churchill's funeral: one sensed the metaphorical cranes of Docklands lowered to honour him, as the floating bier of his timeless wit, the catafalque of his own reverberating oratory, passed inevitably down the rolling Thames, and on, ever on, onwards beyond Gallions Reach
We shall not see the like again, not in our evemore thrifty years on earth
Yes, I believe I saw the bier as it passed Horse End.
I'm told it ran aground at the Mucking Flats which seemed somehow apposite.
"Obesity 'a major factor' in risk of hospitalisation and death from COVID A study looking at seven million UK people finds the impact of a high BMI on the severity of COVID is worse at younger ages.
I believe that. All the youngsters that I saw on ICU were quite obese.
It's also one of the reasons the death rate was much worse here than in parts of Europe where the obesity rate is so much lower.
The lack of an anti-obesity campaign has been a major failing of the government.
Actually governments - unless Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been doing their own.
When Boris got out of hospital there was a push for a week or two and we had all the hype over Joe Wicks doing exercise for the kids (personally I much preferred the supply teacher).
Re the Auschwitz joke, quite a lot of Jewish humour (including Holocaust humour) is black as pitch.
The only way to deal with something so inhumane and unspeakable, is humour: after a certain amount of time
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
I told my wife the "my grandfather died in Auschwitz" joke last night.
She was not impressed.
It is, nonetheless, a brilliant joke. Subverting expectations and exploding taboos in two perfect lines
When I first saw it on a TV show the crowd was in shocked silence for about 3 seconds, then they roared with intense laughter
Got to be used in the right context tho. After someone has just been off-colour about the Holocaust you put on your appalled face - then go for it
I lived in this country for a year when I was 14/15.
One evening, on late night TV, I discovered Jerry Sadowitz.
Oh my god. I nearly died laughing.
Whatever happened to him?
I once almost sold him a bowler hat, didn't fit unfortunately, would have been a proud moment. I'd even have give him a discount ffs! He's fantastic live.
I completely missed the major revelation in this comment
You used to sell..... hats?!
Had a wee vintage clothes shop in more youthful if penurious times.
Wee is often what comes to mind (and nostrils) when entering a vintage clothing emporium.
I don’t remember you saying that about Jeremy Corbyn, and he had much worse numbers against a weaker albeit much better PM.
Are you actually claiming Theresa May is a "much better PM" than Boris?
On what metric? What on earth did she do that makes her "much better"? She spent tortuous post-Brexit years agreeing to everything the EU wanted, so she could bring home a Brexit deal which was so shit she couldn't get it through parliament. This was a result of her own initial howling errors, when she imposed red lines at the start which painted her into a terrible corner. All her own fault. She achieved nothing else in office.
As an election-winning politician she is *much better* than Boris in the same way that Worksop is "much better" than Paris, ie this is a view so eccentric only one person in the entire world believes it, and it's not even her, it's you.
Even she knows she is shit at elections, she nearly lost to JEREMY CORBYN
"much better"
lol
Actually, the person who gave the EU what they wanted - a border in the Irish Sea - was Boris Johnson.
That will be the same Boris Johnson who said he wouldn't enforce the border, prior to the deal being signed, and they entrusted enforcing that border to . . . Boris Johnson.
Now they're acting all surprised that the Boris isn't enforcing the border. Funny that. 😂
So you’re saying it’s OK he lied about never agreeing to one, because he also lied about enforcing it?
No. I'm saying he said he'd never have a border, he said he'd never enforce one, now he's not enforcing one and the EU are whinging "why isn't he enforcing a border"? When he told them he wouldn't!
I mean what did they expect? Probably Theresa May style just to see the UK rollover and play dead.
Except he told them he would and they signed a withdrawal agreement on that basis (otherwise they certainly wouldn’t have signed).
A politician lied to the EU????
Perish the thought. The sainted EU, which never lies to anyone.... except when, say, they want to adopt an entire Constitution by stealth, voiding national referendums.
"Public opinion will be led - without knowing it - to adopt the policies we would never dare present to them directly. All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden or disguised in some way."
Ex French president, Giscard D'Estaing: chair of the convention that drafted the EU Constitution.
Well they also had a chance to hold up or vote down the TCA having been told by Boris that the UK will simply ignore the NI protocol for as long as it suits us. They didn't, so clearly they don't care that much.
Wasn't there some talk a couple of months back that there would be opposition to the TCA in the EU parliament ?
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
I don’t remember you saying that about Jeremy Corbyn, and he had much worse numbers against a weaker albeit much better PM.
Are you actually claiming Theresa May is a "much better PM" than Boris?
On what metric? What on earth did she do that makes her "much better"? She spent tortuous post-Brexit years agreeing to everything the EU wanted, so she could bring home a Brexit deal which was so shit she couldn't get it through parliament. This was a result of her own initial howling errors, when she imposed red lines at the start which painted her into a terrible corner. All her own fault. She achieved nothing else in office.
As an election-winning politician she is *much better* than Boris in the same way that Worksop is "much better" than Paris, ie this is a view so eccentric only one person in the entire world believes it, and it's not even her, it's you.
Even she knows she is shit at elections, she nearly lost to JEREMY CORBYN
"much better"
lol
Actually, the person who gave the EU what they wanted - a border in the Irish Sea - was Boris Johnson.
That will be the same Boris Johnson who said he wouldn't enforce the border, prior to the deal being signed, and they entrusted enforcing that border to . . . Boris Johnson.
Now they're acting all surprised that the Boris isn't enforcing the border. Funny that. 😂
So you’re saying it’s OK he lied about never agreeing to one, because he also lied about enforcing it?
No. I'm saying he said he'd never have a border, he said he'd never enforce one, now he's not enforcing one and the EU are whinging "why isn't he enforcing a border"? When he told them he wouldn't!
I mean what did they expect? Probably Theresa May style just to see the UK rollover and play dead.
Except he told them he would and they signed a withdrawal agreement on that basis (otherwise they certainly wouldn’t have signed).
A politician lied to the EU????
Perish the thought. The sainted EU, which never lies to anyone.... except when, say, they want to adopt an entire Constitution by stealth, voiding national referendums.
"Public opinion will be led - without knowing it - to adopt the policies we would never dare present to them directly. All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden or disguised in some way."
Ex French president, Giscard D'Estaing: chair of the convention that drafted the EU Constitution.
Well they also had a chance to hold up or vote down the TCA having been told by Boris that the UK will simply ignore the NI protocol for as long as it suits us. They didn't, so clearly they don't care that much.
Wasn't there some talk a couple of months back that there would be opposition to the TCA in the EU parliament ?
Yes, the leader of the EPP said they wouldn't ratify it until the UK complied fully with the NI protocol.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
We don't want any southerners getting ideas and coming to visit!
Yes, I agree, it was time for him to go, even if the sight of his departure was, to many of us, like Churchill's funeral: one sensed the metaphorical cranes of Docklands lowered to honour him, as the floating bier of his timeless wit, the catafalque of his own reverberating oratory, passed inevitably down the rolling Thames, and on, ever on, onwards beyond Gallions Reach
We shall not see the like again, not in our evemore thrifty years on earth
Yes, I believe I saw the bier as it passed Horse End.
I'm told it ran aground at the Mucking Flats which seemed somehow apposite.
Mucking Flats? Is that rhyming slang?
No, it's an area of marshland on the river just by Thurrock - that whole area is the flood plain of the river and before flood barriers and London, if the Thames flooded, it would flood into the marshes which you can see from the A13 and the Dartford Crossing.
Yes, I agree, it was time for him to go, even if the sight of his departure was, to many of us, like Churchill's funeral: one sensed the metaphorical cranes of Docklands lowered to honour him, as the floating bier of his timeless wit, the catafalque of his own reverberating oratory, passed inevitably down the rolling Thames, and on, ever on, onwards beyond Gallions Reach
We shall not see the like again, not in our evemore thrifty years on earth
Yes, I believe I saw the bier as it passed Horse End.
I'm told it ran aground at the Mucking Flats which seemed somehow apposite.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
It's self-deprecation. Used to be thought of as a typical British trait.
I'm not sure why anyone would feel so insecure as to feel the need to "sell" their part of the country to someone from a different part.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Everywhere outside the SE is terrible... absolutely terrible....horrid...there aren't even any Starbucks. that's what I tell everybody who lives in the SE. Don't want them getting any funny ideas about moving and over inflating the house prices.
Re the Auschwitz joke, quite a lot of Jewish humour (including Holocaust humour) is black as pitch.
The only way to deal with something so inhumane and unspeakable, is humour: after a certain amount of time
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
The primary sources suggest otherwise. Read Primo Levi; there's stuff of that sort in The Truce, his getting home after Auschwitz book, none in If This Is A Man.
I told my wife the "my grandfather died in Auschwitz" joke last night.
She was not impressed.
That's nothing. I made my wife watch 1984 last night, with John Hurt, Suzanna Hamilton and Richard Burton (plus Rab C. Nesbitt, strangely) and she said it was the most disturbing, dark and deeply depressing thing she's ever seen.
Afterwards, however, she conceded it was thought-provoking and rather profound.
Black Mirror is all of those things I can't recommend it highly enough.
True, but Orwell got there first, and oh so brilliantly.
The variety and resonance of the episodes are amazing. And I have read all of Orwell. Nothing as casually disturbing imo.
You've probably already read it but 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin was something of an influence on Orwell. Penguin have a pretty good English translation.
No have not. Thanks it's now on the list!
Reading Sumption's book right now as an interlude.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
Cold I’ll give you but wet? Hardly any rain for weeks until yesterday.
I told my wife the "my grandfather died in Auschwitz" joke last night.
She was not impressed.
It is, nonetheless, a brilliant joke. Subverting expectations and exploding taboos in two perfect lines
When I first saw it on a TV show the crowd was in shocked silence for about 3 seconds, then they roared with intense laughter
Got to be used in the right context tho. After someone has just been off-colour about the Holocaust you put on your appalled face - then go for it
I lived in this country for a year when I was 14/15.
One evening, on late night TV, I discovered Jerry Sadowitz.
Oh my god. I nearly died laughing.
Whatever happened to him?
I once almost sold him a bowler hat, didn't fit unfortunately, would have been a proud moment. I'd even have give him a discount ffs! He's fantastic live.
I completely missed the major revelation in this comment
You used to sell..... hats?!
Had a wee vintage clothes shop in more youthful if penurious times.
Wee is often what comes to mind (and nostrils) when entering a vintage clothing emporium.
Tell me about it, the sights I saw in the insides of gents' old breeks..
But he got likes and retweets on twitter. It must be effective.
If retweets were votes, PM Jezza, would have just spent the past year renationalizing every industry in the country.
So many on twitter were genuinely amazed at the result in December 2019. There were so many comments about how could this be the case. No one they knew, or on social media, would ever vote Tory.
Re the Auschwitz joke, quite a lot of Jewish humour (including Holocaust humour) is black as pitch.
The only way to deal with something so inhumane and unspeakable, is humour: after a certain amount of time
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
The primary sources suggest otherwise. Read Primo Levi; there's stuff of that sort in The Truce, his getting home after Auschwitz book, none in If This Is A Man.
I've read Levi. A fine writer. But I don't believe it. I do not believe there is anywhere on earth without human jokes, not even Auschwitz. Indeed the urge to laugh mockingly at the Nazis would have been intense - it would be the only possible revenge. There are jokes in the camps in Schindler's List, and I know the guy that wrote that screenplay - he did his research
We also know there was sex in the camps. Hence, Joy Division
It looks to me the DUP vote is fragmenting towards TUV, Alliance and, above all, Will Not Vote. Hence the perceived need to shore up the base, by being hard-line on the Protocol etc.
The DUP runs the risk, I think, of no longer being the first or second party in Northern Ireland if it falls behind Alliance in vote share. Would Alliance would get the Deputy FM post in that case?
Due To The Good Friday Agreement, Alliance can only gain the First Minister role because they are not officially know as neither of Unionist or Nationalist.
They would have to gain the most seats and if they were second, the third party would unfortunately get the Deputy Minister Role.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
Cold I’ll give you but wet? Hardly any rain for weeks until yesterday.
Bit of drizzle here, no more in the whole of April. The Leicester clay is baked like concrete, and puffer jackets derigier at my pub beer garden.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
Cold I’ll give you but wet? Hardly any rain for weeks until yesterday.
It's funny, I always think of England as wet in comparison with Maryland. But, Plymouth 39.66" of rain over 142 days, whereas Damascus MD 43.8" over 117 days. I suspect the big difference is the days of sunshine - 202 in MD.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
Fake news. It’s been bone dry for weeks! April rain totals are 1% of average.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
Cold I’ll give you but wet? Hardly any rain for weeks until yesterday.
Yeah, *wet* is nonsense. Apols. On my drive back from Dorset t'other day I saw Surrey. The heaths are parched. No rain
Scratch "wet". But it is cold and grey (as in: lack of sun hours), indeed we've just experienced one of the coldest greyest "six months" in recent UK meteorological history
It looks to me the DUP vote is fragmenting towards TUV, Alliance and, above all, Will Not Vote. Hence the perceived need to shore up the base, by being hard-line on the Protocol etc.
The DUP runs the risk, I think, of no longer being the first or second party in Northern Ireland if it falls behind Alliance in vote share. Would Alliance would get the Deputy FM post in that case?
Due To The Good Friday Agreement, Alliance can only gain the First Minister role because they are not officially know as neither of Unionist or Nationalist.
They would have to gain the most seats and if they were second, the third party would unfortunately get the Deputy Minister Role.
Is this an existential crisis for the DUP? Having outflanked the UUP, are they going to themselves be outflanked by this new grouping?
Just what the DUP needs - a Keir Starmer lookalike:
Today, I announce my candidacy for leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. I love this country and its people and I look forward to engaging with party colleagues in the days ahead.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
It's self-deprecation. Used to be thought of as a typical British trait.
I'm not sure why anyone would feel so insecure as to feel the need to "sell" their part of the country to someone from a different part.
Yes, I know. I was taking the piss out of the very self-conscious self-depreciation.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
Fake news. It’s been bone dry for weeks! April rain totals are 1% of average.
Indeed. I wrote that without thinking. Twaddle. It's been incredibly dry.
But fuck it is cold. And (recent days apart) it has been very grey. This is fact
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
We are having a cold spring, or at least April (March was warm), but it's certainly not wet. It's barely rained at all.
Re the Auschwitz joke, quite a lot of Jewish humour (including Holocaust humour) is black as pitch.
The only way to deal with something so inhumane and unspeakable, is humour: after a certain amount of time
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
The primary sources suggest otherwise. Read Primo Levi; there's stuff of that sort in The Truce, his getting home after Auschwitz book, none in If This Is A Man.
I've read Levi. A fine writer. But I don't believe it. I do not believe there is anywhere on earth without human jokes, not even Auschwitz. Indeed the urge to laugh mockingly at the Nazis would have been intense - it would be the only possible revenge. There are jokes in the camps in Schindler's List, and I know the guy that wrote that screenplay - he did his research
We also know there was sex in the camps. Hence, Joy Division
I believe - I am suspicious of over-detailed knowledge of the death camps. Read Levi, then stop. Someone recently pointed out that there are about a dozen books in print with a title in the format "The {Flint-knapper} of Auschwitz."
I don’t remember you saying that about Jeremy Corbyn, and he had much worse numbers against a weaker albeit much better PM.
Are you actually claiming Theresa May is a "much better PM" than Boris?
On what metric? What on earth did she do that makes her "much better"? She spent tortuous post-Brexit years agreeing to everything the EU wanted, so she could bring home a Brexit deal which was so shit she couldn't get it through parliament. This was a result of her own initial howling errors, when she imposed red lines at the start which painted her into a terrible corner. All her own fault. She achieved nothing else in office.
As an election-winning politician she is *much better* than Boris in the same way that Worksop is "much better" than Paris, ie this is a view so eccentric only one person in the entire world believes it, and it's not even her, it's you.
Even she knows she is shit at elections, she nearly lost to JEREMY CORBYN
"much better"
lol
Actually, the person who gave the EU what they wanted - a border in the Irish Sea - was Boris Johnson.
That will be the same Boris Johnson who said he wouldn't enforce the border, prior to the deal being signed, and they entrusted enforcing that border to . . . Boris Johnson.
Now they're acting all surprised that the Boris isn't enforcing the border. Funny that. 😂
So you’re saying it’s OK he lied about never agreeing to one, because he also lied about enforcing it?
No. I'm saying he said he'd never have a border, he said he'd never enforce one, now he's not enforcing one and the EU are whinging "why isn't he enforcing a border"? When he told them he wouldn't!
I mean what did they expect? Probably Theresa May style just to see the UK rollover and play dead.
Except he told them he would and they signed a withdrawal agreement on that basis (otherwise they certainly wouldn’t have signed).
A politician lied to the EU????
Perish the thought. The sainted EU, which never lies to anyone.... except when, say, they want to adopt an entire Constitution by stealth, voiding national referendums.
"Public opinion will be led - without knowing it - to adopt the policies we would never dare present to them directly. All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden or disguised in some way."
Ex French president, Giscard D'Estaing: chair of the convention that drafted the EU Constitution.
Well they also had a chance to hold up or vote down the TCA having been told by Boris that the UK will simply ignore the NI protocol for as long as it suits us. They didn't, so clearly they don't care that much.
Wasn't there some talk a couple of months back that there would be opposition to the TCA in the EU parliament ?
Yes, the leader of the EPP said they wouldn't ratify it until the UK complied fully with the NI protocol.
As if that was ever going to happen. No one gives a shit about NI, it's only ever been a tool to try and keep the UK within the EU's sphere of influence.
Re the Auschwitz joke, quite a lot of Jewish humour (including Holocaust humour) is black as pitch.
The only way to deal with something so inhumane and unspeakable, is humour: after a certain amount of time
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
The primary sources suggest otherwise. Read Primo Levi; there's stuff of that sort in The Truce, his getting home after Auschwitz book, none in If This Is A Man.
I've read Levi. A fine writer. But I don't believe it. I do not believe there is anywhere on earth without human jokes, not even Auschwitz. Indeed the urge to laugh mockingly at the Nazis would have been intense - it would be the only possible revenge. There are jokes in the camps in Schindler's List, and I know the guy that wrote that screenplay - he did his research
We also know there was sex in the camps. Hence, Joy Division
I believe - I am suspicious of over-detailed knowledge of the death camps. Read Levi, then stop. Someone recently pointed out that there are about a dozen books in print with a title in the format "The {Flint-knapper} of Auschwitz."
No offence, but I will read what I like about Auschwitz
The immortal Jewish gift for humour would not have ended at "Arbeit Macht Frei". Someone, somewhere, told a jolly good joke, and someone else laughed. It was probably rather dark
I told my wife the "my grandfather died in Auschwitz" joke last night.
She was not impressed.
That's nothing. I made my wife watch 1984 last night, with John Hurt, Suzanna Hamilton and Richard Burton (plus Rab C. Nesbitt, strangely) and she said it was the most disturbing, dark and deeply depressing thing she's ever seen.
Afterwards, however, she conceded it was thought-provoking and rather profound.
Black Mirror is all of those things I can't recommend it highly enough.
True, but Orwell got there first, and oh so brilliantly.
The variety and resonance of the episodes are amazing. And I have read all of Orwell. Nothing as casually disturbing imo.
You've probably already read it but 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin was something of an influence on Orwell. Penguin have a pretty good English translation.
Seconded, it is a very interesting book and quite ahead of its time.
Ooh yes, I read it as a teenager. That spacecraft called the Integral.
It looks to me the DUP vote is fragmenting towards TUV, Alliance and, above all, Will Not Vote. Hence the perceived need to shore up the base, by being hard-line on the Protocol etc.
The DUP runs the risk, I think, of no longer being the first or second party in Northern Ireland if it falls behind Alliance in vote share. Would Alliance would get the Deputy FM post in that case?
Due To The Good Friday Agreement, Alliance can only gain the First Minister role because they are not officially know as neither of Unionist or Nationalist.
They would have to gain the most seats and if they were second, the third party would unfortunately get the Deputy Minister Role.
Is this an existential crisis for the DUP? Having outflanked the UUP, are they going to themselves be outflanked by this new grouping?
Alliance will definitely make gains in D.U.P areas / locations in the Northern Irish 2022 Election. If the surge was to continue, Alliance could be the top party before the end of this Decade.
Your choice L4%K was mullered on 5 live this morning
Rachel Burdon told her "we've heard enough you have nothing to say come back when" she had a policy on Social Care after 5 mins of vacuous crap from L4%K
That was quite a listen, she obviously thought "I get 5 minutes to attack the goverment and Boris" but ended up getting slaughtered by Rachel Burden who is not normally a tough interviewer.
I’m pleasantly surprised at Rachel Burden. Used to listen to her in the mornings with Nicky Campbell, she was okay but not really a tough interrogator. She did wind Ian Botham up once which was quite comical.
Indeed. I wrote that without thinking. Twaddle. It's been incredibly dry.
But fuck it is cold. And (recent days apart) it has been very grey. This is fact
Average day time maximum for London in late April should be 16c or 60F in old money.
As you say, we're well below that - I thought today was a notch less cold than yesterday but 12c is more early March than late April.
It's been incredibly dry but the other noteworthy feature is or are the overnight frosts. I think we've had 12 air frosts in London this month so far which is the most in 50-60 years.
I suspect it'll get wetter before it gets appreciably warmer.
Your choice L4%K was mullered on 5 live this morning
Rachel Burdon told her "we've heard enough you have nothing to say come back when" she had a policy on Social Care after 5 mins of vacuous crap from L4%K
That was quite a listen, she obviously thought "I get 5 minutes to attack the goverment and Boris" but ended up getting slaughtered by Rachel Burden who is not normally a tough interviewer.
I’m pleasantly surprised at Rachel Burden. Used to listen to her in the mornings with Nicky Campbell, she was okay but not really a tough interrogator. She did wind Ian Botham up once which was quite comical.
I listen to her on 5 live every morning and she is excellent
Re the Auschwitz joke, quite a lot of Jewish humour (including Holocaust humour) is black as pitch.
The only way to deal with something so inhumane and unspeakable, is humour: after a certain amount of time
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
The primary sources suggest otherwise. Read Primo Levi; there's stuff of that sort in The Truce, his getting home after Auschwitz book, none in If This Is A Man.
I've read Levi. A fine writer. But I don't believe it. I do not believe there is anywhere on earth without human jokes, not even Auschwitz. Indeed the urge to laugh mockingly at the Nazis would have been intense - it would be the only possible revenge. There are jokes in the camps in Schindler's List, and I know the guy that wrote that screenplay - he did his research
We also know there was sex in the camps. Hence, Joy Division
If you look carefully at the 'Arbeit macht frei' sign, which some of the inmates made, the 'B' is upside down. Legend has it that was a tiny joke at the Nazi's expense.
Peston on the ten o’clock news talking about the redecoration. Does he ever do brevity ?
The same man who banged on about phone cords and mirrors as part of some weird conspiracy theory that Boris talking to Joe Biden on the phone didn't happen.
Indeed. I wrote that without thinking. Twaddle. It's been incredibly dry.
But fuck it is cold. And (recent days apart) it has been very grey. This is fact
Average day time maximum for London in late April should be 16c or 60F in old money.
As you say, we're well below that - I thought today was a notch less cold than yesterday but 12c is more early March than late April.
It's been incredibly dry but the other noteworthy feature is or are the overnight frosts. I think we've had 12 air frosts in London this month so far which is the most in 50-60 years.
I suspect it'll get wetter before it gets appreciably warmer.
The frosts set my potatoes - that I planted at the beginning of March - back at least 3 weeks, and nearly wiped out my seedlings too.
Somehow Angela appears to have accessorized Manchester.
Did they block off the street for their PR purposes, or is that just the new normal level of general public activity?
Much of central London is similar, still
I get the sense provincial PBers do not understand the calamity that has befallen our great cities, London especially. This is one reason I am hesitant about declaring a Roaring Twenties type Covid-aftermath (tho I yearn for it)
London and the other cities motor the UK economy. If they are fucked, we are fucked, no matter how many beer gardens we book and fill
I'm off work next week and have decided to take a trip up to Glasgow, seeing as how I've not been there for more than a year (despite studying there or working there all my adulthood up until covid). I'm interested to see how much life there is.
I've been told it's pretty bleak, albeit that was just before the Scotland travel restrictions and then subsequent re-opening of shops. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to find.
Bring your thermals! And you mask. Mask wearing seems more widespread here.
I don’t remember you saying that about Jeremy Corbyn, and he had much worse numbers against a weaker albeit much better PM.
Are you actually claiming Theresa May is a "much better PM" than Boris?
On what metric? What on earth did she do that makes her "much better"? She spent tortuous post-Brexit years agreeing to everything the EU wanted, so she could bring home a Brexit deal which was so shit she couldn't get it through parliament. This was a result of her own initial howling errors, when she imposed red lines at the start which painted her into a terrible corner. All her own fault. She achieved nothing else in office.
As an election-winning politician she is *much better* than Boris in the same way that Worksop is "much better" than Paris, ie this is a view so eccentric only one person in the entire world believes it, and it's not even her, it's you.
Even she knows she is shit at elections, she nearly lost to JEREMY CORBYN
"much better"
lol
Actually, the person who gave the EU what they wanted - a border in the Irish Sea - was Boris Johnson.
That will be the same Boris Johnson who said he wouldn't enforce the border, prior to the deal being signed, and they entrusted enforcing that border to . . . Boris Johnson.
Now they're acting all surprised that the Boris isn't enforcing the border. Funny that. 😂
So you’re saying it’s OK he lied about never agreeing to one, because he also lied about enforcing it?
No. I'm saying he said he'd never have a border, he said he'd never enforce one, now he's not enforcing one and the EU are whinging "why isn't he enforcing a border"? When he told them he wouldn't!
I mean what did they expect? Probably Theresa May style just to see the UK rollover and play dead.
Except he told them he would and they signed a withdrawal agreement on that basis (otherwise they certainly wouldn’t have signed).
A politician lied to the EU????
Perish the thought. The sainted EU, which never lies to anyone.... except when, say, they want to adopt an entire Constitution by stealth, voiding national referendums.
"Public opinion will be led - without knowing it - to adopt the policies we would never dare present to them directly. All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden or disguised in some way."
Ex French president, Giscard D'Estaing: chair of the convention that drafted the EU Constitution.
Well they also had a chance to hold up or vote down the TCA having been told by Boris that the UK will simply ignore the NI protocol for as long as it suits us. They didn't, so clearly they don't care that much.
Wasn't there some talk a couple of months back that there would be opposition to the TCA in the EU parliament ?
Yes, the leader of the EPP said they wouldn't ratify it until the UK complied fully with the NI protocol.
As if that was ever going to happen. No one gives a shit about NI, it's only ever been a tool to try and keep the UK within the EU's sphere of influence.
The EU's transparent duplicity and flippancy over NI has been something to behold, these last months
Interior, EU HQ, Day
EU: OMFG you can't put a hard border across Ireland, the peace is sacred, they are all Europeans, the UK must submit!
UK: Oh, FFS, alright then
One Year Later:
Interior, EU HQ, Night
EU: So the UK has an advantage with vaccines, what can we do?
I don’t remember you saying that about Jeremy Corbyn, and he had much worse numbers against a weaker albeit much better PM.
Are you actually claiming Theresa May is a "much better PM" than Boris?
On what metric? What on earth did she do that makes her "much better"? She spent tortuous post-Brexit years agreeing to everything the EU wanted, so she could bring home a Brexit deal which was so shit she couldn't get it through parliament. This was a result of her own initial howling errors, when she imposed red lines at the start which painted her into a terrible corner. All her own fault. She achieved nothing else in office.
As an election-winning politician she is *much better* than Boris in the same way that Worksop is "much better" than Paris, ie this is a view so eccentric only one person in the entire world believes it, and it's not even her, it's you.
Even she knows she is shit at elections, she nearly lost to JEREMY CORBYN
"much better"
lol
Actually, the person who gave the EU what they wanted - a border in the Irish Sea - was Boris Johnson.
That will be the same Boris Johnson who said he wouldn't enforce the border, prior to the deal being signed, and they entrusted enforcing that border to . . . Boris Johnson.
Now they're acting all surprised that the Boris isn't enforcing the border. Funny that. 😂
So you’re saying it’s OK he lied about never agreeing to one, because he also lied about enforcing it?
No. I'm saying he said he'd never have a border, he said he'd never enforce one, now he's not enforcing one and the EU are whinging "why isn't he enforcing a border"? When he told them he wouldn't!
I mean what did they expect? Probably Theresa May style just to see the UK rollover and play dead.
Except he told them he would and they signed a withdrawal agreement on that basis (otherwise they certainly wouldn’t have signed).
A politician lied to the EU????
Perish the thought. The sainted EU, which never lies to anyone.... except when, say, they want to adopt an entire Constitution by stealth, voiding national referendums.
"Public opinion will be led - without knowing it - to adopt the policies we would never dare present to them directly. All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden or disguised in some way."
Ex French president, Giscard D'Estaing: chair of the convention that drafted the EU Constitution.
Well they also had a chance to hold up or vote down the TCA having been told by Boris that the UK will simply ignore the NI protocol for as long as it suits us. They didn't, so clearly they don't care that much.
Wasn't there some talk a couple of months back that there would be opposition to the TCA in the EU parliament ?
Yes, the leader of the EPP said they wouldn't ratify it until the UK complied fully with the NI protocol.
As if that was ever going to happen. No one gives a shit about NI, it's only ever been a tool to try and keep the UK within the EU's sphere of influence.
If Brexit starts to be perceived as a success, it will have an interesting effect on the political dynamics in Northern Ireland. Unionists now have a practical, non-sectarian objective of overturning or renegotiating the protocol.
Re the Auschwitz joke, quite a lot of Jewish humour (including Holocaust humour) is black as pitch.
The only way to deal with something so inhumane and unspeakable, is humour: after a certain amount of time
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
The primary sources suggest otherwise. Read Primo Levi; there's stuff of that sort in The Truce, his getting home after Auschwitz book, none in If This Is A Man.
I've read Levi. A fine writer. But I don't believe it. I do not believe there is anywhere on earth without human jokes, not even Auschwitz. Indeed the urge to laugh mockingly at the Nazis would have been intense - it would be the only possible revenge. There are jokes in the camps in Schindler's List, and I know the guy that wrote that screenplay - he did his research
We also know there was sex in the camps. Hence, Joy Division
I believe - I am suspicious of over-detailed knowledge of the death camps. Read Levi, then stop. Someone recently pointed out that there are about a dozen books in print with a title in the format "The {Flint-knapper} of Auschwitz."
Primo Levi's book "The Drowned and the Saved" is one of the most affecting books that I have read. Deep truths over the guilt of surviving, because the best way to survive was to be brutally selfish. I understood how he came to suicide.
Re the Auschwitz joke, quite a lot of Jewish humour (including Holocaust humour) is black as pitch.
The only way to deal with something so inhumane and unspeakable, is humour: after a certain amount of time
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
The primary sources suggest otherwise. Read Primo Levi; there's stuff of that sort in The Truce, his getting home after Auschwitz book, none in If This Is A Man.
I've read Levi. A fine writer. But I don't believe it. I do not believe there is anywhere on earth without human jokes, not even Auschwitz. Indeed the urge to laugh mockingly at the Nazis would have been intense - it would be the only possible revenge. There are jokes in the camps in Schindler's List, and I know the guy that wrote that screenplay - he did his research
We also know there was sex in the camps. Hence, Joy Division
I believe - I am suspicious of over-detailed knowledge of the death camps. Read Levi, then stop. Someone recently pointed out that there are about a dozen books in print with a title in the format "The {Flint-knapper} of Auschwitz."
No offence, but I will read what I like about Auschwitz
The immortal Jewish gift for humour would not have ended at "Arbeit Macht Frei". Someone, somewhere, told a jolly good joke, and someone else laughed. It was probably rather dark
"Read Levi, then stop" was a memo to self, having just read Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Miklos Nyiszli and regretted it.
Indeed. I wrote that without thinking. Twaddle. It's been incredibly dry.
But fuck it is cold. And (recent days apart) it has been very grey. This is fact
Average day time maximum for London in late April should be 16c or 60F in old money.
As you say, we're well below that - I thought today was a notch less cold than yesterday but 12c is more early March than late April.
It's been incredibly dry but the other noteworthy feature is or are the overnight frosts. I think we've had 12 air frosts in London this month so far which is the most in 50-60 years.
I suspect it'll get wetter before it gets appreciably warmer.
Indeed but averages are averages for a reason. Some Aprils are colder, some warmer. As for the rain: let’s hope we get it. It’s desperately needed.
Replace the square brackets with triangular brackets. picturelink is the link to the picture. Keep the quotation marks and everything else.
Do it via the commenting system interface, where there is an "add picture" button.
Didn't know you could do that, I've always used the coding.
So many PB’ers unable to spot or unable to use a simple button that’s been in the comment box all along. Seriously concerning.
I don't use any of the buttons, when I'm typing I am fast at touch-typing anyway so I just type in the code.
Even now I know there's a button there, I'll probably still use the code. It takes about the same time to do either, but if I'm typing anyway I find typing the code is less disruptive. 🤷♂️
EDIT: the only button I sometimes press is the post comment button, but normally use the keyboard to press that too.
Your choice L4%K was mullered on 5 live this morning
Rachel Burdon told her "we've heard enough you have nothing to say come back when" she had a policy on Social Care after 5 mins of vacuous crap from L4%K
That was quite a listen, she obviously thought "I get 5 minutes to attack the goverment and Boris" but ended up getting slaughtered by Rachel Burden who is not normally a tough interviewer.
I’m pleasantly surprised at Rachel Burden. Used to listen to her in the mornings with Nicky Campbell, she was okay but not really a tough interrogator. She did wind Ian Botham up once which was quite comical.
I listen to her on 5 live every morning and she is excellent
I liked her obvious love of Rugby. Having worked from home for a year I haven’t listened to five live since I started.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
It's self-deprecation. Used to be thought of as a typical British trait.
I'm not sure why anyone would feel so insecure as to feel the need to "sell" their part of the country to someone from a different part.
Yes, I know. I was taking the piss out of the very self-conscious self-depreciation.
I wasn't trying to be self deprecating! That's just how it was outside the pub.
My ears were freezing cold by the time I got home and instead of sympathy I got told that I should have worn a hat.
Still, better to take in some fresh Yorkshire air than the noxious smog of London town.
Indeed. I wrote that without thinking. Twaddle. It's been incredibly dry.
But fuck it is cold. And (recent days apart) it has been very grey. This is fact
Average day time maximum for London in late April should be 16c or 60F in old money.
As you say, we're well below that - I thought today was a notch less cold than yesterday but 12c is more early March than late April.
It's been incredibly dry but the other noteworthy feature is or are the overnight frosts. I think we've had 12 air frosts in London this month so far which is the most in 50-60 years.
I suspect it'll get wetter before it gets appreciably warmer.
Indeed but averages are averages for a reason. Some Aprils are colder, some warmer. As for the rain: let’s hope we get it. It’s desperately needed.
During the 00s there was some speculation that the 9/11 shutdown of air travel had caused the weather to be a little cooler and clearer. I believe this was debunked about 10 years ago but it would be interesting to see a similar analysis done for the covid period.
I told my wife the "my grandfather died in Auschwitz" joke last night.
She was not impressed.
That's nothing. I made my wife watch 1984 last night, with John Hurt, Suzanna Hamilton and Richard Burton (plus Rab C. Nesbitt, strangely) and she said it was the most disturbing, dark and deeply depressing thing she's ever seen.
Afterwards, however, she conceded it was thought-provoking and rather profound.
Black Mirror is all of those things I can't recommend it highly enough.
True, but Orwell got there first, and oh so brilliantly.
The variety and resonance of the episodes are amazing. And I have read all of Orwell. Nothing as casually disturbing imo.
You've probably already read it but 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin was something of an influence on Orwell. Penguin have a pretty good English translation.
Seconded, it is a very interesting book and quite ahead of its time.
Ooh yes, I read it as a teenager. That spacecraft called the Integral.
Inspired by his working as an engineer in Tyneside shipyards apparently. Despite being an original Bolsheveik, his book was the first to be banned by the Soviet Union.
Indeed. I wrote that without thinking. Twaddle. It's been incredibly dry.
But fuck it is cold. And (recent days apart) it has been very grey. This is fact
Average day time maximum for London in late April should be 16c or 60F in old money.
As you say, we're well below that - I thought today was a notch less cold than yesterday but 12c is more early March than late April.
It's been incredibly dry but the other noteworthy feature is or are the overnight frosts. I think we've had 12 air frosts in London this month so far which is the most in 50-60 years.
I suspect it'll get wetter before it gets appreciably warmer.
Indeed but averages are averages for a reason. Some Aprils are colder, some warmer. As for the rain: let’s hope we get it. It’s desperately needed.
Despite the grey and cold (and it is grey and cold) the pubs of London (that are open) are vividly boisterous
As I write, the Edinboro Castle is audible from my table, with drunken kids shouting Oggy oggy oggy, oi oi oi, in call and response - in traditional Cornish style
It's all well and good saying the future is this hybrid, collaborative, networking meeting type mostly from home but sometimes in the office stylee but is anyone actually doing that yet in any great numbers to say that, yes, this thing actually works?
I mean, I hope it does, because continual working at home on my own for a year has become a massive depression, and for video meetings I now have all the enthusiasm of a morgue, but we've still got to do this till autumn in our place with no change before then.
I definitely get that everyone being in the office full-time is over, yes, and yeah, probably won't miss it, but I also miss actually leaving the house. Have we got plenty of examples of folk now successfully doing this new hybrid way of things? If so how does it work at your place?
Indeed. I wrote that without thinking. Twaddle. It's been incredibly dry.
But fuck it is cold. And (recent days apart) it has been very grey. This is fact
Average day time maximum for London in late April should be 16c or 60F in old money.
As you say, we're well below that - I thought today was a notch less cold than yesterday but 12c is more early March than late April.
It's been incredibly dry but the other noteworthy feature is or are the overnight frosts. I think we've had 12 air frosts in London this month so far which is the most in 50-60 years.
I suspect it'll get wetter before it gets appreciably warmer.
Indeed but averages are averages for a reason. Some Aprils are colder, some warmer. As for the rain: let’s hope we get it. It’s desperately needed.
Despite the grey and cold (and it is grey and cold) the pubs of London (that are open) are vividly boisterous
As I write, the Edinboro Castle is audible from my table, with drunken kids shouting Oggy oggy oggy, oi oi oi, in call and response - in traditional Cornish style
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
It's self-deprecation. Used to be thought of as a typical British trait.
I'm not sure why anyone would feel so insecure as to feel the need to "sell" their part of the country to someone from a different part.
Yes, I know. I was taking the piss out of the very self-conscious self-depreciation.
I wasn't trying to be self deprecating! That's just how it was outside the pub.
My ears were freezing cold by the time I got home and instead of sympathy I got told that I should have worn a hat.
Still, better to take in some fresh Yorkshire air than the noxious smog of London town.
Ha, fair enough!
Not much smog here though. Went into EC1 the other day and the air was bizarrely clear and fragrant. Very odd.
It's all well and good saying the future is this hybrid, collaborative, networking meeting type mostly from home but sometimes in the office stylee but is anyone actually doing that yet in any great numbers to say that, yes, this thing actually works?
I mean, I hope it does, because continual working at home on my own for a year has become a massive depression, and for video meetings I now have all the enthusiasm of a morgue, but we've still got to do this till autumn in our place with no change before then.
I definitely get that everyone being in the office full-time is over, yes, and yeah, probably won't miss it, but I also miss actually leaving the house. Have we got plenty of examples of folk now successfully doing this new hybrid way of things? If so how does it work at your place?
A fair few of our managers work from home and call Teams meetings when bored.
One major advantage of Teams is that I can get on with real work instead of dozing through another pointless meeting. The joys of a twin screen set up...
It's all well and good saying the future is this hybrid, collaborative, networking meeting type mostly from home but sometimes in the office stylee but is anyone actually doing that yet in any great numbers to say that, yes, this thing actually works?
I mean, I hope it does, because continual working at home on my own for a year has become a massive depression, and for video meetings I now have all the enthusiasm of a morgue, but we've still got to do this till autumn in our place with no change before then.
I definitely get that everyone being in the office full-time is over, yes, and yeah, probably won't miss it, but I also miss actually leaving the house. Have we got plenty of examples of folk now successfully doing this new hybrid way of things? If so how does it work at your place?
Well said. The move to Working From Home is far too glibly accepted by those who have lovely homes, who love their homes, who are a bit older, already married, all that.
What about the many many people for whom work is an escape into a new life, or just a break from a less-than-ideal home? Or those who just work better in an office? Or young people who want something different, in the big city? They do exist, in great numbers, but they are probably under-represented on PB
My fear is that companies are seizing this unique chance to save money - lose all the offices! - but no one is thinking longterm how this will affect human society, not necessarily for the better
I am not defending the rigid 9-to-5. it is insane. But we risk baby with bathwater
Somehow Angela appears to have accessorized Manchester.
Did they block off the street for their PR purposes, or is that just the new normal level of general public activity?
Much of central London is similar, still
I get the sense provincial PBers do not understand the calamity that has befallen our great cities, London especially. This is one reason I am hesitant about declaring a Roaring Twenties type Covid-aftermath (tho I yearn for it)
London and the other cities motor the UK economy. If they are fucked, we are fucked, no matter how many beer gardens we book and fill
I'm off work next week and have decided to take a trip up to Glasgow, seeing as how I've not been there for more than a year (despite studying there or working there all my adulthood up until covid). I'm interested to see how much life there is.
I've been told it's pretty bleak, albeit that was just before the Scotland travel restrictions and then subsequent re-opening of shops. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to find.
Bring your thermals! And you mask. Mask wearing seems more widespread here.
I mean it's funny, it's not that far away from where I live, but it feels like it may as well be the Moon. It's going to involve a train ride and everything, the insane novelty.
Re the Auschwitz joke, quite a lot of Jewish humour (including Holocaust humour) is black as pitch.
The only way to deal with something so inhumane and unspeakable, is humour: after a certain amount of time
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
The primary sources suggest otherwise. Read Primo Levi; there's stuff of that sort in The Truce, his getting home after Auschwitz book, none in If This Is A Man.
I've read Levi. A fine writer. But I don't believe it. I do not believe there is anywhere on earth without human jokes, not even Auschwitz. Indeed the urge to laugh mockingly at the Nazis would have been intense - it would be the only possible revenge. There are jokes in the camps in Schindler's List, and I know the guy that wrote that screenplay - he did his research
We also know there was sex in the camps. Hence, Joy Division
I believe - I am suspicious of over-detailed knowledge of the death camps. Read Levi, then stop. Someone recently pointed out that there are about a dozen books in print with a title in the format "The {Flint-knapper} of Auschwitz."
No offence, but I will read what I like about Auschwitz
The immortal Jewish gift for humour would not have ended at "Arbeit Macht Frei". Someone, somewhere, told a jolly good joke, and someone else laughed. It was probably rather dark
"Read Levi, then stop" was a memo to self, having just read Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Miklos Nyiszli and regretted it.
It's good advice. While it is important to remember how the Holocaust happened, it is more important to remember what we lost. I recently read Stefan Zweig's "The World of Yesterday", written in the darkest days of 1941. I highly recommend it.
Good old self driving cars in 5 years prediction from 2016.
To be fair when it came to the final one about Musk and the moon, it was the only one that was caveated with "could" - and the its the only one were tremendous leaps forward have actually been made and its a case now probably of "when" not "if" it happens, unlike the others.
Somehow Angela appears to have accessorized Manchester.
Did they block off the street for their PR purposes, or is that just the new normal level of general public activity?
Much of central London is similar, still
I get the sense provincial PBers do not understand the calamity that has befallen our great cities, London especially. This is one reason I am hesitant about declaring a Roaring Twenties type Covid-aftermath (tho I yearn for it)
London and the other cities motor the UK economy. If they are fucked, we are fucked, no matter how many beer gardens we book and fill
I'm off work next week and have decided to take a trip up to Glasgow, seeing as how I've not been there for more than a year (despite studying there or working there all my adulthood up until covid). I'm interested to see how much life there is.
I've been told it's pretty bleak, albeit that was just before the Scotland travel restrictions and then subsequent re-opening of shops. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to find.
I'm going into central London tomorrow - Park Lane - to get a new car. It will be the first time in many weeks.
Apart from Soho, and a couple of other hot-spots, I understand it is all, still, quite deserted. Which is depressing
It won't be going back. I used to live on Fleet St and on the weekends it was completely deserted. Now I work round the corner and we're only ever going to go back 2 days a week - as far as I can tell that's pretty typical so it's going to be much calmer in future.
Where did you live on Fleet st? My old stomping ground
New Bridge street technically, was in a top floor flat on ludgate circus for 18 months - woken up by the bells of St Brides which were more or less head height for me.
Nice… I spent some time in a flat at no 37 as well as in Mitre Court - daughter was christened at St Dunstan’s as well so fond memories
Re the Auschwitz joke, quite a lot of Jewish humour (including Holocaust humour) is black as pitch.
The only way to deal with something so inhumane and unspeakable, is humour: after a certain amount of time
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
The primary sources suggest otherwise. Read Primo Levi; there's stuff of that sort in The Truce, his getting home after Auschwitz book, none in If This Is A Man.
I've read Levi. A fine writer. But I don't believe it. I do not believe there is anywhere on earth without human jokes, not even Auschwitz. Indeed the urge to laugh mockingly at the Nazis would have been intense - it would be the only possible revenge. There are jokes in the camps in Schindler's List, and I know the guy that wrote that screenplay - he did his research
We also know there was sex in the camps. Hence, Joy Division
I believe - I am suspicious of over-detailed knowledge of the death camps. Read Levi, then stop. Someone recently pointed out that there are about a dozen books in print with a title in the format "The {Flint-knapper} of Auschwitz."
No offence, but I will read what I like about Auschwitz
The immortal Jewish gift for humour would not have ended at "Arbeit Macht Frei". Someone, somewhere, told a jolly good joke, and someone else laughed. It was probably rather dark
I've read accounts of jokes told by concentration camp inmates. As you might imagine, they are very dark jokes.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
I think Manchester was the warmest place in the country last weekend.
As it always is, of course. Like the Atacama Desert, here, only drier.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
It's self-deprecation. Used to be thought of as a typical British trait.
I'm not sure why anyone would feel so insecure as to feel the need to "sell" their part of the country to someone from a different part.
Yes, I know. I was taking the piss out of the very self-conscious self-depreciation.
I wasn't trying to be self deprecating! That's just how it was outside the pub.
My ears were freezing cold by the time I got home and instead of sympathy I got told that I should have worn a hat.
Still, better to take in some fresh Yorkshire air than the noxious smog of London town.
Ha, fair enough!
Not much smog here though. Went into EC1 the other day and the air was bizarrely clear and fragrant. Very odd.
Sorry, I couldn't help a bit of anti-London bias slipping in there.
I did spend 4 years living in London, so know the pros and cons.
Re the Auschwitz joke, quite a lot of Jewish humour (including Holocaust humour) is black as pitch.
The only way to deal with something so inhumane and unspeakable, is humour: after a certain amount of time
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
The primary sources suggest otherwise. Read Primo Levi; there's stuff of that sort in The Truce, his getting home after Auschwitz book, none in If This Is A Man.
I've read Levi. A fine writer. But I don't believe it. I do not believe there is anywhere on earth without human jokes, not even Auschwitz. Indeed the urge to laugh mockingly at the Nazis would have been intense - it would be the only possible revenge. There are jokes in the camps in Schindler's List, and I know the guy that wrote that screenplay - he did his research
We also know there was sex in the camps. Hence, Joy Division
I believe - I am suspicious of over-detailed knowledge of the death camps. Read Levi, then stop. Someone recently pointed out that there are about a dozen books in print with a title in the format "The {Flint-knapper} of Auschwitz."
No offence, but I will read what I like about Auschwitz
The immortal Jewish gift for humour would not have ended at "Arbeit Macht Frei". Someone, somewhere, told a jolly good joke, and someone else laughed. It was probably rather dark
I've read accounts of jokes told by concentration camp inmates. As you might imagine, they are very dark jokes.
Yes, people clearly joked in Auschwitz, just as they will joke on their deathbeds. Death is death, whether individual or industrialised, and we cope by joking. It is emblematic of humanity
I remember Nigella Lawson's account, of her husband John Diamond dying of cancer. There is something called "the bleeding point" in emergency medicine, and this related to his terminal care.
In the very last hours of his life the doctor was trying to explain this concept to Diamond, as a way of buying him a bit more time, but Diamond said:
"what's the bleeding point?" in a rather pointed way
A brilliant joke at the edge of death. That's what people do
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
It's self-deprecation. Used to be thought of as a typical British trait.
I'm not sure why anyone would feel so insecure as to feel the need to "sell" their part of the country to someone from a different part.
Yes, I know. I was taking the piss out of the very self-conscious self-depreciation.
I wasn't trying to be self deprecating! That's just how it was outside the pub.
My ears were freezing cold by the time I got home and instead of sympathy I got told that I should have worn a hat.
Still, better to take in some fresh Yorkshire air than the noxious smog of London town.
Ha, fair enough!
Not much smog here though. Went into EC1 the other day and the air was bizarrely clear and fragrant. Very odd.
Sorry, I couldn't help a bit of anti-London bias slipping in there.
I did spend 4 years living in London, so know the pros and cons.
Genuinely, it was bizarre. I suspect that the lockdown has cleaned up the air - there was a noticeable improvement in air quality!
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
I think Manchester was the warmest place in the country last weekend.
As it always is, of course. Like the Atacama Desert, here, only drier.
"We are having a cold, wet Spring"
Not my way. We having a very very dry and very cold spring. Garden is struggling.
COVID tracker app....1 million people, 31 got covid after 2 doses, 87 after first dose.
Reports AZN does protect against India variant.
There has not been any real evidence of any of the variants having any real impact on the efficacy of vaccines. The recent Saffer covid outbreak resulted in only asymptomatic infections in the residents of a care home.
"Hartlepool, a once-thriving steel town and industrial port that served the nearby Durham coalfield, was recently named the 10th most deprived town in England. Its unemployment rate is one of the highest in the country. Even on this picturesque spot, flats change hands for £30,000, a fraction of what they fetch in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just 25 miles away."
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
Stop being such a snowflake.
It's cool, I'll give you that, but not wet. So far in April we've had 23 dry days and only six with rain, totalling 8.6mm (the average for April here in Dorset is 58mm).
Plus we'll definitely break a few April sunshine records this year; our solar panels have set a new April record and generated more electicity than they did in any vsummer month last year.
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
I think Manchester was the warmest place in the country last weekend.
As it always is, of course. Like the Atacama Desert, here, only drier.
"We are having a cold, wet Spring"
Not my way. We having a very very dry and very cold spring. Garden is struggling.
Jesus.
Truth, boots on, lying, globe, etc
I have now amended and apologised for my insane remark that "we are having a wet spring" about nine times. It is not wet. It is DRY. I just lazily said "cold and wet" as shorthand for SHIT
But it is shit. The stats show we have endured one of the coldest, unsunniest half years in British weather history
"Hartlepool, a once-thriving steel town and industrial port that served the nearby Durham coalfield, was recently named the 10th most deprived town in England. Its unemployment rate is one of the highest in the country. Even on this picturesque spot, flats change hands for £30,000, a fraction of what they fetch in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just 25 miles away."
It looks to me the DUP vote is fragmenting towards TUV, Alliance and, above all, Will Not Vote. Hence the perceived need to shore up the base, by being hard-line on the Protocol etc.
The DUP runs the risk, I think, of no longer being the first or second party in Northern Ireland if it falls behind Alliance in vote share. Would Alliance would get the Deputy FM post in that case?
Due To The Good Friday Agreement, Alliance can only gain the First Minister role because they are not officially know as neither of Unionist or Nationalist.
They would have to gain the most seats and if they were second, the third party would unfortunately get the Deputy Minister Role.
Is this an existential crisis for the DUP? Having outflanked the UUP, are they going to themselves be outflanked by this new grouping?
Alliance will definitely make gains in D.U.P areas / locations in the Northern Irish 2022 Election. If the surge was to continue, Alliance could be the top party before the end of this Decade.
Lucidtalk today had 6% of 2017 Sinn Fein voters voting Alliance now but only 4% of 2017 DUP voters voting Alliance, so Sinn Fein have actually lost more voters to the Alliance than the DUP have. The SDLP have lost a full 27% of their 2017 voters to the Alliance and the UUP have also lost 12% of their 2017 vote to the Alliance. So the DUP are actually leaking least of the main parties to the Alliance, they are leaking votes to the hard right to TUV instead
I've been in the same carriage of the London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly train as Angela Rayner, she didn't seem overly tall.
She travels first class?
Standing up?
No, she was sat down for the most of the journey.
"She was SITTING down for most of the journey."
HTH!
No TSE was writing formal Yorkshire. In everyday parlance I believe the sentence used by any self respecting Yorkshireman would have been thus: "She were sat down for most o' t' journey".
Been down the pub again tonight. Very inventive what this particular place did with its beer garden. A lovely tent/sail/marquee thing with gas burners plus a futurist bubble pod for posh dinners.
Pretty busy, walked in, scanned the NHS QR voluntarily because nobody asked. Nobody wearing masks other than the waiting staff. A mix of scruffy cyclists like me, a bunch of beer drinking geezers and some dressed-up girls having al fresco birthday drinks. A very pleasant experience.
Barman told me they’ll keep the set up beyond 17 May: have expanded their garden on to the pavements and the council have turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, everyone loves the smart tent.
Could have been a bit warmer, but one can’t control the weather.
8/10.
I counted 5 hardy individuals sat outside our local this evening, wrapped up in their big coats.
Not exactly al fresco weather today.
The northerners on this site do a really terrible job of promoting the north.
Let's face it, it's effing freezing in London at the moment. Another day that barely crept into double digits
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
I think Manchester was the warmest place in the country last weekend.
As it always is, of course. Like the Atacama Desert, here, only drier.
"We are having a cold, wet Spring"
Not my way. We having a very very dry and very cold spring. Garden is struggling.
Jesus.
Truth, boots on, lying, globe, etc
I have now amended and apologised for my insane remark that "we are having a wet spring" about nine times. It is not wet. It is DRY. I just lazily said "cold and wet" as shorthand for SHIT
But it is shit. The stats show we have endured one of the coldest, unsunniest half years in British weather history
Yep. Thought the washing machine was on the blink yesterday. During the spin cycle it sounded like several dozen ball bearings flying round the drum. It was just hailstones on the garage roof.
Comments
I'm told it ran aground at the Mucking Flats which seemed somehow apposite.
Actually governments - unless Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been doing their own.
A Journey in Hats
Huge opportunity missed.
Tho I often wonder if people laughed IN Auschwitz. I believe they must have done, just as they must have made love, told stories, played practical jokes. it is human life, it is irrepressible
I like to imagine an elderly Jew, standing by the ovens, glancing at the chimneys, then leaning over and saying to his skeptical cousin, "at least the trains run on time"
We are having a cold, wet Spring. Bad timing
What can you say about the bunch who prosecuted Karl-Otto Koch for... murder. And shot him for it....
I'm not sure why anyone would feel so insecure as to feel the need to "sell" their part of the country to someone from a different part.
Reading Sumption's book right now as an interlude.
We also know there was sex in the camps. Hence, Joy Division
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Dolls
They would have to gain the most seats and if they were second, the third party would unfortunately get the Deputy Minister Role.
Scratch "wet". But it is cold and grey (as in: lack of sun hours), indeed we've just experienced one of the coldest greyest "six months" in recent UK meteorological history
But fuck it is cold. And (recent days apart) it has been very grey. This is fact
I believe - I am suspicious of over-detailed knowledge of the death camps. Read Levi, then stop. Someone recently pointed out that there are about a dozen books in print with a title in the format "The {Flint-knapper} of Auschwitz."
The immortal Jewish gift for humour would not have ended at "Arbeit Macht Frei". Someone, somewhere, told a jolly good joke, and someone else laughed. It was probably rather dark
'Starmer's key architect of his leadership campaign last year has announced he is quitting, and others say the mood in the party is grim'
As you say, we're well below that - I thought today was a notch less cold than yesterday but 12c is more early March than late April.
It's been incredibly dry but the other noteworthy feature is or are the overnight frosts. I think we've had 12 air frosts in London this month so far which is the most in 50-60 years.
I suspect it'll get wetter before it gets appreciably warmer.
Interior, EU HQ, Day
EU: OMFG you can't put a hard border across Ireland, the peace is sacred, they are all Europeans, the UK must submit!
UK: Oh, FFS, alright then
One Year Later:
Interior, EU HQ, Night
EU: So the UK has an advantage with vaccines, what can we do?
EU: Put a hard border across Ireland?
EU: Nice one. Done. Shall we tell Dublin?
< Pause >
EU: Nah
Even now I know there's a button there, I'll probably still use the code. It takes about the same time to do either, but if I'm typing anyway I find typing the code is less disruptive. 🤷♂️
EDIT: the only button I sometimes press is the post comment button, but normally use the keyboard to press that too.
My ears were freezing cold by the time I got home and instead of sympathy I got told that I should have worn a hat.
Still, better to take in some fresh Yorkshire air than the noxious smog of London town.
As I write, the Edinboro Castle is audible from my table, with drunken kids shouting Oggy oggy oggy, oi oi oi, in call and response - in traditional Cornish style
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oggy_Oggy_Oggy
I would not normally mention this, but I have now heard the same from 3 different pubs. it seems to be a new, post-Covid fashion
I mean, I hope it does, because continual working at home on my own for a year has become a massive depression, and for video meetings I now have all the enthusiasm of a morgue, but we've still got to do this till autumn in our place with no change before then.
I definitely get that everyone being in the office full-time is over, yes, and yeah, probably won't miss it, but I also miss actually leaving the house. Have we got plenty of examples of folk now successfully doing this new hybrid way of things? If so how does it work at your place?
Not much smog here though. Went into EC1 the other day and the air was bizarrely clear and fragrant. Very odd.
Good old self driving cars in 5 years prediction from 2016.
One major advantage of Teams is that I can get on with real work instead of dozing through another pointless meeting. The joys of a twin screen set up...
Reports AZN does protect against India variant.
What about the many many people for whom work is an escape into a new life, or just a break from a less-than-ideal home? Or those who just work better in an office? Or young people who want something different, in the big city? They do exist, in great numbers, but they are probably under-represented on PB
My fear is that companies are seizing this unique chance to save money - lose all the offices! - but no one is thinking longterm how this will affect human society, not necessarily for the better
I am not defending the rigid 9-to-5. it is insane. But we risk baby with bathwater
Seriously thinking of quitting altogether and definitely relinquishing all the workload.
As it always is, of course. Like the Atacama Desert, here, only drier.
I did spend 4 years living in London, so know the pros and cons.
I remember Nigella Lawson's account, of her husband John Diamond dying of cancer. There is something called "the bleeding point" in emergency medicine, and this related to his terminal care.
In the very last hours of his life the doctor was trying to explain this concept to Diamond, as a way of buying him a bit more time, but Diamond said:
"what's the bleeding point?" in a rather pointed way
A brilliant joke at the edge of death. That's what people do
Not my way. We having a very very dry and very cold spring. Garden is struggling.
HTH!
https://www.ft.com/content/23a35c63-0a35-417f-836b-5a8a49ded49f
It's cool, I'll give you that, but not wet. So far in April we've had 23 dry days and only six with rain, totalling 8.6mm (the average for April here in Dorset is 58mm).
Plus we'll definitely break a few April sunshine records this year; our solar panels have set a new April record and generated more electicity than they did in any vsummer month last year.
Truth, boots on, lying, globe, etc
I have now amended and apologised for my insane remark that "we are having a wet spring" about nine times. It is not wet. It is DRY. I just lazily said "cold and wet" as shorthand for SHIT
But it is shit. The stats show we have endured one of the coldest, unsunniest half years in British weather history
https://twitter.com/LucidTalk/status/1387838476595470339?s=20
It was just hailstones on the garage roof.