Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
Its certainly a possibility. Sunak certainly doesn't need the money that comes with the job and politically speaking making a well timed and precisely targeted attack would pay out more than the CofE salary in the long run.
Come on Tories, you need Dishy as PM. Scrap the clowncar, remove the liars and charlatans from high office and deliver the kind of government you profess to support.
Sunak won't have the support Boris does in the Red Wall in my view, certainly if he starts cutting spending and if he raises inheritance tax he will lose support in the South too.
The other problem is that Johnson's style of government needs oodles of chutzpah to pull off. BoJo has it, which is why he's so difficult to oppose. Any likely successor will be a more normal politician. It might well lead to better government, but they'll also believe stuff and do stuff which can be attacked.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
Its certainly a possibility. Sunak certainly doesn't need the money that comes with the job and politically speaking making a well timed and precisely targeted attack would pay out more than the CofE salary in the long run.
Come on Tories, you need Dishy as PM. Scrap the clowncar, remove the liars and charlatans from high office and deliver the kind of government you profess to support.
Sunak won't have the support Boris does in the Red Wall in my view, certainly if he starts cutting spending and if he raises inheritance tax he will lose support in the South too.
The other problem is that Johnson's style of government needs oodles of chutzpah to pull off. BoJo has it, which is why he's so difficult to oppose. Any likely successor will be a more normal politician. It might well lead to better government, but they'll also believe stuff and do stuff which can be attacked.
Indeed, Boris is a once in a generation election winning politician on a par with Blair and Thatcher, nobody else in the current Tory Party can match him for charisma.
Plus we all know what happened to Labour once Blair went and the Tories once Thatcher went, at most Sunak could hope to be Major to Boris' Thatcher, which would mean he would narrowly win next time but could face a landslide defeat the time after
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
One hospital that I worked in had a ghostly nurse. She regularly used to comfort patients at night, soothing disturbed patients with her cool hands, and night staff saw her occasionally.
Anyone been watching the vg Road to Partition on BBC2? I knew some of the events but it was striking how close to a Balkan style situation Ireland was in 1916-22: murder, assassination, massacres, rebellion, civil war, ethnic cleansing, state killing. As one historian put it (I paraphrase), partition was not a solution rather it put the problem in a deep freeze, and sooner or later problems have to come out of the deep freeze.
Yes, I hadn't realised the difficulties with the border going on into the mid-twenties, nor that we got the Irish Free State to agree the current border by forgiving them the Imperial War Debt. An interesting precedent.
Although as I recall they still had to pay pensions for those civil servants based in Ireland.
*Looks round expectantly for ballistic turnip incoming from Ayrshire*
More seriously, that was a good deal for the Irish Free State, because otherwise they would have ended up either with yet another war - which they really could have done without - or humiliation over the Boundary Commission (which to be blunt, hadn't covered itself in glory with its suggestions). No debt, no boundary commission, no war. When Cosgrave said he wanted 'a huge nought' he got three for the price of one. Man was a genius. We could do with somebody of his quality right now.
The losers were the Nationalists of Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh, plus the Unionists of Donegal. Unfortunately, they ended up being pawns in a power play.
And they have been ever since.
once independent England will have to pay my pension.
Is this you?
In Scotland they are very careful not to mention the word Oxford anywhere in relation to AZ. Presumably they fear exactly this sort of idiocy.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
Its certainly a possibility. Sunak certainly doesn't need the money that comes with the job and politically speaking making a well timed and precisely targeted attack would pay out more than the CofE salary in the long run.
Come on Tories, you need Dishy as PM. Scrap the clowncar, remove the liars and charlatans from high office and deliver the kind of government you profess to support.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
I can understand the government's decision. Until at least 2/3 of UK adults have had a second jab then there is simply too high a risk for the unvaccinated and those who have only had 1 jab from the Indian and other potential variants. Therefore they want to minimise foreign travel to only nations which have double vaccinated almost all their population or have barely any cases now at all....
Can you then explain the point of traffic light system ?
Green is countries with double vaccinations or barely any cases (which now no longer includes Portugal). Red is countries where its a major problem. Amber is everyone else.
Traffic lights don't stay green forever. That's surely a part of the paradigm people who aren't deliberately being fools understand?
Is it really so foolish to think that a government which took weeks to introduce travel restrictions with India would spring this on you with 90 hours notice ? (FWIW, I have no intention of travelling overseas this year.)
The justification for the former restriction was far stronger and more urgent, as events have proved.
Yes.
If you think there were no travel restrictions on India, when it's cases were below almost every single nation in the EU and was subject to at home quarantine then surely there's no restrictions on Portugal either when it's on amber in your eyes?
Amber is the default they've said that repeatedly. It's what India was on effectively and it's what Portugal is returning to.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
When I shrug off this mortal coil I am going to be seriously pissed if I still can't leave the bloody office. Stuck at work for eternity. Lordy.
Early briefings of Pentagon ufo report. 1200 incidents detailed. Secret US tech ruled out in almost all cases. Foreign tech suspected in “some” cases. Characteristics of objects such that balloons and birds are ruled out.
Conclusion left hanging. Sounds like the conclusion is We don’t know what they are and do not speculate.
Which then presumably invites a new process, this time involving civilian scientists and engineers looking at data in a more transparent manner. Whether the Handsy in Chief has the marbles and courage to give a proper speech being honest about it all I doubt but perhaps he’ll surprise me.
The report says what that there are things on video that we can't explain with our current technology.
Which is rather a long way away from there are aliens out there.
No one, of course, has said there are Definitely Aliens Out There
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
The grey bloc is not decisive any more than the student bloc.
It's important but if the Tories lose their under 65 voters whom they win every single age of from 39+ and only have the grey vote then they lose the election.
ON topic, I wonder if there is a cynical economic calculation underlying this.
The last big restriction on British life is Foreign Travel: and it seems it will likely stay in place for some months, even as the rest of the impositions are swept away - masks, WFH, etc
Could they be doing this, at least in part, to aid the domestic economy? ie domestic hospitality and British tourism? We run a massive deficit in travel, as so many Brits go abroad. If all that money is pumped into British businesses, for one summer, it will be a significant boost to UK PLC, although it shags British companies that fly folk abroad of course
Anyone been watching the vg Road to Partition on BBC2? I knew some of the events but it was striking how close to a Balkan style situation Ireland was in 1916-22: murder, assassination, massacres, rebellion, civil war, ethnic cleansing, state killing. As one historian put it (I paraphrase), partition was not a solution rather it put the problem in a deep freeze, and sooner or later problems have to come out of the deep freeze.
Yes but putting them in the deep freeze was better than a civil war lasting decades in Northern Ireland which would have been the outcome without partition
I haven't watched (yet) the Road to Partition, but I recently attended (zoomed in on) a talk by a retired Irish diplomat who was of the opinion that the Free State had, more or less, fought itself to a standstill by 1924.
Scottish Government not mentioning Oxford in relation to Astra Zeneca - a litany of failure.
You will see that is published in January. When my wife got AZ in March and again this week there has been no mention of Oxford anywhere. If there are nutters like the author of that tweet about it is sensible enough.
Anyone been watching the vg Road to Partition on BBC2? I knew some of the events but it was striking how close to a Balkan style situation Ireland was in 1916-22: murder, assassination, massacres, rebellion, civil war, ethnic cleansing, state killing. As one historian put it (I paraphrase), partition was not a solution rather it put the problem in a deep freeze, and sooner or later problems have to come out of the deep freeze.
Yes, I hadn't realised the difficulties with the border going on into the mid-twenties, nor that we got the Irish Free State to agree the current border by forgiving them the Imperial War Debt. An interesting precedent.
Although as I recall they still had to pay pensions for those civil servants based in Ireland.
*Looks round expectantly for ballistic turnip incoming from Ayrshire*
More seriously, that was a good deal for the Irish Free State, because otherwise they would have ended up either with yet another war - which they really could have done without - or humiliation over the Boundary Commission (which to be blunt, hadn't covered itself in glory with its suggestions). No debt, no boundary commission, no war. When Cosgrave said he wanted 'a huge nought' he got three for the price of one. Man was a genius. We could do with somebody of his quality right now.
The losers were the Nationalists of Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh, plus the Unionists of Donegal. Unfortunately, they ended up being pawns in a power play.
And they have been ever since.
once independent England will have to pay my pension.
Is this you?
In Scotland they are very careful not to mention the word Oxford anywhere in relation to AZ. Presumably they fear exactly this sort of idiocy.
The idiocy of the credulous on constant trigger warning for da anti Engerlish rayzizm?
Morning! So what would you like with your eggs, some Aliens, China or War on Woke?
China
Yesterday I said the Lab Leak debate, which only goes one way - towards China Is Bad - would end up at Is This A Bioweapon
I did not expect to get there so soon
"Chinese virologist who was among first to tout Wuhan lab theory says Fauci's emails back up what she's been saying all along - the coronavirus is 'an unrestricted bioweapon' - and blasts Fauci and medical experts for cover-up"
You know who else had a party that was based on nationalism, socialism and the workers...
Two out of three. Fuck the workers.
Carrie's a worker?
(Ouch, on the photo, that's awful.)
His council house teeth really offend Mrs DA who otherwise does not have a single fully formed political opinion.
Surely teeth like that get £ signs flashing up in Mrs @Dura_Ace eyes?
Went for a barbecue last weekend. The hosts' daughter is a cosmetic dentistry salesperson. The whole family were walking around with what looked like brilliant white dentures. It felt surreal like a Steradent advert!
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
The grey bloc is not decisive any more than the student bloc.
It's important but if the Tories lose their under 65 voters whom they win every single age of from 39+ and only have the grey vote then they lose the election.
Lol.
Would you mind giving us the absolute number of pensioners voting versus students voting?
It's an interesting experiment going on in the EU.
Unlocking with vaccinations significantly lower than here, whilst there is a new variant in the environment, and Brussels trying to make borders stay open. But with a mix of vaccines mainly Pfizer. And some have closed borders to here more firmly (Fr, De for two).
To me it has a correspondence to December 2020, when the UK variant was starting up. I'd say the main difference is how far vaccines across Europe with attenuate the overall wave in a pop with reducing vulnerable population.
In EU average it is still only 14-15% of the population who have full protection of 2 vaccines.
On topic, it is of course a terrible decision but that's what you get when you have a lazy government used to ruling by decree. From that point of view, the Opposition is almost as much at fault as the Government, as they have let them have powers unprecedented in peacetime without bothering to challenge them.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
Not true, the age at which most people first voted Tory in 2017 was 47 and the Tories did not win a majority.
In 2019 however the age at which most people first voted Tory was 39 and the Tories won a comfortable majority
I see Gove is supposed to be self isolating after going to the Champions League final, but has managed to get himself on a pilot programme that is trialling daily testing instead! What are the odds!
So the media and Mike Smithson having spent the last year complaining that the government is too slow to take unpopular action are now complaining that the government is too fast to take unpopular action.
Crucially the late unpopular precautions of last year had devastating consequences. Maybe their early unpopular action this time is wise, only time will tell. I suppose the common thread is that both now and last year u have been shrouded in uncertainty
I'd say the common thread throughout has been the media obsessing about 'icing on the cake' things such as foreign holidays and Christmas dinners rather than the 'cake' of everyday normal life.
On topic, it is of course a terrible decision but that's what you get when you have a lazy government used to ruling by decree. From that point of view, the Opposition is almost as much at fault as the Government, as they have let them have powers unprecedented in peacetime without bothering to challenge them.
I pointed out some time ago that the opposition had success criticizing the government for not locking down. Psychologically it is very difficult for them to switch sides even if they should.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
Its certainly a possibility. Sunak certainly doesn't need the money that comes with the job and politically speaking making a well timed and precisely targeted attack would pay out more than the CofE salary in the long run.
Come on Tories, you need Dishy as PM. Scrap the clowncar, remove the liars and charlatans from high office and deliver the kind of government you profess to support.
Sunak won't have the support Boris does in the Red Wall in my view, certainly if he starts cutting spending and if he raises inheritance tax he will lose support in the South too.
The other problem is that Johnson's style of government needs oodles of chutzpah to pull off. BoJo has it, which is why he's so difficult to oppose. Any likely successor will be a more normal politician. It might well lead to better government, but they'll also believe stuff and do stuff which can be attacked.
Indeed, Boris is a once in a generation election winning politician on a par with Blair and Thatcher, nobody else in the current Tory Party can match him for charisma.
Plus we all know what happened to Labour once Blair went and the Tories once Thatcher went, at most Sunak could hope to be Major to Boris' Thatcher, which would mean he would narrowly win next time but could face a landslide defeat the time after
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
Its certainly a possibility. Sunak certainly doesn't need the money that comes with the job and politically speaking making a well timed and precisely targeted attack would pay out more than the CofE salary in the long run.
Come on Tories, you need Dishy as PM. Scrap the clowncar, remove the liars and charlatans from high office and deliver the kind of government you profess to support.
Early briefings of Pentagon ufo report. 1200 incidents detailed. Secret US tech ruled out in almost all cases. Foreign tech suspected in “some” cases. Characteristics of objects such that balloons and birds are ruled out.
Conclusion left hanging. Sounds like the conclusion is We don’t know what they are and do not speculate.
Which then presumably invites a new process, this time involving civilian scientists and engineers looking at data in a more transparent manner. Whether the Handsy in Chief has the marbles and courage to give a proper speech being honest about it all I doubt but perhaps he’ll surprise me.
The report says what that there are things on video that we can't explain with our current technology.
Which is rather a long way away from there are aliens out there.
No one, of course, has said there are Definitely Aliens Out There
Merely relaying concerns?
Yes, basically
Note that the NYT report (if accurate about the New Pentagon Papers) confirms what was predicted: over some months, every "human" hypothesis will be slowly ruled out, first the Yanks, then the Chinese and Russians, leaving us with OMFG.... but no one will ever say definitively: this is non-human technology
We will be left to draw our own conclusions, according to what we already believe. And many will say This is Pentagon psy-ops, or mass hallucination, or a religious spasm, and of course they could be right
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
Not true, the age at which most people first voted Tory in 2017 was 47 and the Tories did not win a majority.
In 2019 however the age at which most people first voted Tory was 39 and the Tories won a comfortable majority
You are missing the swing to Tory *within* the retired cohort.
I see Gove is supposed to be self isolating after going to the Champions League final, but has managed to get himself on a pilot programme that is trialling daily testing instead! What are the odds!
There's a lot of competition but Gove's ability to arrange things for his own benefit is exemplary. BJ's desire is as strong but he's too lazy and shambolic to get it right a lot of the time.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Does anyone genuinely think the risk presented by allowing travellers to Portugal is higher than the risk presented by keeping the borders open for India for weeks?
I don’t.
This is a cock-up.
Ye, Portugal is instantly switched whereas we had scenes of queues for crematoriums in India and nothing was done for ages.
On topic, it is of course a terrible decision but that's what you get when you have a lazy government used to ruling by decree. From that point of view, the Opposition is almost as much at fault as the Government, as they have let them have powers unprecedented in peacetime without bothering to challenge them.
I pointed out some time ago that the opposition had success criticizing the government for not locking down. Psychologically it is very difficult for them to switch sides even if they should.
"When the facts change ..."
The fact in question being that the vulnerable have had their vaccinations.
If the vaccines don't protect people, why are we bothering with them at all? It's not a difficult point to make, indeed OGH makes it in three lines in the header.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
Not true, the age at which most people first voted Tory in 2017 was 47 and the Tories did not win a majority.
In 2019 however the age at which most people first voted Tory was 39 and the Tories won a comfortable majority
You are missing the swing to Tory *within* the retired cohort.
I can’t read the article but what is the swing on the other wage bands?
Britain Elects tweeted this GE2019: Labour won 38.4% of non-retiree households earning between £25,000-30,000 a year, but that figure represents a fall of 12pts on 2017...
It's an interesting experiment going on in the EU.
Unlocking with vaccinations significantly lower than here, whilst there is a new variant in the environment, and Brussels trying to make borders stay open. But with a mix of vaccines mainly Pfizer. And some have closed borders to here more firmly (Fr, De for two).
To me it has a correspondence to December 2020, when the UK variant was starting up. I'd say the main difference is how far vaccines across Europe with attenuate the overall wave in a pop with reducing vulnerable population.
In EU average it is still only 14-15% of the population who have full protection of 2 vaccines.
Will it make much difference?
The case numbers have fallen quickly in most EU countries; indeed some of them are now reporting fewer daily new cases than the UK, a very different situation to just a month ago.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
One of my direct reports matter of factly told me one day over a beer or 2 that he sees dead people.
He says his son has the same ability - which caused some consternation when he was very young and was talking about the other people who "shared" the house with visitors.
I have to say he took some real shit from his workmates /........
It strikes me that we'll never be fully out of this mess until a high proportion of the world's population is vaccinated, with boosters available as necessary. Gordon Brown is, I think, right - the G7 should focus on financing, producing and delivering vaccines across the globe. Global interconnectedness is such that until this happens the virus, and variants thereof, are bound to continue spreading fairly haphazardly.
As an island nation we should have an advantage in protecting our borders until that happens. Mind you, the volume of migrants across the Channel suggests that Patel's remedy (whatever it is) is failing. The problem with having deals with individual countries that are doing well (e.g. Portugal) is that those countries are also susceptible to large volumes of people moving in and out of their borders from random parts of the world, not just from our country.
So hopefully we will be able to continue to ease internal restrictions in line with the rising numbers vaccinated. But until the world (or 80% of it, say) is vaccinated, I'm not optimistic about the prospects for international travel.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Even if real, it doesn't necessarily establish that death isn't the end. Just as likely, the "person" could be stone dead and long gone, and the images arise as some sort of shadow because of a yet-to-be-understood quirk in space-time
As soon as Einstein's theory that time isn't the constant non-changing yardstick that we'd always assumed was proven, we've been at sea in terms of understanding what time might be and how it and space interact. If you read some of the Rovelli stuff, the contemporary explanations being explored to try and explain it all are becoming more and more fantastical; it seems to me that something more straightforward (in concept) is being overlooked and will be discovered, or imagined and proven, one day.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Fascinating!
Tell us more, seriously. I love ghost stories. There is definitely *something* out there: too many people see too many ghosts. But that's a long way from saying they are intelligent phantoms of the dead
I note this in your story:
"Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). "
Here is one theory I have read which might explain this. I love this theory because it is so ingenious
Apparently big old buildings with long corridors with rooms off can create unusual vibrations in the air. These vibrations are not immediately apparent, because they are subsonic: too low frequency for us to consciously hear, but we still sense them, subconsciously
And they induce a terrible dread, which can in turn make the brain create ghosts, to explain the nameless fear to itself
Why the dread? Because large predators like big cats - lions, leopards, sabre-tooth tigers - emit a subsonic growl as they attack, to paralyse their prey with fear. Tens of thousand of years of evolution on the African plains has given us this same fear, so when we hear it in old rectories, we think we are about to die
I believe experiments have been done: where people are subjected to subsonic noises without warning, and they basically crap themselves and see ghosts
Of course one might ask why predators use subsonic growls, and why do they cause fear in the first place? Perhaps it is because they mimic the sounds of ghosts in rambling English castles
Scottish Government not mentioning Oxford in relation to Astra Zeneca - a litany of failure.
You will see that is published in January. When my wife got AZ in March and again this week there has been no mention of Oxford anywhere. If there are nutters like the author of that tweet about it is sensible enough.
To be fair, I've hardly heard anyone refer to the Oxford vaccine (nor the BioNTech vaccine). Just AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Even my mum, who is something of an English nationalist, when I asked which she'd had, couldn't quite remember the name ("the Astra something one") but didn't mention Oxford.
Mind you, might just be because those of us who studied/work at scumbag college or Fenland Poly are jealous
It's an interesting experiment going on in the EU.
Unlocking with vaccinations significantly lower than here, whilst there is a new variant in the environment, and Brussels trying to make borders stay open. But with a mix of vaccines mainly Pfizer. And some have closed borders to here more firmly (Fr, De for two).
To me it has a correspondence to December 2020, when the UK variant was starting up. I'd say the main difference is how far vaccines across Europe with attenuate the overall wave in a pop with reducing vulnerable population.
In EU average it is still only 14-15% of the population who have full protection of 2 vaccines.
Will it make much difference?
The case numbers have fallen quickly in most EU countries; indeed some of them are now reporting fewer daily new cases than the UK, a very different situation to just a month ago.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
Not true, the age at which most people first voted Tory in 2017 was 47 and the Tories did not win a majority.
In 2019 however the age at which most people first voted Tory was 39 and the Tories won a comfortable majority
You are missing the swing to Tory *within* the retired cohort.
There was a swing to the Tories in every cohort but if the Tories had lost all voters under 55 in 2019 then Corbyn would likely now be PM in a hung parliament with SNP confidence and supply
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
'You cannot put old shoulders on a young head'
It would be extraordinary if you could. Imagine having your shoulders on top of your head.
#China’s nationalism isn’t getting weird or anything. Tonight I go to have some BBQ in #Beijing and all of the waiting staff are wearing these T-shirts in an area with foreign embassies. “Chinese people won’t be pushed around...#USA has no right to speak down to Chinese people”. https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1400466643101224960
Presumably pushing them around must remain the preserve of the authoritarian regime ?
Anyone been watching the vg Road to Partition on BBC2? I knew some of the events but it was striking how close to a Balkan style situation Ireland was in 1916-22: murder, assassination, massacres, rebellion, civil war, ethnic cleansing, state killing. As one historian put it (I paraphrase), partition was not a solution rather it put the problem in a deep freeze, and sooner or later problems have to come out of the deep freeze.
Yes, I hadn't realised the difficulties with the border going on into the mid-twenties, nor that we got the Irish Free State to agree the current border by forgiving them the Imperial War Debt. An interesting precedent.
Although as I recall they still had to pay pensions for those civil servants based in Ireland.
*Looks round expectantly for ballistic turnip incoming from Ayrshire*
More seriously, that was a good deal for the Irish Free State, because otherwise they would have ended up either with yet another war - which they really could have done without - or humiliation over the Boundary Commission (which to be blunt, hadn't covered itself in glory with its suggestions). No debt, no boundary commission, no war. When Cosgrave said he wanted 'a huge nought' he got three for the price of one. Man was a genius. We could do with somebody of his quality right now.
The losers were the Nationalists of Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh, plus the Unionists of Donegal. Unfortunately, they ended up being pawns in a power play.
And they have been ever since.
once independent England will have to pay my pension.
Is this you?
In Scotland they are very careful not to mention the word Oxford anywhere in relation to AZ. Presumably they fear exactly this sort of idiocy.
The idiocy of the credulous on constant trigger warning for da anti Engerlish rayzizm?
Doubtless an overreaction to the hyper vigilance to any furtherance of the lebensraum of rapacious anglo-saxonry.
It's an interesting experiment going on in the EU.
Unlocking with vaccinations significantly lower than here, whilst there is a new variant in the environment, and Brussels trying to make borders stay open. But with a mix of vaccines mainly Pfizer. And some have closed borders to here more firmly (Fr, De for two).
To me it has a correspondence to December 2020, when the UK variant was starting up. I'd say the main difference is how far vaccines across Europe with attenuate the overall wave in a pop with reducing vulnerable population.
In EU average it is still only 14-15% of the population who have full protection of 2 vaccines.
Will it make much difference?
The case numbers have fallen quickly in most EU countries; indeed some of them are now reporting fewer daily new cases than the UK, a very different situation to just a month ago.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
I have had four mad ones recently.
A photo of me and my daughter turned upside down in the picture frame by itselt.
I was sat alone in my lounge and a picture of my daughter which had been on the top of a bookcase for years threw itself to the floor.
When I went for a haircut, I left my phone in the car.
When I returned in the draft messages this was written:
"4 minutes and he is busy joking, thank 4x"
With this text was three emojis of an owl with a loveheart
The destination for the message was my mum.
And the maddest one, I visited my mum last week and I was just leaving when her phone started ringing in the kitchen. She went and got it and I was Whatsapp ringing her. My phone was in my pocket and I was not ringing her.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
A scientist on Sky just now has said moving Portugal to amber is the correct decision to enable the UK to open on the 21st June
Are we seeing a change in the narrative
Close our borders to enable the 21st June
I think there is something in that. However I think the odds of 21 June happening to any meaningful degree are now 60/40 against. The decision that should be preoccupying the front pages is the India red list decision. We would not have kept Delta out forever but we sure as hell might have been able to delay widespread seeding until more of the population had been double vaccinated. I think we are looking at September for Step 4 now with some rolling back of Step 3 in the meantime because of the inexplicable delay over India.
Sorry - thats utter nonsense. The criteria have always been based on the effects on hospitalization and death, not just cases. There is NO sign that H and D are increasing significantly (more in Scotland if anything). The hot-spots are not in any different restrictions to the rest of England and the cases are falling, and hospitals have seen modest increases of mostly unvaccinated or at best single vaccinated (and we don't know how recently) poeple.
Hold your nerve, ignore the dying gasps of the monster that is iSAGE and get ready to live your life as normal soon. Since last friday i have played cricket, been to the pub and club for beers, been to a huge outdoor flea market with thousands of others, been for a meal in a nice pub with my 82 year old father and family and been at work helping a MSc student start her research project. The only thing that has not been normal is a mask requirment which I fully expect will be binned in 17 days time.
The delay in putting India on the red list, which allowed variant cases to be imported in large numbers, when rompter action would have brought us more time to complete the vaccination programme, will result in a delay to any significantg opening on 21 June. There may be some small changes, increased numbers at outside events, more people meeting indoors, but the chances of the scale of reopening you suggest are as close to zero as you can get.
#China’s nationalism isn’t getting weird or anything. Tonight I go to have some BBQ in #Beijing and all of the waiting staff are wearing these T-shirts in an area with foreign embassies. “Chinese people won’t be pushed around...#USA has no right to speak down to Chinese people”. https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1400466643101224960
Presumably pushing them around must remain the preserve of the authoritarian regime ?
Truly bizarre reaction. China is unnerved by the lab leak stuff. They had control of the narrative for a year, now they've lost it, probably forever, and it is not good for them
The concern is that a prickly, nervous regime with enormous power will lash out, militarily - to reassert itself and regain "respect"
Variable performance by state in the US on vaccination:
The United States is roughly on track to meet President Biden’s goal of getting at least one Covid-19 shot into the arms of 70 percent of adults by July 4 — if the current vaccination pace holds. But demand for vaccines has decreased in much of the country in recent weeks, and the promising national numbers (about 63 percent of adults have received at least one shot) do not reflect the uneven rates among states.
Even if the country as a whole reaches the national target, at least 30 states probably will not. And a handful are unlikely to reach the 70 percent mark before the end of the year, a New York Times analysis shows, potentially prolonging the pandemic.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Never had any ghostly experience myself. But when at College of Law in Chester, I was part of a group of 9 in an old rectory, just (100 yards) over the border in Wales. My then gf was in the house on her own, when laughing children's voices were running up and down the big staircase. Nobody else there. Not at all scary, she said.
One of the others, a burly bloke from Sheffield, came down to breakfast white as the proverbial. "Guys, did you play a trick on me last night?" Nope, none of us had. With that, he packed his stuff and moved out by lunchtime.
My stepfather in a newly-acquired farmhouse in Derbyshire saw a red-faced man at the foot of the bed, staring at him. When he described it to a local, he said that was definitely "Brick" Barratt, a farmer who had shot himself in that very room.
Another gf was on a school exchange to mid-France. When it came to mealtime, she asked if the old lady upstairs was going to join them. Turns out the old lady had been dead years - but again, a perfect description.
#China’s nationalism isn’t getting weird or anything. Tonight I go to have some BBQ in #Beijing and all of the waiting staff are wearing these T-shirts in an area with foreign embassies. “Chinese people won’t be pushed around...#USA has no right to speak down to Chinese people”. https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1400466643101224960
Presumably pushing them around must remain the preserve of the authoritarian regime ?
Truly bizarre reaction. China is unnerved by the lab leak stuff. They had control of the narrative for a year, now they've lost it, probably forever, and it is not good for them
The concern is that a prickly, nervous regime with enormous power will lash out, militarily - to reassert itself and regain "respect"
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Fascinating!
Tell us more, seriously. I love ghost stories. There is definitely *something* out there: too many people see too many ghosts. But that's a long way from saying they are intelligent phantoms of the dead
I note this in your story:
"Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). "
Here is one theory I have read which might explain this. I love this theory because it is so ingenious
Apparently big old buildings with long corridors with rooms off can create unusual vibrations in the air. These vibrations are not immediately apparent, because they are subsonic: too low frequency for us to consciously hear, but we still sense them, subconsciously
And they induce a terrible dread, which can in turn make the brain create ghosts, to explain the nameless fear to itself
Why the dread? Because large predators like big cats - lions, leopards, sabre-tooth tigers - emit a subsonic growl as they attack, to paralyse their prey with fear. Tens of thousand of years of evolution on the African plains has given us this same fear, so when we hear it in old rectories, we think we are about to die
I believe experiments have been done: where people are subjected to subsonic noises without warning, and they basically crap themselves and see ghosts
Of course one might ask why predators use subsonic growls, and why do they cause fear in the first place? Perhaps it is because they mimic the sounds of ghosts in rambling English castles
Its a U-shaped building. The ground floor middle and north wing are the former Bank of Scotland dating from 1854. The south wing on both floors are the later (c. 1880s) extension to the house part, with the entire upper floor being bedrooms / store rooms, with a single upstairs storeroom at the northwesterly extremity which is accessed from downstairs in the bank.
When you go upstairs in the house the stairs split. To the right/south two big bedrooms in the extension, to the left/north a long corridor with three bedrooms off to the right and two boxrooms to the left. Then the cross corridor at the end, very short to the right into the 6th bedroom my younger son is in, slightly longer to the left to the bathroom. Behind the end wall of the bathroom is the upstairs storage room accessed from the bank.
I can walk round the house and the bank day or night and feel no fear or dread. Its our house! If I was going to visualise a ghost from vibrations then why not at 3am heading to the bathroom? And does a domestic RCD that has tripped throw its switch back to the on position due to vibrations...?
Really need to get my sis-in-law back down here. One ghost is Jim (James) Shives - the guy who died here in 1891. We know its Jim not James as he told her so... Yeah I know, she's making it up. Except she isn't. And their 1795 built house down the road is even more haunted including the previous owner who appears in the chair he died sat in on the anniversary. We're going to throw him a party next time round.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
Not true, the age at which most people first voted Tory in 2017 was 47 and the Tories did not win a majority.
In 2019 however the age at which most people first voted Tory was 39 and the Tories won a comfortable majority
You are missing the swing to Tory *within* the retired cohort.
I can’t read the article but what is the swing on the other wage bands?
Britain Elects tweeted this GE2019: Labour won 38.4% of non-retiree households earning between £25,000-30,000 a year, but that figure represents a fall of 12pts on 2017...
Yes. Corbyn! But astonishingly according to BES they still won all (non retired) income earners up to £100k.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Fascinating!
Tell us more, seriously. I love ghost stories. There is definitely *something* out there: too many people see too many ghosts. But that's a long way from saying they are intelligent phantoms of the dead
I note this in your story:
"Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). "
Here is one theory I have read which might explain this. I love this theory because it is so ingenious
Apparently big old buildings with long corridors with rooms off can create unusual vibrations in the air. These vibrations are not immediately apparent, because they are subsonic: too low frequency for us to consciously hear, but we still sense them, subconsciously
And they induce a terrible dread, which can in turn make the brain create ghosts, to explain the nameless fear to itself
Why the dread? Because large predators like big cats - lions, leopards, sabre-tooth tigers - emit a subsonic growl as they attack, to paralyse their prey with fear. Tens of thousand of years of evolution on the African plains has given us this same fear, so when we hear it in old rectories, we think we are about to die
I believe experiments have been done: where people are subjected to subsonic noises without warning, and they basically crap themselves and see ghosts
Of course one might ask why predators use subsonic growls, and why do they cause fear in the first place? Perhaps it is because they mimic the sounds of ghosts in rambling English castles
Yes, I've heard that theory. Half remembered detail: frequency of 19 cycles per second cause a sense of distinct unease and also 'smudges' in the vision which the brain interprets as human (because that is the most expected cause of the eye seeing movement), then ghost (when human turns out not to be there).
Interestingly, based on this theory, researchers were able to 'create' ghosts - or the experience of seeing a ghost - in a distinctly humdrum and unthreatening research facility in Coventry.
These frequencies are more common in old buildings because poor insulation, or something.
As I said, a half-remembered bit of info I saw once, 20-odd years ago. So may be nonsense.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Fascinating!
Tell us more, seriously. I love ghost stories. There is definitely *something* out there: too many people see too many ghosts. But that's a long way from saying they are intelligent phantoms of the dead
I note this in your story:
"Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). "
Here is one theory I have read which might explain this. I love this theory because it is so ingenious
Apparently big old buildings with long corridors with rooms off can create unusual vibrations in the air. These vibrations are not immediately apparent, because they are subsonic: too low frequency for us to consciously hear, but we still sense them, subconsciously
And they induce a terrible dread, which can in turn make the brain create ghosts, to explain the nameless fear to itself
Why the dread? Because large predators like big cats - lions, leopards, sabre-tooth tigers - emit a subsonic growl as they attack, to paralyse their prey with fear. Tens of thousand of years of evolution on the African plains has given us this same fear, so when we hear it in old rectories, we think we are about to die
I believe experiments have been done: where people are subjected to subsonic noises without warning, and they basically crap themselves and see ghosts
Of course one might ask why predators use subsonic growls, and why do they cause fear in the first place? Perhaps it is because they mimic the sounds of ghosts in rambling English castles
Yes, I've heard that theory. Half remembered detail: frequency of 19 cycles per second cause a sense of distinct unease and also 'smudges' in the vision which the brain interprets as human (because that is the most expected cause of the eye seeing movement), then ghost (when human turns out not to be there).
Interestingly, based on this theory, researchers were able to 'create' ghosts - or the experience of seeing a ghost - in a distinctly humdrum and unthreatening research facility in Coventry.
These frequencies are more common in old buildings because poor insulation, or something.
As I said, a half-remembered bit of info I saw once, 20-odd years ago. So may be nonsense.
#China’s nationalism isn’t getting weird or anything. Tonight I go to have some BBQ in #Beijing and all of the waiting staff are wearing these T-shirts in an area with foreign embassies. “Chinese people won’t be pushed around...#USA has no right to speak down to Chinese people”. https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1400466643101224960
Presumably pushing them around must remain the preserve of the authoritarian regime ?
Truly bizarre reaction. China is unnerved by the lab leak stuff. They had control of the narrative for a year, now they've lost it, probably forever, and it is not good for them
The concern is that a prickly, nervous regime with enormous power will lash out, militarily - to reassert itself and regain "respect"
After finishing his brilliant book The Splendid and The Vile (on Churchill and the Blitz etc) I have moved on to another Erik Larson book: In The Garden of Beasts, a true story about a naive middle-American family where the patriarch becomes US Ambassador to Berlin in 1933
So far it is excellent, just as good as the Blitz book
The parallels between early Nazi Germany and Xi Jinping's China are uncanny. Hitler kept doing terrible things and everyone kept saying "OMG - but surely this won't last", and then Hitler would say something nice, or appear sane and regretful, and then everyone would sigh and relax. Then Hitler would do something even worse than before, and so the cycle repeated
I really hope Xi's China is not Hitler's Germany. But the echoes can be heard
Scottish Government not mentioning Oxford in relation to Astra Zeneca - a litany of failure.
You will see that is published in January. When my wife got AZ in March and again this week there has been no mention of Oxford anywhere. If there are nutters like the author of that tweet about it is sensible enough.
To be fair, I've hardly heard anyone refer to the Oxford vaccine (nor the BioNTech vaccine). Just AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Even my mum, who is something of an English nationalist, when I asked which she'd had, couldn't quite remember the name ("the Astra something one") but didn't mention Oxford.
Mind you, might just be because those of us who studied/work at scumbag college or Fenland Poly are jealous
I thought Fenland Poly was Anglia Ruskin...... Almost a Real University.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
Not true, the age at which most people first voted Tory in 2017 was 47 and the Tories did not win a majority.
In 2019 however the age at which most people first voted Tory was 39 and the Tories won a comfortable majority
You are missing the swing to Tory *within* the retired cohort.
One thing about the debate on this that was barely mentioned the other day is Brexit. That surely was the major factor driving the swing to the Tories in the over 65's between 2010 and 2019.
Of course this is the population with least to lose from Brexitism.
For me it doesn't matter because neither of those parties is really campaigning for the return of your freedoms.
In truth, none of the main parties are. The fact that Johnson can do what he wants is partly down to labour. They let him. Labour's main policy is envy. They would just like to be where Johnson is.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Fascinating!
Tell us more, seriously. I love ghost stories. There is definitely *something* out there: too many people see too many ghosts. But that's a long way from saying they are intelligent phantoms of the dead
I note this in your story:
"Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). "
Here is one theory I have read which might explain this. I love this theory because it is so ingenious
Apparently big old buildings with long corridors with rooms off can create unusual vibrations in the air. These vibrations are not immediately apparent, because they are subsonic: too low frequency for us to consciously hear, but we still sense them, subconsciously
And they induce a terrible dread, which can in turn make the brain create ghosts, to explain the nameless fear to itself
Why the dread? Because large predators like big cats - lions, leopards, sabre-tooth tigers - emit a subsonic growl as they attack, to paralyse their prey with fear. Tens of thousand of years of evolution on the African plains has given us this same fear, so when we hear it in old rectories, we think we are about to die
I believe experiments have been done: where people are subjected to subsonic noises without warning, and they basically crap themselves and see ghosts
Of course one might ask why predators use subsonic growls, and why do they cause fear in the first place? Perhaps it is because they mimic the sounds of ghosts in rambling English castles
Yes, I've heard that theory. Half remembered detail: frequency of 19 cycles per second cause a sense of distinct unease and also 'smudges' in the vision which the brain interprets as human (because that is the most expected cause of the eye seeing movement), then ghost (when human turns out not to be there).
Interestingly, based on this theory, researchers were able to 'create' ghosts - or the experience of seeing a ghost - in a distinctly humdrum and unthreatening research facility in Coventry.
These frequencies are more common in old buildings because poor insulation, or something.
As I said, a half-remembered bit of info I saw once, 20-odd years ago. So may be nonsense.
Wasn't there something in David Livingtone's (the I presume, chap) memoirs about a similar experience when he was attacked by a lion?
It's an interesting experiment going on in the EU.
Unlocking with vaccinations significantly lower than here, whilst there is a new variant in the environment, and Brussels trying to make borders stay open. But with a mix of vaccines mainly Pfizer. And some have closed borders to here more firmly (Fr, De for two).
To me it has a correspondence to December 2020, when the UK variant was starting up. I'd say the main difference is how far vaccines across Europe with attenuate the overall wave in a pop with reducing vulnerable population.
In EU average it is still only 14-15% of the population who have full protection of 2 vaccines.
Will it make much difference?
The case numbers have fallen quickly in most EU countries; indeed some of them are now reporting fewer daily new cases than the UK, a very different situation to just a month ago.
Scottish Government not mentioning Oxford in relation to Astra Zeneca - a litany of failure.
You will see that is published in January. When my wife got AZ in March and again this week there has been no mention of Oxford anywhere. If there are nutters like the author of that tweet about it is sensible enough.
To be fair, I've hardly heard anyone refer to the Oxford vaccine (nor the BioNTech vaccine). Just AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Even my mum, who is something of an English nationalist, when I asked which she'd had, couldn't quite remember the name ("the Astra something one") but didn't mention Oxford.
Mind you, might just be because those of us who studied/work at scumbag college or Fenland Poly are jealous
I thought Fenland Poly was Anglia Ruskin...... Almost a Real University.
I must admit, I thought Chelmsford's elevation to city status was - on the traditional criteria of a cathedral and a university - slightly tenuous. Neither are, perhaps, exemplars of their type.
(I don't actually know much about ARU nowadays, it might be very good - when I was there it was still APU).
#China’s nationalism isn’t getting weird or anything. Tonight I go to have some BBQ in #Beijing and all of the waiting staff are wearing these T-shirts in an area with foreign embassies. “Chinese people won’t be pushed around...#USA has no right to speak down to Chinese people”. https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1400466643101224960
Presumably pushing them around must remain the preserve of the authoritarian regime ?
Truly bizarre reaction. China is unnerved by the lab leak stuff. They had control of the narrative for a year, now they've lost it, probably forever, and it is not good for them
The concern is that a prickly, nervous regime with enormous power will lash out, militarily - to reassert itself and regain "respect"
After finishing his brilliant book The Splendid and The Vile (on Churchill and the Blitz etc) I have moved on to another Erik Larson book: In The Garden of Beasts, a true story about a naive middle-American family where the patriarch becomes US Ambassador to Berlin in 1933
So far it is excellent, just as good as the Blitz book
The parallels between early Nazi Germany and Xi Jinping's China are uncanny. Hitler kept doing terrible things and everyone kept saying "OMG - but surely this won't last", and then Hitler would say something nice, or appear sane and regretful, and then everyone would sigh and relax. Then Hitler would do something even worse than before, and so the cycle repeated
I really hope Xi's China is not Hitler's Germany. But the echoes can be heard
The parallels are pretty limited, I think. China is a very different kind of totalitarian regime.
For the record, I still think we're going ahead with June 21 as planned. Garde ta foy!
I'm expecting Boris to announce 'Stage 3.5' for 21 June - some further relaxations, but not all. And no more green countries.
When do you see 4.0 coming then? I know some people need or very much want to travel, but really green countries abroad can wait until this one is green.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
Not true, the age at which most people first voted Tory in 2017 was 47 and the Tories did not win a majority.
In 2019 however the age at which most people first voted Tory was 39 and the Tories won a comfortable majority
You are missing the swing to Tory *within* the retired cohort.
I can’t read the article but what is the swing on the other wage bands?
Britain Elects tweeted this GE2019: Labour won 38.4% of non-retiree households earning between £25,000-30,000 a year, but that figure represents a fall of 12pts on 2017...
Yes. Corbyn! But astonishingly according to BES they still won all (non retired) income earners up to £100k.
Only under 34, over 34 the Tories won all classes bar DEs with Mori
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Fascinating!
Tell us more, seriously. I love ghost stories. There is definitely *something* out there: too many people see too many ghosts. But that's a long way from saying they are intelligent phantoms of the dead
I note this in your story:
"Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). "
Here is one theory I have read which might explain this. I love this theory because it is so ingenious
Apparently big old buildings with long corridors with rooms off can create unusual vibrations in the air. These vibrations are not immediately apparent, because they are subsonic: too low frequency for us to consciously hear, but we still sense them, subconsciously
And they induce a terrible dread, which can in turn make the brain create ghosts, to explain the nameless fear to itself
Why the dread? Because large predators like big cats - lions, leopards, sabre-tooth tigers - emit a subsonic growl as they attack, to paralyse their prey with fear. Tens of thousand of years of evolution on the African plains has given us this same fear, so when we hear it in old rectories, we think we are about to die
I believe experiments have been done: where people are subjected to subsonic noises without warning, and they basically crap themselves and see ghosts
Of course one might ask why predators use subsonic growls, and why do they cause fear in the first place? Perhaps it is because they mimic the sounds of ghosts in rambling English castles
Yes, I've heard that theory. Half remembered detail: frequency of 19 cycles per second cause a sense of distinct unease and also 'smudges' in the vision which the brain interprets as human (because that is the most expected cause of the eye seeing movement), then ghost (when human turns out not to be there).
Interestingly, based on this theory, researchers were able to 'create' ghosts - or the experience of seeing a ghost - in a distinctly humdrum and unthreatening research facility in Coventry.
These frequencies are more common in old buildings because poor insulation, or something.
As I said, a half-remembered bit of info I saw once, 20-odd years ago. So may be nonsense.
There's also the well known propensity not to see (the basketball gorilla video). Human perception is extremely unreliable in particular circumstances.
For the record, I still think we're going ahead with June 21 as planned. Garde ta foy!
I'm expecting Boris to announce 'Stage 3.5' for 21 June - some further relaxations, but not all. And no more green countries.
Maybe.
I think if he gave the great vaccinated nothing, that might be a turning point. I am not sure any more.
Strange to say I only feel like I joined Covidworld yesterday when I had the jab. Were we expecting no restrictions come the 21st? We are almost there now aren’t we, bar foreign travel? I went to the pub with 5 mates last Friday, and out for a meal with my missus Tuesday, so doesn’t feel that bad really
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Fascinating!
Tell us more, seriously. I love ghost stories. There is definitely *something* out there: too many people see too many ghosts. But that's a long way from saying they are intelligent phantoms of the dead
I note this in your story:
"Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). "
Here is one theory I have read which might explain this. I love this theory because it is so ingenious
Apparently big old buildings with long corridors with rooms off can create unusual vibrations in the air. These vibrations are not immediately apparent, because they are subsonic: too low frequency for us to consciously hear, but we still sense them, subconsciously
And they induce a terrible dread, which can in turn make the brain create ghosts, to explain the nameless fear to itself
Why the dread? Because large predators like big cats - lions, leopards, sabre-tooth tigers - emit a subsonic growl as they attack, to paralyse their prey with fear. Tens of thousand of years of evolution on the African plains has given us this same fear, so when we hear it in old rectories, we think we are about to die
I believe experiments have been done: where people are subjected to subsonic noises without warning, and they basically crap themselves and see ghosts
Of course one might ask why predators use subsonic growls, and why do they cause fear in the first place? Perhaps it is because they mimic the sounds of ghosts in rambling English castles
Its a U-shaped building. The ground floor middle and north wing are the former Bank of Scotland dating from 1854. The south wing on both floors are the later (c. 1880s) extension to the house part, with the entire upper floor being bedrooms / store rooms, with a single upstairs storeroom at the northwesterly extremity which is accessed from downstairs in the bank.
When you go upstairs in the house the stairs split. To the right/south two big bedrooms in the extension, to the left/north a long corridor with three bedrooms off to the right and two boxrooms to the left. Then the cross corridor at the end, very short to the right into the 6th bedroom my younger son is in, slightly longer to the left to the bathroom. Behind the end wall of the bathroom is the upstairs storage room accessed from the bank.
I can walk round the house and the bank day or night and feel no fear or dread. Its our house! If I was going to visualise a ghost from vibrations then why not at 3am heading to the bathroom? And does a domestic RCD that has tripped throw its switch back to the on position due to vibrations...?
Really need to get my sis-in-law back down here. One ghost is Jim (James) Shives - the guy who died here in 1891. We know its Jim not James as he told her so... Yeah I know, she's making it up. Except she isn't. And their 1795 built house down the road is even more haunted including the previous owner who appears in the chair he died sat in on the anniversary. We're going to throw him a party next time round.
Interesting, to say the least. I'm not dismissing anything. The "subsonic noises" theory is neat, but maybe too neat.
I do sometimes wonder if terrible events (death, murder, etc) can leave an *imprint* on a place
In 2019 I stayed in a beautiful decaying old Plantation House turned lonely B&B in rural Louisiana. it had lots of old long corridors with rooms off, perfect for subsonic vibrations! I was alone in the building, the only guest, and most of the night I lay there intensely spooked in various ways (I haven't got time to give details, but it was properly frightening, and I am not easily frightened). I finally fell asleep around dawn and had a relentless series of vivid dreams, of children playing on the stairs and in the garden, in a robotic way. Ugh
Over a sunlit cheery breakfast I told the friendly staff (who came back to the house) about my night, and I asked if the place had a reputation, and the lady chef said Yeah some guests report hearing children playing on the stairs
*Shiver*
Later that day I googled properly and discovered that the house was the scene of a notorious atrocity: reprisals against a slave rebellion in the 1820s, when heads were impaled on spikes in the garden
For the record, I still think we're going ahead with June 21 as planned. Garde ta foy!
Add the Green vote to the Labour vote and Labour would be on 39% ie back to 2017 levels, the fact the Green vote is eating into the Labour vote and the rightwing vote is still almost completely united behind the Tories still benefits Boris
For the record, I still think we're going ahead with June 21 as planned. Garde ta foy!
I'm expecting Boris to announce 'Stage 3.5' for 21 June - some further relaxations, but not all. And no more green countries.
When do you see 4.0 coming then? I know some people need or very much want to travel, but really green countries abroad can wait until this one is green.
It really doesn't matter right now what people want.
They still haven't worked out that, to get what you want, you have to stop supporting those people who are denying it to you. On whatever pretext.
Maybe one day they will. But that day is clearly not today.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
Not true, the age at which most people first voted Tory in 2017 was 47 and the Tories did not win a majority.
In 2019 however the age at which most people first voted Tory was 39 and the Tories won a comfortable majority
You are missing the swing to Tory *within* the retired cohort.
I can’t read the article but what is the swing on the other wage bands?
Britain Elects tweeted this GE2019: Labour won 38.4% of non-retiree households earning between £25,000-30,000 a year, but that figure represents a fall of 12pts on 2017...
Yes. Corbyn! But astonishingly according to BES they still won all (non retired) income earners up to £100k.
Corbyn was in charge in 2017 too. Brexit far more likely, backed up by the non Corbyn Labour fall in vote share in Hartlepool
For the record, I still think we're going ahead with June 21 as planned. Garde ta foy!
I'm expecting Boris to announce 'Stage 3.5' for 21 June - some further relaxations, but not all. And no more green countries.
When do you see 4.0 coming then? I know some people need or very much want to travel, but really green countries abroad can wait until this one is green.
Possibly 2 August for 4.0 ie +6 weeks from 21 June, schools will then be closed for a month so this may give the Government some additional room for relaxation, vaccines will be further progressed and come 1 September when the schools reopen, the vaccines injected by 31 July will be in full effect.
Masks will continue to be required on public transport, in shops and when not seated in hospitality venues.
Not expecting any significant relaxation on foreign travel this year, however.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Fascinating!
Tell us more, seriously. I love ghost stories. There is definitely *something* out there: too many people see too many ghosts. But that's a long way from saying they are intelligent phantoms of the dead
I note this in your story:
"Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). "
Here is one theory I have read which might explain this. I love this theory because it is so ingenious
Apparently big old buildings with long corridors with rooms off can create unusual vibrations in the air. These vibrations are not immediately apparent, because they are subsonic: too low frequency for us to consciously hear, but we still sense them, subconsciously
And they induce a terrible dread, which can in turn make the brain create ghosts, to explain the nameless fear to itself
Why the dread? Because large predators like big cats - lions, leopards, sabre-tooth tigers - emit a subsonic growl as they attack, to paralyse their prey with fear. Tens of thousand of years of evolution on the African plains has given us this same fear, so when we hear it in old rectories, we think we are about to die
I believe experiments have been done: where people are subjected to subsonic noises without warning, and they basically crap themselves and see ghosts
Of course one might ask why predators use subsonic growls, and why do they cause fear in the first place? Perhaps it is because they mimic the sounds of ghosts in rambling English castles
Yes, I've heard that theory. Half remembered detail: frequency of 19 cycles per second cause a sense of distinct unease and also 'smudges' in the vision which the brain interprets as human (because that is the most expected cause of the eye seeing movement), then ghost (when human turns out not to be there).
Interestingly, based on this theory, researchers were able to 'create' ghosts - or the experience of seeing a ghost - in a distinctly humdrum and unthreatening research facility in Coventry.
These frequencies are more common in old buildings because poor insulation, or something.
As I said, a half-remembered bit of info I saw once, 20-odd years ago. So may be nonsense.
There's also the well known propensity not to see (the basketball gorilla video). Human perception is extremely unreliable in particular circumstances.
Yep, I find this stuff fascinating, but mainly for what it might tell us about human (mis)perception.
Scottish Government not mentioning Oxford in relation to Astra Zeneca - a litany of failure.
You will see that is published in January. When my wife got AZ in March and again this week there has been no mention of Oxford anywhere. If there are nutters like the author of that tweet about it is sensible enough.
To be fair, I've hardly heard anyone refer to the Oxford vaccine (nor the BioNTech vaccine). Just AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Even my mum, who is something of an English nationalist, when I asked which she'd had, couldn't quite remember the name ("the Astra something one") but didn't mention Oxford.
Mind you, might just be because those of us who studied/work at scumbag college or Fenland Poly are jealous
I thought Fenland Poly was Anglia Ruskin...... Almost a Real University.
I must admit, I thought Chelmsford's elevation to city status was - on the traditional criteria of a cathedral and a university - slightly tenuous. Neither are, perhaps, exemplars of their type.
(I don't actually know much about ARU nowadays, it might be very good - when I was there it was still APU).
Wow, another alumnus!
Both it, and it's predecessor college were very good for Law, I believe. Friend of mine did his solicitors course there.
And Almost a Proper University, another friend, who at one time lectured there, told me.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
On linkedIn I currently see a thread from knowledgeable people complaining about another further coming HMRC attack on self employment.
The simple fact is that with the Tories on 40% percentage of the vote they can (sadly) do what they want.
As discussed last night, the Tories don’t need to govern for working people / the economically active.
The grey vote trumps all.
And as discussed last night that's complete claptrap.
The Tories win those aged 39+ not those aged 65+
If Labour won all years up to 65 then they'd win the election.
Sadly missing the point again.
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
Not true, the age at which most people first voted Tory in 2017 was 47 and the Tories did not win a majority.
In 2019 however the age at which most people first voted Tory was 39 and the Tories won a comfortable majority
You are missing the swing to Tory *within* the retired cohort.
One thing about the debate on this that was barely mentioned the other day is Brexit. That surely was the major factor driving the swing to the Tories in the over 65's between 2010 and 2019.
Of course this is the population with least to lose from Brexitism.
But by the same token the least to lose from Bremainerism.
Again, I think the idea that old people vote out of self-interest needs challenging. With childen and grandchildren you become more invested in the future of your country.
#China’s nationalism isn’t getting weird or anything. Tonight I go to have some BBQ in #Beijing and all of the waiting staff are wearing these T-shirts in an area with foreign embassies. “Chinese people won’t be pushed around...#USA has no right to speak down to Chinese people”. https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1400466643101224960
Presumably pushing them around must remain the preserve of the authoritarian regime ?
Truly bizarre reaction. China is unnerved by the lab leak stuff. They had control of the narrative for a year, now they've lost it, probably forever, and it is not good for them
The concern is that a prickly, nervous regime with enormous power will lash out, militarily - to reassert itself and regain "respect"
After finishing his brilliant book The Splendid and The Vile (on Churchill and the Blitz etc) I have moved on to another Erik Larson book: In The Garden of Beasts, a true story about a naive middle-American family where the patriarch becomes US Ambassador to Berlin in 1933
So far it is excellent, just as good as the Blitz book
The parallels between early Nazi Germany and Xi Jinping's China are uncanny. Hitler kept doing terrible things and everyone kept saying "OMG - but surely this won't last", and then Hitler would say something nice, or appear sane and regretful, and then everyone would sigh and relax. Then Hitler would do something even worse than before, and so the cycle repeated
I really hope Xi's China is not Hitler's Germany. But the echoes can be heard
The parallels are pretty limited, I think. China is a very different kind of totalitarian regime.
For the record, I still think we're going ahead with June 21 as planned. Garde ta foy!
Add the Green vote to the Labour vote and Labour would be on 39% ie back to 2017 levels, the fact the Green vote is eating into the Labour vote and the rightwing vote is still almost completely united behind the Tories still benefits Boris
The Green vote is now boosted by Corbynites who won’t vote for Sir Keir. There are plenty of them. Im eager to see over under % prices in the betting. Maybe someone could price them up here?
What price Greens vs LD vote share match bet at the next GE?
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Fascinating!
Tell us more, seriously. I love ghost stories. There is definitely *something* out there: too many people see too many ghosts. But that's a long way from saying they are intelligent phantoms of the dead
I note this in your story:
"Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). "
Here is one theory I have read which might explain this. I love this theory because it is so ingenious
Apparently big old buildings with long corridors with rooms off can create unusual vibrations in the air. These vibrations are not immediately apparent, because they are subsonic: too low frequency for us to consciously hear, but we still sense them, subconsciously
And they induce a terrible dread, which can in turn make the brain create ghosts, to explain the nameless fear to itself
Why the dread? Because large predators like big cats - lions, leopards, sabre-tooth tigers - emit a subsonic growl as they attack, to paralyse their prey with fear. Tens of thousand of years of evolution on the African plains has given us this same fear, so when we hear it in old rectories, we think we are about to die
I believe experiments have been done: where people are subjected to subsonic noises without warning, and they basically crap themselves and see ghosts
Of course one might ask why predators use subsonic growls, and why do they cause fear in the first place? Perhaps it is because they mimic the sounds of ghosts in rambling English castles
Its a U-shaped building. The ground floor middle and north wing are the former Bank of Scotland dating from 1854. The south wing on both floors are the later (c. 1880s) extension to the house part, with the entire upper floor being bedrooms / store rooms, with a single upstairs storeroom at the northwesterly extremity which is accessed from downstairs in the bank.
When you go upstairs in the house the stairs split. To the right/south two big bedrooms in the extension, to the left/north a long corridor with three bedrooms off to the right and two boxrooms to the left. Then the cross corridor at the end, very short to the right into the 6th bedroom my younger son is in, slightly longer to the left to the bathroom. Behind the end wall of the bathroom is the upstairs storage room accessed from the bank.
I can walk round the house and the bank day or night and feel no fear or dread. Its our house! If I was going to visualise a ghost from vibrations then why not at 3am heading to the bathroom? And does a domestic RCD that has tripped throw its switch back to the on position due to vibrations...?
Really need to get my sis-in-law back down here. One ghost is Jim (James) Shives - the guy who died here in 1891. We know its Jim not James as he told her so... Yeah I know, she's making it up. Except she isn't. And their 1795 built house down the road is even more haunted including the previous owner who appears in the chair he died sat in on the anniversary. We're going to throw him a party next time round.
Interesting, to say the least. I'm not dismissing anything. The "subsonic noises" theory is neat, but maybe too neat.
I do sometimes wonder if terrible events (death, murder, etc) can leave an *imprint* on a place
In 2019 I stayed in a beautiful decaying old Plantation House turned lonely B&B in rural Louisiana. it had lots of old long corridors with rooms off, perfect for subsonic vibrations! I was alone in the building, the only guest, and most of the night I lay there intensely spooked in various ways (I haven't got time to give details, but it was properly frightening, and I am not easily frightened). I finally fell asleep around dawn and had a relentless series of vivid dreams, of children playing on the stairs and in the garden, in a robotic way. Ugh
Over a sunlit cheery breakfast I told the friendly staff (who came back to the house) about my night, and I asked if the place had a reputation, and the lady chef said Yeah some guests report hearing children playing on the stairs
*Shiver*
Later that day I googled properly and discovered that the house was the scene of a notorious atrocity: reprisals against a slave rebellion in the 1820s, when heads were impaled on spikes in the garden
Forget about ghosts. Worry about mankind's malevolence.
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
I'm very jealous. I've always wanted to see something like that, and never have.
I've always had a belief there was something like ghosts - too much evidence from too many people. Have seen some seriously weird shit since we moved in (and my brother / sis-in-law's house is older and "really busy").
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
Never had any ghostly experience myself. But when at College of Law in Chester, I was part of a group of 9 in an old rectory, just (100 yards) over the border in Wales. My then gf was in the house on her own, when laughing children's voices were running up and down the big staircase. Nobody else there. Not at all scary, she said.
One of the others, a burly bloke from Sheffield, came down to breakfast white as the proverbial. "Guys, did you play a trick on me last night?" Nope, none of us had. With that, he packed his stuff and moved out by lunchtime.
My stepfather in a newly-acquired farmhouse in Derbyshire saw a red-faced man at the foot of the bed, staring at him. When he described it to a local, he said that was definitely "Brick" Barratt, a farmer who had shot himself in that very room.
Another gf was on a school exchange to mid-France. When it came to mealtime, she asked if the old lady upstairs was going to join them. Turns out the old lady had been dead years - but again, a perfect description.
Closest I have had to this was poltergeist activist in a quiet Dublin hotel having breakfast with a colleague. A fork - followed quickly by a knife - decided to spontaneously leap off a nearby table onto the floor.
Comments
Plus we all know what happened to Labour once Blair went and the Tories once Thatcher went, at most Sunak could hope to be Major to Boris' Thatcher, which would mean he would narrowly win next time but could face a landslide defeat the time after
The grey bloc is the decisive vote. Age is more explanatory than class (or education).
Hence the Tories can “fuck business” at leisure because the oldies have their triple lock and rising house prices.
If you think there were no travel restrictions on India, when it's cases were below almost every single nation in the EU and was subject to at home quarantine then surely there's no restrictions on Portugal either when it's on amber in your eyes?
Amber is the default they've said that repeatedly. It's what India was on effectively and it's what Portugal is returning to.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/what-to-see/new-colston-statue-display-not-impartial-partisan-act/
It's important but if the Tories lose their under 65 voters whom they win every single age of from 39+ and only have the grey vote then they lose the election.
The last big restriction on British life is Foreign Travel: and it seems it will likely stay in place for some months, even as the rest of the impositions are swept away - masks, WFH, etc
Could they be doing this, at least in part, to aid the domestic economy? ie domestic hospitality and British tourism? We run a massive deficit in travel, as so many Brits go abroad. If all that money is pumped into British businesses, for one summer, it will be a significant boost to UK PLC, although it shags British companies that fly folk abroad of course
Hmm
Yesterday I said the Lab Leak debate, which only goes one way - towards China Is Bad - would end up at Is This A Bioweapon
I did not expect to get there so soon
"Chinese virologist who was among first to tout Wuhan lab theory says Fauci's emails back up what she's been saying all along - the coronavirus is 'an unrestricted bioweapon' - and blasts Fauci and medical experts for cover-up"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9648687/Chinese-virologist-says-Fauci-emails-claim-coronavirus-unrestricted-bioweapon.html
Edit for Clarity: I am very far from convinced it is a "bioweapon", just noting that this theory is now out there
The whole family were walking around with what looked like brilliant white dentures. It felt surreal like a Steradent advert!
Would you mind giving us the absolute number of pensioners voting versus students voting?
It's an interesting experiment going on in the EU.
Unlocking with vaccinations significantly lower than here, whilst there is a new variant in the environment, and Brussels trying to make borders stay open. But with a mix of vaccines mainly Pfizer. And some have closed borders to here more firmly (Fr, De for two).
To me it has a correspondence to December 2020, when the UK variant was starting up. I'd say the main difference is how far vaccines across Europe with attenuate the overall wave in a pop with reducing vulnerable population.
In EU average it is still only 14-15% of the population who have full protection of 2 vaccines.
Will it make much difference?
In 2019 however the age at which most people first voted Tory was 39 and the Tories won a comfortable majority
Note that the NYT report (if accurate about the New Pentagon Papers) confirms what was predicted: over some months, every "human" hypothesis will be slowly ruled out, first the Yanks, then the Chinese and Russians, leaving us with OMFG.... but no one will ever say definitively: this is non-human technology
We will be left to draw our own conclusions, according to what we already believe. And many will say This is Pentagon psy-ops, or mass hallucination, or a religious spasm, and of course they could be right
Upstairs storeroom is not a happy place, have seen objects placed (most notably a red ribbon which wasn't on the floor at the foot of the stairs when I took a group up there but was in the middle of the floor as we came back down. EDIT - this storeroom is in the same building as the house but can't be accessed indoors - the connection between the (former bank manager's) house and the bank which share the same building is behind my desk as I type but bricked up decades ago.
Mrs RP has seen a figure walk past her downstairs out the corner of her eye. I had see *something* previously at the end of the corridor upstairs but at an oblique angle. This though was a figure of perhaps 5 foot 5, wearing a light coloured shirt - so just like my 13 year old son in a school shirt. Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). My son's bedroom is to the right, the laundry room with fuse box directly in front and the bathroom to the left.
I saw the back of them crossing from my son's bedroom into the laundry room at an angle from a distance of perhaps 10 feet. As the door to the laundry room opens that way the angles walk made sense. It was a split second glimpse but I shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there.
As I got in there and find there is noone there, my son of course is still in his room, the door is shut and anyway he is wearing a black hoody as no school yesterday so no white school shirt...
They don't scare me. Its quite comforting actually that death isn't the end. Though I do agree with the comment that I wouldn't want to leave even part of me to haunt work. Screw that...
The fact in question being that the vulnerable have had their vaccinations.
If the vaccines don't protect people, why are we bothering with them at all? It's not a difficult point to make, indeed OGH makes it in three lines in the header.
Britain Elects tweeted this
GE2019: Labour won 38.4% of non-retiree households earning between £25,000-30,000 a year, but that figure represents a fall of 12pts on 2017...
He says his son has the same ability - which caused some consternation when he was very young and was talking about the other people who "shared" the house with visitors.
I have to say he took some real shit from his workmates /........
As an island nation we should have an advantage in protecting our borders until that happens. Mind you, the volume of migrants across the Channel suggests that Patel's remedy (whatever it is) is failing. The problem with having deals with individual countries that are doing well (e.g. Portugal) is that those countries are also susceptible to large volumes of people moving in and out of their borders from random parts of the world, not just from our country.
So hopefully we will be able to continue to ease internal restrictions in line with the rising numbers vaccinated. But until the world (or 80% of it, say) is vaccinated, I'm not optimistic about the prospects for international travel.
As soon as Einstein's theory that time isn't the constant non-changing yardstick that we'd always assumed was proven, we've been at sea in terms of understanding what time might be and how it and space interact. If you read some of the Rovelli stuff, the contemporary explanations being explored to try and explain it all are becoming more and more fantastical; it seems to me that something more straightforward (in concept) is being overlooked and will be discovered, or imagined and proven, one day.
Tell us more, seriously. I love ghost stories. There is definitely *something* out there: too many people see too many ghosts. But that's a long way from saying they are intelligent phantoms of the dead
I note this in your story:
"Upstairs is a long corridor with 3 rooms off it to the left and then a very short cross corridor at the end (like the top of a caps T). "
Here is one theory I have read which might explain this. I love this theory because it is so ingenious
Apparently big old buildings with long corridors with rooms off can create unusual vibrations in the air. These vibrations are not immediately apparent, because they are subsonic: too low frequency for us to consciously hear, but we still sense them, subconsciously
And they induce a terrible dread, which can in turn make the brain create ghosts, to explain the nameless fear to itself
Why the dread? Because large predators like big cats - lions, leopards, sabre-tooth tigers - emit a subsonic growl as they attack, to paralyse their prey with fear. Tens of thousand of years of evolution on the African plains has given us this same fear, so when we hear it in old rectories, we think we are about to die
I believe experiments have been done: where people are subjected to subsonic noises without warning, and they basically crap themselves and see ghosts
Of course one might ask why predators use subsonic growls, and why do they cause fear in the first place? Perhaps it is because they mimic the sounds of ghosts in rambling English castles
Mind you, might just be because those of us who studied/work at scumbag college or Fenland Poly are jealous
https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1400466643101224960
Presumably pushing them around must remain the preserve of the authoritarian regime ?
A photo of me and my daughter turned upside down in the picture frame by itselt.
I was sat alone in my lounge and a picture of my daughter which had been on the top of a bookcase for years threw itself to the floor.
When I went for a haircut, I left my phone in the car.
When I returned in the draft messages this was written:
"4 minutes and he is busy joking, thank 4x"
With this text was three emojis of an owl with a loveheart
The destination for the message was my mum.
And the maddest one, I visited my mum last week and I was just leaving when her phone started ringing in the kitchen. She went and got it and I was Whatsapp ringing her. My phone was in my pocket and I was not ringing her.
https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1400720382840164352
The concern is that a prickly, nervous regime with enormous power will lash out, militarily - to reassert itself and regain "respect"
The United States is roughly on track to meet President Biden’s goal of getting at least one Covid-19 shot into the arms of 70 percent of adults by July 4 — if the current vaccination pace holds. But demand for vaccines has decreased in much of the country in recent weeks, and the promising national numbers (about 63 percent of adults have received at least one shot) do not reflect the uneven rates among states.
Even if the country as a whole reaches the national target, at least 30 states probably will not. And a handful are unlikely to reach the 70 percent mark before the end of the year, a New York Times analysis shows, potentially prolonging the pandemic.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/03/us/virus-vaccine-states.html
One of the others, a burly bloke from Sheffield, came down to breakfast white as the proverbial. "Guys, did you play a trick on me last night?" Nope, none of us had. With that, he packed his stuff and moved out by lunchtime.
My stepfather in a newly-acquired farmhouse in Derbyshire saw a red-faced man at the foot of the bed, staring at him. When he described it to a local, he said that was definitely "Brick" Barratt, a farmer who had shot himself in that very room.
Another gf was on a school exchange to mid-France. When it came to mealtime, she asked if the old lady upstairs was going to join them. Turns out the old lady had been dead years - but again, a perfect description.
https://twitter.com/dtiffroberts/status/1399901704213209093
So Johnson & co can do exactly what they want on 21 June. Unlock, stick, or re-lock. It doesn't seem to matter that much.
One day, maybe people will work out that the return of their freedoms does not depend on them becoming a UK bound government sponsored pin cushion.
Your freedoms will return when you start supporting people and parties agitating for the return of your freedoms.
I think I'll come back tomorrow.
When you go upstairs in the house the stairs split. To the right/south two big bedrooms in the extension, to the left/north a long corridor with three bedrooms off to the right and two boxrooms to the left. Then the cross corridor at the end, very short to the right into the 6th bedroom my younger son is in, slightly longer to the left to the bathroom. Behind the end wall of the bathroom is the upstairs storage room accessed from the bank.
I can walk round the house and the bank day or night and feel no fear or dread. Its our house! If I was going to visualise a ghost from vibrations then why not at 3am heading to the bathroom? And does a domestic RCD that has tripped throw its switch back to the on position due to vibrations...?
Really need to get my sis-in-law back down here. One ghost is Jim (James) Shives - the guy who died here in 1891. We know its Jim not James as he told her so... Yeah I know, she's making it up. Except she isn't. And their 1795 built house down the road is even more haunted including the previous owner who appears in the chair he died sat in on the anniversary. We're going to throw him a party next time round.
But astonishingly according to BES they still won all (non retired) income earners up to £100k.
Interestingly, based on this theory, researchers were able to 'create' ghosts - or the experience of seeing a ghost - in a distinctly humdrum and unthreatening research facility in Coventry.
These frequencies are more common in old buildings because poor insulation, or something.
As I said, a half-remembered bit of info I saw once, 20-odd years ago. So may be nonsense.
https://twitter.com/NigelBiggar/status/1400713043538030594?s=20
Latest Westminster voting intention (2-3 Jun)
Con: 46% (+3 from 27-28 May)
Lab: 30% (+1)
Green: 9% (+1)
Lib Dem: 6% (-2)
SNP: 4% (-1)
Reform UK: 2% (-1)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/oct/16/science.farout
EDIT: Also found this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Tandy
So far it is excellent, just as good as the Blitz book
The parallels between early Nazi Germany and Xi Jinping's China are uncanny. Hitler kept doing terrible things and everyone kept saying "OMG - but surely this won't last", and then Hitler would say something nice, or appear sane and regretful, and then everyone would sigh and relax. Then Hitler would do something even worse than before, and so the cycle repeated
I really hope Xi's China is not Hitler's Germany. But the echoes can be heard
CON: 46% (+3)
LAB: 30% (+1)
GRN: 9% (+1)
LIB: 6% (-2)
@YouGov
- Changes w May 28
For the record, I still think we're going ahead with June 21 as planned. Garde ta foy!
Of course this is the population with least to lose from Brexitism.
In truth, none of the main parties are. The fact that Johnson can do what he wants is partly down to labour. They let him. Labour's main policy is envy. They would just like to be where Johnson is.
I think if he gave the great vaccinated nothing, that might be a turning point. I am not sure any more.
France: 1,993,847 / 3.13
Germany: 1,100,000 / 2.68
Italy: 1,526,792 / 1.56
Netherlands: 20,513 / 7.6
Spain: 30,870 / 4.6
UK: 4,873,840 / 0.55
By WHO standards (positivity rate <5%) for an outbreak under control, the Netherlands isn't, and France only dipped below 5% two weeks ago.
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/covid-19-testing
(I don't actually know much about ARU nowadays, it might be very good - when I was there it was still APU).
China is a very different kind of totalitarian regime.
Incidentally, today is an anniversary.
https://twitter.com/Alex_at_ACHK/status/1400629939251167235
Human perception is extremely unreliable in particular circumstances.
Oh, but they are still on for a landslide at C&A.....I read it on here.
I do sometimes wonder if terrible events (death, murder, etc) can leave an *imprint* on a place
In 2019 I stayed in a beautiful decaying old Plantation House turned lonely B&B in rural Louisiana. it had lots of old long corridors with rooms off, perfect for subsonic vibrations! I was alone in the building, the only guest, and most of the night I lay there intensely spooked in various ways (I haven't got time to give details, but it was properly frightening, and I am not easily frightened). I finally fell asleep around dawn and had a relentless series of vivid dreams, of children playing on the stairs and in the garden, in a robotic way. Ugh
Over a sunlit cheery breakfast I told the friendly staff (who came back to the house) about my night, and I asked if the place had a reputation, and the lady chef said Yeah some guests report hearing children playing on the stairs
*Shiver*
Later that day I googled properly and discovered that the house was the scene of a notorious atrocity: reprisals against a slave rebellion in the 1820s, when heads were impaled on spikes in the garden
They still haven't worked out that, to get what you want, you have to stop supporting those people who are denying it to you. On whatever pretext.
Maybe one day they will. But that day is clearly not today.
Masks will continue to be required on public transport, in shops and when not seated in hospitality venues.
Not expecting any significant relaxation on foreign travel this year, however.
Both it, and it's predecessor college were very good for Law, I believe. Friend of mine did his solicitors course there.
And Almost a Proper University, another friend, who at one time lectured there, told me.
Again, I think the idea that old people vote out of self-interest needs challenging. With childen and grandchildren you become more invested in the future of your country.
I agree it is not a perfect match, thank God, but there are enough similarities to unnerve
What price Greens vs LD vote share match bet at the next GE?
Worry about mankind's malevolence.
16 points behind after 11+ years of a Tory Government. I doubt this has ever happened before