Blimey that's poor design. I always think that whoever designs and signs off on cycling infrastructure should have to cycle up and down it a few times afterwards, preferably with their children. That would put a quick end to some of the appallingly unsafe designs out there.
It's 60k of the active travel improvement money for that town, I think. They are monitoring usage for 18 months, and then decide whether to keep it.
You are aware of the "Cycling Farcility of the Month" web page in Warrington. Very funny. Currently down for maintenance, but this is the latest on the Archive. The page to have lost enthusiasm after 20 years.
People are just tired of the rules. They don't take them seriously but pretend to go along with them because they don't want to break the law. It is just a really stupid situation, you have to go one way or the other, not a half freedom that imposes huge costs and has little or no benefit.
The other aspect is the whole "testing" regimen.
I could just about understand the need for Test & Trace last year - now, there's no point, It should be turned off, the App uninstalled etc.
There's also the "testing fanatics" - one organisation with which I'm familiar has "suggested" every member of staff tests twice a week (even if doubly vaccinated).
Now, I understand those with symptoms taking the test (and there's an argument trying to get a statistical handle on the numbers of asymptomatic isn't a bad idea) but the notion we should all be doing lateral flow tests or PCR tests or whatever ad infinitum is just ridiculous.
If I were a bluff old cynic, I'd say it was a ploy to increase the profits of those supplying the tests, none of whom could possibly have any links with the Government or Ministers....
My employer insists on everyone doing tests twice a week (AIUI technically they can't enforce the measure - and you do them at home so you can lie if you want to - but I keep using mine, as it doesn't take long and it's easier not to argue.) I also think it likely that we're going to be stuck with masks and distancing for a while.
If the mask mandate is lifted for shops, trains and so on, however, I shall be ditching them like a shot. I think most of us have had enough and, logically, if we don't let go of these measures at some point then we'll be stuck with them forever, which nobody apart from the Michie faction of the scientists wants.
Blimey that's poor design. I always think that whoever designs and signs off on cycling infrastructure should have to cycle up and down it a few times afterwards, preferably with their children. That would put a quick end to some of the appallingly unsafe designs out there.
It's 60k of the active travel improvement money for that town, I think. They are monitoring usage for 18 months, and then decide whether to keep it.
You are aware of the "Cycling Farcility of the Month" web page in Warrington. Very funny. Currently down for maintenance, but this is the latest on the Archive. The page to have lost enthusiasm after 20 years.
A lot of the cycling ways in Leicester are similar, disappearing at roundabouts, junctions and other hazards etc. Then there is wonder at why they are under used.
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
I think you need to work harder on your trolling, unless you genuinely believe people who want to restrict levels of immigration (and its not a subject I care about, the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned) actually want to have zero immigration at all. Otherwise your trolling attempt doesn't work, since it has to bear some relation to what people actually complain about.
I don't think anyone cares about the background of their sport stars though, even if they snuck in illegally - so just see all migrants, legal and otherwise, as potential olympians and don't risk sending anyone home.
Blimey that's poor design. I always think that whoever designs and signs off on cycling infrastructure should have to cycle up and down it a few times afterwards, preferably with their children. That would put a quick end to some of the appallingly unsafe designs out there.
It's 60k of the active travel improvement money for that town, I think. They are monitoring usage for 18 months, and then decide whether to keep it.
You are aware of the "Cycling Farcility of the Month" web page in Warrington. Very funny. Currently down for maintenance, but this is the latest on the Archive. The page to have lost enthusiasm after 20 years.
A lot of the cycling ways in Leicester are similar, disappearing at roundabouts, junctions and other hazards etc. Then there is wonder at why they are under used.
Yeah it's one of the big problems with cycling infrastructure design. It's the hard places where it's most needed that it gives up.
I'm lucky to live in London where most of the real infrastructure (as opposed to lines of paint on the road, which are if anything more dangerous since they encourage drivers to close pass) is generally decently designed.
Elections are bruising and it takes bravery to stand. Thank you to @Stephenson_Ryan for fighting the campaign on the issues and not pandering to divisions. We may disagree on a lot but he’s a good man and has more to give.
Hate to be the cynic, but I see this as a back handed dig at GG
Should Galloway be treated with generosity and admiration?
Don’t really care, but it seems to me the praise for the Tory is really a dig at him. Like a girl at a high school prom making a show of saying what a nice dress someone has on in order to make someone else feel bad
People are just tired of the rules. They don't take them seriously but pretend to go along with them because they don't want to break the law. It is just a really stupid situation, you have to go one way or the other, not a half freedom that imposes huge costs and has little or no benefit.
The other aspect is the whole "testing" regimen.
I could just about understand the need for Test & Trace last year - now, there's no point, It should be turned off, the App uninstalled etc.
There's also the "testing fanatics" - one organisation with which I'm familiar has "suggested" every member of staff tests twice a week (even if doubly vaccinated).
Now, I understand those with symptoms taking the test (and there's an argument trying to get a statistical handle on the numbers of asymptomatic isn't a bad idea) but the notion we should all be doing lateral flow tests or PCR tests or whatever ad infinitum is just ridiculous.
If I were a bluff old cynic, I'd say it was a ploy to increase the profits of those supplying the tests, none of whom could possibly have any links with the Government or Ministers....
The one good reason for keeping mass testing going for a while longer is to report the very high case numbers so that we can prove that the vaccinations mean it doesn't lead to the same level of hospitalisations and deaths as before.
Now, you can argue that you can gather the same information with the ONS survey, and to an extent that's true, but the daily reported case numbers are just much more visible, and timely, and this is about establishing the effectiveness of the vaccines in the most public way possible.
I almost think it would be worth seeing daily cases go way above the January peak for this reason, but it's probably best that the virus doesn't spread so much (which will also be due to the vaccine effect).
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
I think you need to work harder on your trolling, unless you genuinely believe people who want to restrict levels of immigration (and its not a subject I care about, the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned) actually want to have zero immigration at all. Otherwise your trolling attempt doesn't work, since it has to bear some relation to what people actually complain about.
I don't think anyone cares about the background of their sport stars though, even if they snuck in illegally - so just see all migrants, legal and otherwise, as potential olympians and don't risk sending anyone home.
Two or three times a week we have a little masturbatory sub-thread on how awful immigration has been over the last few years, reducing skill levels, repressing wages and increasing house prices.
Said conversations are never able to cite any actual evidence for their claim.
Supposed to be going to a wedding reception tonight at a brewery. I'm told the football will not be on.
Might pretend I have Covid...
Trying to pretend that something of importance to the guests isn’t happening, usually doesn’t work out. Someone will have an iPad with a data plan, even if it means half the guests end up in the car park watching the screen. Better to embrace the match, and have the formal parts of the day over before it starts.
I was at a friend's boy's bar mitzvah (Jewish coming-of-age celebration) when England beat Germany 5-1. The room with the telly was awfully crowded. The room with the family was not.
1st September 2001, remember it very well. I’d landed the day before in Barcelona for a six month job, so my first task was to find somewhere showing the match. Thankfully, just across the road from my hotel was a bar called The George and Dragon.
We're going to need better "cycling" infrastructure as electric scooters become more popular.
The guy who cut my hair this morning told me he is proudly no-vax, no-mask (except at work), and enjoys riding to the salon on his electric scooter (currently illegal).
People are just tired of the rules. They don't take them seriously but pretend to go along with them because they don't want to break the law. It is just a really stupid situation, you have to go one way or the other, not a half freedom that imposes huge costs and has little or no benefit.
The other aspect is the whole "testing" regimen.
I could just about understand the need for Test & Trace last year - now, there's no point, It should be turned off, the App uninstalled etc.
There's also the "testing fanatics" - one organisation with which I'm familiar has "suggested" every member of staff tests twice a week (even if doubly vaccinated).
Now, I understand those with symptoms taking the test (and there's an argument trying to get a statistical handle on the numbers of asymptomatic isn't a bad idea) but the notion we should all be doing lateral flow tests or PCR tests or whatever ad infinitum is just ridiculous.
If I were a bluff old cynic, I'd say it was a ploy to increase the profits of those supplying the tests, none of whom could possibly have any links with the Government or Ministers....
There is a problem of producer interest, fortunes have been made.
As far as I can work out the virus is everywhere again, the numbers are completely wrong because 80% of people won't take a test as it means they have to go in to voluntary isolation for several days. Pretending that you can control it through test and trace is just more Covid theatre.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
I was proved right about the personality flaws of Cummings.
I’m now being proved right about Gove as well.
I’ll be wrong one day, but it’s fun while it lasts.
Fish in a barrel innit. Identify a Tory politician without a personality flaw and we'll all be impressed.
A person without a personality flaw would never become a Tory politician.
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
@Leon, Experienced torturers know that you can inflict immense pain on a person, without endangering their life. For example, you can repeatedly electrocute someone over the course of several hours, without their dying, so long as you use a weak current.
Ugh
How can people resist this, and stay quiet? People who can endure torture and remain defiant must have incredible willpower. And I mean incredible. I find it hard to believe anyone could suffer truly extreme pain (eg something like kidney stones) without blabbing
But if they do exist: chapeau
I understand it’s largely training
It’s why “name rank and number” is drilled into you - it’s a response that become automatic and consistent and doesn’t require thought
And D.o.B. That's the Geneva Convention, Article 17 "Four".
I did 'Conduct After Capture' training but the only instruments of duress at the instructors' disposal were sleep deprivation, hypothermia and mock executions. As I had been to boarding school in Yorkshire I was inured to this.
I enjoy the TV show where celebs get SAS training. I always have a fancy that in the end interrogation bit I would try and give my cover story (being on a cub scout jamboree or some such) more texture by claiming I was involved with the Prince's Trust and getting someone on the phone to pose as Prince Charles's equerry and back me up. Of course more likely I would collapse in a blubbering heap and give them the goods straight away.
People are just tired of the rules. They don't take them seriously but pretend to go along with them because they don't want to break the law. It is just a really stupid situation, you have to go one way or the other, not a half freedom that imposes huge costs and has little or no benefit.
The other aspect is the whole "testing" regimen.
I could just about understand the need for Test & Trace last year - now, there's no point, It should be turned off, the App uninstalled etc.
There's also the "testing fanatics" - one organisation with which I'm familiar has "suggested" every member of staff tests twice a week (even if doubly vaccinated).
Now, I understand those with symptoms taking the test (and there's an argument trying to get a statistical handle on the numbers of asymptomatic isn't a bad idea) but the notion we should all be doing lateral flow tests or PCR tests or whatever ad infinitum is just ridiculous.
If I were a bluff old cynic, I'd say it was a ploy to increase the profits of those supplying the tests, none of whom could possibly have any links with the Government or Ministers....
There is a problem of producer interest, fortunes have been made.
As far as I can work out the virus is everywhere again, the numbers are completely wrong because 80% of people won't take a test as it means they have to go in to voluntary isolation for several days. Pretending that you can control it through test and trace is just more Covid theatre.
That's actually a fair point. How many people are bothering to use the app? Of those that do, how many are using it properly, given that staff at most venues will not hover over you and make sure that you check in? And what percentage of people are doing at-home testing and reporting the result accurately?
Factor in also the ever-increasing amount of contact tracing that has to be done as the instances which are actually known of are investigated, which must surely swamp the capacity of the system at some point, and you have to suppose that it's of little practical use altogether. Except for locking up huge numbers of perfectly well schoolchildren, who are the one group above all others who are sitting ducks for self-isolation.
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
I think you need to work harder on your trolling, unless you genuinely believe people who want to restrict levels of immigration (and its not a subject I care about, the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned) actually want to have zero immigration at all. Otherwise your trolling attempt doesn't work, since it has to bear some relation to what people actually complain about.
I don't think anyone cares about the background of their sport stars though, even if they snuck in illegally - so just see all migrants, legal and otherwise, as potential olympians and don't risk sending anyone home.
Two or three times a week we have a little masturbatory sub-thread on how awful immigration has been over the last few years, reducing skill levels, repressing wages and increasing house prices.
Said conversations are never able to cite any actual evidence for their claim.
Ms Raducanu is a fetching riposte to such drivel.
She just utterly embodies the fact that Brexit is for bigots.
Well done Lando! I think McLaren might have to look to replace Danny Ric at the end of next season. He's been shocking. How can one of the team put the car into second and the other fail to make Q3. Sainz has adjusted to the Ferrari, Alonso is beating his team mate in the Alpine and Perez has clearly adjusted well to the RB. Dan has failed to make that same jump in the McLaren and he's now had half a season to do it. Hopeful that he can score some points tomorrow but if he finishes 8th or 9th while his team mate is fighting for a podium it reflects poorly.
Elections are bruising and it takes bravery to stand. Thank you to @Stephenson_Ryan for fighting the campaign on the issues and not pandering to divisions. We may disagree on a lot but he’s a good man and has more to give.
Hate to be the cynic, but I see this as a back handed dig at GG
Should Galloway be treated with generosity and admiration?
Don’t really care, but it seems to me the praise for the Tory is really a dig at him. Like a girl at a high school prom making a show of saying what a nice dress someone has on in order to make someone else feel bad
Whether it is or not it is a refreshing comment to make and it was reciprocated
I disagree, it was insincere and the Tory being praised was merely a stooge. If 3rd place had gone to a Lib Dem on 22% I doubt the comment would have been made.
Meanwhile, our regular reminder that "getting back to normal" ain't possible without ditching mass isolation - it's not just the schools...
Bars, pubs and clubs may be forced into a backdoor lockdown beyond 19 July unless the government changes test-and-trace rules, industry bosses have warned.
Businesses across the country from Edinburgh to Chester, Oxford and London are being hit by waves of closures as staff are forced to self-isolate after being alerted by the NHS test and trace app over coming into contact with someone with Covid.
Under the current rules, workers who have come within 2 metres of a person with the virus must stay at home for 10 days even if they are vaccinated and have tested negative.
“The current guidelines are wreaking havoc among hospitality businesses and in essence enacting a further lockdown on large parts of the sector,” said Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of the trade body UKHospitality.
The Government is going to have to exempt the double jabbed from being locked up by test and trace, or else contact tracing and people getting pinged left, right and centre is going to start seriously gumming up the economy.
The Times saying today that it's coming on the 19th. Double jabbed contacts don't have to isolate, daily testing merely a recommendation. Only people who have symptoms will be required to isolate by law.
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
I think you need to work harder on your trolling, unless you genuinely believe people who want to restrict levels of immigration (and its not a subject I care about, the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned) actually want to have zero immigration at all. Otherwise your trolling attempt doesn't work, since it has to bear some relation to what people actually complain about.
I don't think anyone cares about the background of their sport stars though, even if they snuck in illegally - so just see all migrants, legal and otherwise, as potential olympians and don't risk sending anyone home.
Two or three times a week we have a little masturbatory sub-thread on how awful immigration has been over the last few years, reducing skill levels, repressing wages and increasing house prices.
Said conversations are never able to cite any actual evidence for their claim.
Well done Lando! I think McLaren might have to look to replace Danny Ric at the end of next season. He's been shocking. How can one of the team put the car into second and the other fail to make Q3. Sainz has adjusted to the Ferrari, Alonso is beating his team mate in the Alpine and Perez has clearly adjusted well to the RB. Dan has failed to make that same jump in the McLaren and he's now had half a season to do it. Hopeful that he can score some points tomorrow but if he finishes 8th or 9th while his team mate is fighting for a podium it reflects poorly.
Maybe Russell to McLaren if Merc go for Bottas for longer?
People are just tired of the rules. They don't take them seriously but pretend to go along with them because they don't want to break the law. It is just a really stupid situation, you have to go one way or the other, not a half freedom that imposes huge costs and has little or no benefit.
The other aspect is the whole "testing" regimen.
I could just about understand the need for Test & Trace last year - now, there's no point, It should be turned off, the App uninstalled etc.
There's also the "testing fanatics" - one organisation with which I'm familiar has "suggested" every member of staff tests twice a week (even if doubly vaccinated).
Now, I understand those with symptoms taking the test (and there's an argument trying to get a statistical handle on the numbers of asymptomatic isn't a bad idea) but the notion we should all be doing lateral flow tests or PCR tests or whatever ad infinitum is just ridiculous.
If I were a bluff old cynic, I'd say it was a ploy to increase the profits of those supplying the tests, none of whom could possibly have any links with the Government or Ministers....
Completely agree. On the 19th I'm uninstalling the app and anywhere that asks me to check in will no longer get my business. The whole testing system needs to be scaled back to 10% of what it is at the moment and then once we're into a cadence of booster shots every year then down to 1% with the ability to rapidly scale up if necessary. It's a huge expense which gives us little to no gain at the moment. The reduction in R from the test and trace scheme must be close to 0.
Well done Lando! I think McLaren might have to look to replace Danny Ric at the end of next season. He's been shocking. How can one of the team put the car into second and the other fail to make Q3. Sainz has adjusted to the Ferrari, Alonso is beating his team mate in the Alpine and Perez has clearly adjusted well to the RB. Dan has failed to make that same jump in the McLaren and he's now had half a season to do it. Hopeful that he can score some points tomorrow but if he finishes 8th or 9th while his team mate is fighting for a podium it reflects poorly.
Ricciardo is having a real shocker this season, he just can’t get on with the car at all. It looks awful for the team, when one car is on the front row and the other can’t make Q3.
Russell to McLaren, or maybe Bottas if Russell goes to Mercedes?
Well done Lando! I think McLaren might have to look to replace Danny Ric at the end of next season. He's been shocking. How can one of the team put the car into second and the other fail to make Q3. Sainz has adjusted to the Ferrari, Alonso is beating his team mate in the Alpine and Perez has clearly adjusted well to the RB. Dan has failed to make that same jump in the McLaren and he's now had half a season to do it. Hopeful that he can score some points tomorrow but if he finishes 8th or 9th while his team mate is fighting for a podium it reflects poorly.
Maybe Russell to McLaren if Merc go for Bottas for longer?
Don't think McLaren would take him. At least if he stayed in the Mercedes young driver programme. He'd need to quit that to join McLaren or any other team fighting at the front. Toto will be aware of that too and I don't think Bottas will get the drive next year.
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
I think you need to work harder on your trolling, unless you genuinely believe people who want to restrict levels of immigration (and its not a subject I care about, the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned) actually want to have zero immigration at all. Otherwise your trolling attempt doesn't work, since it has to bear some relation to what people actually complain about.
I don't think anyone cares about the background of their sport stars though, even if they snuck in illegally - so just see all migrants, legal and otherwise, as potential olympians and don't risk sending anyone home.
Two or three times a week we have a little masturbatory sub-thread on how awful immigration has been over the last few years, reducing skill levels, repressing wages and increasing house prices.
Said conversations are never able to cite any actual evidence for their claim.
Ms Raducanu is a fetching riposte to such drivel.
There is, of course, nothing masturbatory about middle aged men describing top class athletes as "fetching".
Well done Lando! I think McLaren might have to look to replace Danny Ric at the end of next season. He's been shocking. How can one of the team put the car into second and the other fail to make Q3. Sainz has adjusted to the Ferrari, Alonso is beating his team mate in the Alpine and Perez has clearly adjusted well to the RB. Dan has failed to make that same jump in the McLaren and he's now had half a season to do it. Hopeful that he can score some points tomorrow but if he finishes 8th or 9th while his team mate is fighting for a podium it reflects poorly.
Maybe Russell to McLaren if Merc go for Bottas for longer?
Don't think McLaren would take him. At least if he stayed in the Mercedes young driver programme. He'd need to quit that to join McLaren or any other team fighting at the front. Toto will be aware of that too and I don't think Bottas will get the drive next year.
Would it matter if he was in the Merc young driver programme or not if he's driving for McLaren?
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Very true, although the kind of outright collapse of the higher seeds that we saw two or three years ago (where I seem to recall the entire top 10 getting dumped out during the first week) has not happened this year. Barty, Sabalenka, Swiatek and Pliskova are all still fighting, and there are a number of other strong prospects in the draw.
So, whilst the Tomljanovic match is obviously eminently winnable for a player who has now disposed of Vondrousova and Cirstea in back-to-back matches, things after that get very sticky. As it stands, one plausible route to victory would entail beating Barty, Kerber and Swiatek, and Raducanu would then become the lowest ranked player ever to win a Slam by a very considerable margin.
That is way too much to expect, but frankly she has already done very well indeed, and to reach the QF and then make Barty work for the win would constitute a magnificent achievement.
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
I think you need to work harder on your trolling, unless you genuinely believe people who want to restrict levels of immigration (and its not a subject I care about, the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned) actually want to have zero immigration at all. Otherwise your trolling attempt doesn't work, since it has to bear some relation to what people actually complain about.
I don't think anyone cares about the background of their sport stars though, even if they snuck in illegally - so just see all migrants, legal and otherwise, as potential olympians and don't risk sending anyone home.
Two or three times a week we have a little masturbatory sub-thread on how awful immigration has been over the last few years, reducing skill levels, repressing wages and increasing house prices.
Said conversations are never able to cite any actual evidence for their claim.
Ms Raducanu is a fetching riposte to such drivel.
Talking about drivel - utter drivel from start to finish.
It's a good grid on paper for tomorrow but based on the last race in Austria, if Hamilton doesn't get past Norris and Perez quite quickly Verstappen will build a decent lead fairly quickly, so might not turn out to be the most thrilling race.
Though I'll probably be proven wrong having said that.
People are just tired of the rules. They don't take them seriously but pretend to go along with them because they don't want to break the law. It is just a really stupid situation, you have to go one way or the other, not a half freedom that imposes huge costs and has little or no benefit.
The other aspect is the whole "testing" regimen.
I could just about understand the need for Test & Trace last year - now, there's no point, It should be turned off, the App uninstalled etc.
There's also the "testing fanatics" - one organisation with which I'm familiar has "suggested" every member of staff tests twice a week (even if doubly vaccinated).
Now, I understand those with symptoms taking the test (and there's an argument trying to get a statistical handle on the numbers of asymptomatic isn't a bad idea) but the notion we should all be doing lateral flow tests or PCR tests or whatever ad infinitum is just ridiculous.
If I were a bluff old cynic, I'd say it was a ploy to increase the profits of those supplying the tests, none of whom could possibly have any links with the Government or Ministers....
Completely agree. On the 19th I'm uninstalling the app and anywhere that asks me to check in will no longer get my business. The whole testing system needs to be scaled back to 10% of what it is at the moment and then once we're into a cadence of booster shots every year then down to 1% with the ability to rapidly scale up if necessary. It's a huge expense which gives us little to no gain at the moment. The reduction in R from the test and trace scheme must be close to 0.
i just wave a swtched off phone when asked now - Ludicrous is the current situation
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
One of the things that could upset it is if Norris passes Verstappen off the line. And even if Verstappen does cruise off, still the chance of an exciting podium/midfield battle.
Although I was surprised the last race was so lacklustre...
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Keep an eye on the SPotY market although she won't win. It will be a footballer if we win Euro 2020 or an Olympian if we do not.
People are just tired of the rules. They don't take them seriously but pretend to go along with them because they don't want to break the law. It is just a really stupid situation, you have to go one way or the other, not a half freedom that imposes huge costs and has little or no benefit.
The other aspect is the whole "testing" regimen.
I could just about understand the need for Test & Trace last year - now, there's no point, It should be turned off, the App uninstalled etc.
There's also the "testing fanatics" - one organisation with which I'm familiar has "suggested" every member of staff tests twice a week (even if doubly vaccinated).
Now, I understand those with symptoms taking the test (and there's an argument trying to get a statistical handle on the numbers of asymptomatic isn't a bad idea) but the notion we should all be doing lateral flow tests or PCR tests or whatever ad infinitum is just ridiculous.
If I were a bluff old cynic, I'd say it was a ploy to increase the profits of those supplying the tests, none of whom could possibly have any links with the Government or Ministers....
There is a problem of producer interest, fortunes have been made.
As far as I can work out the virus is everywhere again, the numbers are completely wrong because 80% of people won't take a test as it means they have to go in to voluntary isolation for several days. Pretending that you can control it through test and trace is just more Covid theatre.
That's actually a fair point. How many people are bothering to use the app? Of those that do, how many are using it properly, given that staff at most venues will not hover over you and make sure that you check in? And what percentage of people are doing at-home testing and reporting the result accurately?
Factor in also the ever-increasing amount of contact tracing that has to be done as the instances which are actually known of are investigated, which must surely swamp the capacity of the system at some point, and you have to suppose that it's of little practical use altogether. Except for locking up huge numbers of perfectly well schoolchildren, who are the one group above all others who are sitting ducks for self-isolation.
I now see what is going on. People have the app so they can check in to places or pretend to. It is otherwise just regarded as an annoyance.
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Keep an eye on the SPotY market although she won't win. It will be a footballer if we win Euro 2020 or an Olympian if we do not.
My strategy on the SPOTY market, has usually been to lay whoever just won a title. The market almost always over-reacts to each winner as the year progresses.
This year’s winner will almost certainly be an Olympian, unless young Emma wins Wimbledon!
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Very true, although the kind of outright collapse of the higher seeds that we saw two or three years ago (where I seem to recall the entire top 10 getting dumped out during the first week) has not happened this year. Barty, Sabalenka, Swiatek and Pliskova are all still fighting, and there are a number of other strong prospects in the draw.
So, whilst the Tomljanovic match is obviously eminently winnable for a player who has now disposed of Vondrousova and Cirstea in back-to-back matches, things after that get very sticky. As it stands, one plausible route to victory would entail beating Barty, Kerber and Swiatek, and Raducanu would then become the lowest ranked player ever to win a Slam by a very considerable margin.
That is way too much to expect, but frankly she has already done very well indeed, and to reach the QF and then make Barty work for the win would constitute a magnificent achievement.
Sound analysis. She's only 28/1 now and I should lay back.
But I'm not!
It's all happening this next week. Football's coming home and she's winning Wimbledon.
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Keep an eye on the SPotY market although she won't win. It will be a footballer if we win Euro 2020 or an Olympian if we do not.
Yes, that's always a good trick. You can get big meta value there.
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Very true, although the kind of outright collapse of the higher seeds that we saw two or three years ago (where I seem to recall the entire top 10 getting dumped out during the first week) has not happened this year. Barty, Sabalenka, Swiatek and Pliskova are all still fighting, and there are a number of other strong prospects in the draw.
So, whilst the Tomljanovic match is obviously eminently winnable for a player who has now disposed of Vondrousova and Cirstea in back-to-back matches, things after that get very sticky. As it stands, one plausible route to victory would entail beating Barty, Kerber and Swiatek, and Raducanu would then become the lowest ranked player ever to win a Slam by a very considerable margin.
That is way too much to expect, but frankly she has already done very well indeed, and to reach the QF and then make Barty work for the win would constitute a magnificent achievement.
Sound analysis. She's only 28/1 now and I should lay back.
But I'm not!
It's all happening this next week. Football's coming home and she's winning Wimbledon.
Good you are not laying back - I prefer to back with bookies rather than betfair for this reason as i found i was closing out bets too often . After all the point of a bet in the first place is to have some risk and excitement. If one gets too nervous about losing ones stake then one has bet too big in the first place .
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
The Corbinistas were clearly banking on a Labour loss in Batley to get rid of Starmer.
People are just tired of the rules. They don't take them seriously but pretend to go along with them because they don't want to break the law. It is just a really stupid situation, you have to go one way or the other, not a half freedom that imposes huge costs and has little or no benefit.
The other aspect is the whole "testing" regimen.
I could just about understand the need for Test & Trace last year - now, there's no point, It should be turned off, the App uninstalled etc.
There's also the "testing fanatics" - one organisation with which I'm familiar has "suggested" every member of staff tests twice a week (even if doubly vaccinated).
Now, I understand those with symptoms taking the test (and there's an argument trying to get a statistical handle on the numbers of asymptomatic isn't a bad idea) but the notion we should all be doing lateral flow tests or PCR tests or whatever ad infinitum is just ridiculous.
If I were a bluff old cynic, I'd say it was a ploy to increase the profits of those supplying the tests, none of whom could possibly have any links with the Government or Ministers....
Completely agree. On the 19th I'm uninstalling the app and anywhere that asks me to check in will no longer get my business. The whole testing system needs to be scaled back to 10% of what it is at the moment and then once we're into a cadence of booster shots every year then down to 1% with the ability to rapidly scale up if necessary. It's a huge expense which gives us little to no gain at the moment. The reduction in R from the test and trace scheme must be close to 0.
I think that is really the thing, just keep it going to bring it back if needed in the future.
In my experience no business other than Nandos has ever even vaguely enforced the track and trace system.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
I was proved right about the personality flaws of Cummings.
I’m now being proved right about Gove as well.
I’ll be wrong one day, but it’s fun while it lasts.
Fish in a barrel innit. Identify a Tory politician without a personality flaw and we'll all be impressed.
A person without a personality flaw would never become a Tory politician.
Does any person not have a personality flaw ? If they did not have a flaw , people would find them annoying/earnest (like star trek crew imho) and boring !
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
The Corbinistas were clearly banking on a Labour loss in Batley to get rid of Starmer.
Starmer has a big problem now in Angela Rayner. She was clearly “on manoeuvres” last week, but is directly elected as deputy leader and can’t be fired.
I see the anti-migrant posters really don’t like it up em.
It was the sheer scale of it (10%!) the lack of democratic consent and meaningful mitigation (house building, retraining, schools/infrastructure investment etc) that was the problem for me.
Up until a few years ago, I didn’t see it as much of a problem. I was wrong.
Controlled immigration should have been a good thing. Our uncontrolled approach between 2004-2016 was a bit of a disaster.
I used to post stuff like you. I now see it as a mistake. It’s an attempt to remove immigration from the political debate. That’s wrong. Immigration is a profoundly political question that should be openly discussed.
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Very true, although the kind of outright collapse of the higher seeds that we saw two or three years ago (where I seem to recall the entire top 10 getting dumped out during the first week) has not happened this year. Barty, Sabalenka, Swiatek and Pliskova are all still fighting, and there are a number of other strong prospects in the draw.
So, whilst the Tomljanovic match is obviously eminently winnable for a player who has now disposed of Vondrousova and Cirstea in back-to-back matches, things after that get very sticky. As it stands, one plausible route to victory would entail beating Barty, Kerber and Swiatek, and Raducanu would then become the lowest ranked player ever to win a Slam by a very considerable margin.
That is way too much to expect, but frankly she has already done very well indeed, and to reach the QF and then make Barty work for the win would constitute a magnificent achievement.
Sound analysis. She's only 28/1 now and I should lay back.
But I'm not!
It's all happening this next week. Football's coming home and she's winning Wimbledon.
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
Sour grapes from the fifth columnists within the far left who wanted Labour to lose in Batley.
And anyway, it doesn't stack up. Had that been the Sun's intention, it would have released the story as soon as possible, because a high share of votes in a low turnout by-election come through postal votes.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
I was proved right about the personality flaws of Cummings.
I’m now being proved right about Gove as well.
I’ll be wrong one day, but it’s fun while it lasts.
Fish in a barrel innit. Identify a Tory politician without a personality flaw and we'll all be impressed.
A person without a personality flaw would never become a Tory politician.
Does any person not have a personality flaw ? If they did not have a flaw , people would find them annoying/earnest (like star trek crew imho) and boring !
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
She isn't "half Romanian, half Chinese" she is wholly British, and born of Canadian parents. Do you have some difficulty with accepting immigrants?
Oh how tiresome. You’ve really just collapsed in my estimation.
Sorry.
I'm as anti Brexit as the next man but you are having an absolute car crash. Some folks don't like dem negros but look what a fine specimen uncle Tom over here is, is roughly your point, surely?
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
Sour grapes from the fifth columnists within the far left who wanted Labour to lose in Batley.
And anyway, it doesn't stack up. Had that been the Sun's intention, if would have released the story as soon as possible, because a high share of votes in a low turnout by-election come through postal votes.
They obviously waited for a quieter time to release. End of the group stage and just before the weekend when there wasn’t much else to talk about.
I see the anti-migrant posters really don’t like it up em.
It was the sheer scale of it (10%!) the lack of democratic consent and meaningful mitigation (house building, retraining, schools/infrastructure investment etc) that was the problem for me.
Up until a few years ago, I didn’t see it as much of a problem. I was wrong.
Controlled immigration should have been a good thing. Our uncontrolled approach between 2004-2016 was a bit of a disaster.
I have some sympathy with this.
Bizarrely (to me), migration levels continued unabated until the pandemic. We just switched European immigrants for non-European ones.
It’s difficult to argue that we are now “controlling” migration, that the necessary infrastructure is being built, or that democratic consent has been given!
However, given how conflated Brexit and immigration were/are, the issue has reduced dramatically in salience.
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
She isn't "half Romanian, half Chinese" she is wholly British, and born of Canadian parents. Do you have some difficulty with accepting immigrants?
Oh how tiresome. You’ve really just collapsed in my estimation.
Sorry.
I'm as anti Brexit as the next man but you are having an absolute car crash. Some folks don't like dem negros but look what a fine specimen uncle Tom over here is, is roughly your point, surely?
Uhhh...some rather nasty stuff there emanating from your id.
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Keep an eye on the SPotY market although she won't win. It will be a footballer if we win Euro 2020 or an Olympian if we do not.
My strategy on the SPOTY market, has usually been to lay whoever just won a title. The market almost always over-reacts to each winner as the year progresses.
This year’s winner will almost certainly be an Olympian, unless young Emma wins Wimbledon!
The olympics though is likely to be lower key due to covid and also the time zone . I really dont want a footballer to win (pro football is not really to my liking) but Raheem Sterling could win (if England win) .
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
The Corbinistas were clearly banking on a Labour loss in Batley to get rid of Starmer.
Starmer has a big problem now in Angela Rayner. She was clearly “on manoeuvres” last week, but is directly elected as deputy leader and can’t be fired.
I don't think so. Angela Rayner has emerged as a diminished figure following the reports over the past week. She can only scotch the rumours by being ultra loyal now.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
I was proved right about the personality flaws of Cummings.
I’m now being proved right about Gove as well.
I’ll be wrong one day, but it’s fun while it lasts.
Fish in a barrel innit. Identify a Tory politician without a personality flaw and we'll all be impressed.
A person without a personality flaw would never become a Tory politician.
Does any person not have a personality flaw ? If they did not have a flaw , people would find them annoying/earnest (like star trek crew imho) and boring !
People are just tired of the rules. They don't take them seriously but pretend to go along with them because they don't want to break the law. It is just a really stupid situation, you have to go one way or the other, not a half freedom that imposes huge costs and has little or no benefit.
The other aspect is the whole "testing" regimen.
I could just about understand the need for Test & Trace last year - now, there's no point, It should be turned off, the App uninstalled etc.
There's also the "testing fanatics" - one organisation with which I'm familiar has "suggested" every member of staff tests twice a week (even if doubly vaccinated).
Now, I understand those with symptoms taking the test (and there's an argument trying to get a statistical handle on the numbers of asymptomatic isn't a bad idea) but the notion we should all be doing lateral flow tests or PCR tests or whatever ad infinitum is just ridiculous.
If I were a bluff old cynic, I'd say it was a ploy to increase the profits of those supplying the tests, none of whom could possibly have any links with the Government or Ministers....
There is a problem of producer interest, fortunes have been made.
As far as I can work out the virus is everywhere again, the numbers are completely wrong because 80% of people won't take a test as it means they have to go in to voluntary isolation for several days. Pretending that you can control it through test and trace is just more Covid theatre.
That's actually a fair point. How many people are bothering to use the app? Of those that do, how many are using it properly, given that staff at most venues will not hover over you and make sure that you check in? And what percentage of people are doing at-home testing and reporting the result accurately?
Factor in also the ever-increasing amount of contact tracing that has to be done as the instances which are actually known of are investigated, which must surely swamp the capacity of the system at some point, and you have to suppose that it's of little practical use altogether. Except for locking up huge numbers of perfectly well schoolchildren, who are the one group above all others who are sitting ducks for self-isolation.
I now see what is going on. People have the app so they can check in to places or pretend to. It is otherwise just regarded as an annoyance.
Don't ask me how I know, but when it wants you to isolate it shows you a screen saying ISOLATE YOURSELF UNTIL DDMM YOU INFECTIOUS BASTARD DO YOU WANT TO KILL PEOPLE (slightly paraphrased) which anyone can see who demands that you open the app. Are pubs/ other venues/ border control bods allowed to do that? Does the phone explode if you try to check in to a venue while the warning is current?
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
I think you need to work harder on your trolling, unless you genuinely believe people who want to restrict levels of immigration (and its not a subject I care about, the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned) actually want to have zero immigration at all. Otherwise your trolling attempt doesn't work, since it has to bear some relation to what people actually complain about.
I don't think anyone cares about the background of their sport stars though, even if they snuck in illegally - so just see all migrants, legal and otherwise, as potential olympians and don't risk sending anyone home.
Two or three times a week we have a little masturbatory sub-thread on how awful immigration has been over the last few years, reducing skill levels, repressing wages and increasing house prices.
Said conversations are never able to cite any actual evidence for their claim.
Ms Raducanu is a fetching riposte to such drivel.
Immigration is a fantastic thing and has brought us so many talented people. My challenge whenever people put forward a 1st generation immigrant like her as British is to check if they would be happy for her to come to this country now.
She arrived aged 2, born abroad to forrin parents. Aren't they now the exact kind of people that the angry folk want to keep out?
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
I think you need to work harder on your trolling, unless you genuinely believe people who want to restrict levels of immigration (and its not a subject I care about, the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned) actually want to have zero immigration at all. Otherwise your trolling attempt doesn't work, since it has to bear some relation to what people actually complain about.
I don't think anyone cares about the background of their sport stars though, even if they snuck in illegally - so just see all migrants, legal and otherwise, as potential olympians and don't risk sending anyone home.
Two or three times a week we have a little masturbatory sub-thread on how awful immigration has been over the last few years, reducing skill levels, repressing wages and increasing house prices.
Said conversations are never able to cite any actual evidence for their claim.
Ms Raducanu is a fetching riposte to such drivel.
Immigration is a fantastic thing and has brought us so many talented people. My challenge whenever people put forward a 1st generation immigrant like her as British is to check if they would be happy for her to come to this country now.
She arrived aged 2, born abroad to forrin parents. Aren't they now the exact kind of people that the angry folk want to keep out?
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
She isn't "half Romanian, half Chinese" she is wholly British, and born of Canadian parents. Do you have some difficulty with accepting immigrants?
Oh how tiresome. You’ve really just collapsed in my estimation.
Sorry.
I'm as anti Brexit as the next man but you are having an absolute car crash. Some folks don't like dem negros but look what a fine specimen uncle Tom over here is, is roughly your point, surely?
Uhhh...some rather nasty stuff there emanating from your id.
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
The Corbinistas were clearly banking on a Labour loss in Batley to get rid of Starmer.
Starmer has a big problem now in Angela Rayner. She was clearly “on manoeuvres” last week, but is directly elected as deputy leader and can’t be fired.
I don't think so. Angela Rayner has emerged as a diminished figure following the reports over the past week. She can only scotch the rumours by being ultra loyal now.
Rayner has really screwed up. I think she’s looked on rather suspiciously by front bench colleagues now.
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Very true, although the kind of outright collapse of the higher seeds that we saw two or three years ago (where I seem to recall the entire top 10 getting dumped out during the first week) has not happened this year. Barty, Sabalenka, Swiatek and Pliskova are all still fighting, and there are a number of other strong prospects in the draw.
So, whilst the Tomljanovic match is obviously eminently winnable for a player who has now disposed of Vondrousova and Cirstea in back-to-back matches, things after that get very sticky. As it stands, one plausible route to victory would entail beating Barty, Kerber and Swiatek, and Raducanu would then become the lowest ranked player ever to win a Slam by a very considerable margin.
That is way too much to expect, but frankly she has already done very well indeed, and to reach the QF and then make Barty work for the win would constitute a magnificent achievement.
Sound analysis. She's only 28/1 now and I should lay back.
But I'm not!
It's all happening this next week. Football's coming home and she's winning Wimbledon.
Good you are not laying back - I prefer to back with bookies rather than betfair for this reason as i found i was closing out bets too often . After all the point of a bet in the first place is to have some risk and excitement. If one gets too nervous about losing ones stake then one has bet too big in the first place .
Yes, although for me it depends on the exposure and the timeframe. For big sums on term markets it can be a lot of fun in itself to do the trading aspect.
People are just tired of the rules. They don't take them seriously but pretend to go along with them because they don't want to break the law. It is just a really stupid situation, you have to go one way or the other, not a half freedom that imposes huge costs and has little or no benefit.
The other aspect is the whole "testing" regimen.
I could just about understand the need for Test & Trace last year - now, there's no point, It should be turned off, the App uninstalled etc.
There's also the "testing fanatics" - one organisation with which I'm familiar has "suggested" every member of staff tests twice a week (even if doubly vaccinated).
Now, I understand those with symptoms taking the test (and there's an argument trying to get a statistical handle on the numbers of asymptomatic isn't a bad idea) but the notion we should all be doing lateral flow tests or PCR tests or whatever ad infinitum is just ridiculous.
If I were a bluff old cynic, I'd say it was a ploy to increase the profits of those supplying the tests, none of whom could possibly have any links with the Government or Ministers....
There is a problem of producer interest, fortunes have been made.
As far as I can work out the virus is everywhere again, the numbers are completely wrong because 80% of people won't take a test as it means they have to go in to voluntary isolation for several days. Pretending that you can control it through test and trace is just more Covid theatre.
That's actually a fair point. How many people are bothering to use the app? Of those that do, how many are using it properly, given that staff at most venues will not hover over you and make sure that you check in? And what percentage of people are doing at-home testing and reporting the result accurately?
Factor in also the ever-increasing amount of contact tracing that has to be done as the instances which are actually known of are investigated, which must surely swamp the capacity of the system at some point, and you have to suppose that it's of little practical use altogether. Except for locking up huge numbers of perfectly well schoolchildren, who are the one group above all others who are sitting ducks for self-isolation.
I now see what is going on. People have the app so they can check in to places or pretend to. It is otherwise just regarded as an annoyance.
Don't ask me how I know, but when it wants you to isolate it shows you a screen saying ISOLATE YOURSELF UNTIL DDMM YOU INFECTIOUS BASTARD DO YOU WANT TO KILL PEOPLE (slightly paraphrased) which anyone can see who demands that you open the app. Are pubs/ other venues/ border control bods allowed to do that? Does the phone explode if you try to check in to a venue while the warning is current?
Only makes any difference for e.g. a trip to the pub if the person on the door watches you check in to satisfy themselves that you have done so. Otherwise you just wave your phone in the general direction of the QR code and you're in.
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
She isn't "half Romanian, half Chinese" she is wholly British, and born of Canadian parents. Do you have some difficulty with accepting immigrants?
Oh how tiresome. You’ve really just collapsed in my estimation.
Sorry.
I'm as anti Brexit as the next man but you are having an absolute car crash. Some folks don't like dem negros but look what a fine specimen uncle Tom over here is, is roughly your point, surely?
Uhhh...some rather nasty stuff there emanating from your id.
Car crash cont.
I’m afraid you’ve publicly soiled yourself on this thread. Suggest you take some time to clean yourself up.
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Keep an eye on the SPotY market although she won't win. It will be a footballer if we win Euro 2020 or an Olympian if we do not.
Yes, that's always a good trick. You can get big meta value there.
The Scots will be behind Josh Taylor, undisputed world light-welterweight champion.
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
I think you need to work harder on your trolling, unless you genuinely believe people who want to restrict levels of immigration (and its not a subject I care about, the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned) actually want to have zero immigration at all. Otherwise your trolling attempt doesn't work, since it has to bear some relation to what people actually complain about.
I don't think anyone cares about the background of their sport stars though, even if they snuck in illegally - so just see all migrants, legal and otherwise, as potential olympians and don't risk sending anyone home.
Two or three times a week we have a little masturbatory sub-thread on how awful immigration has been over the last few years, reducing skill levels, repressing wages and increasing house prices.
Said conversations are never able to cite any actual evidence for their claim.
Ms Raducanu is a fetching riposte to such drivel.
Immigration is a fantastic thing and has brought us so many talented people. My challenge whenever people put forward a 1st generation immigrant like her as British is to check if they would be happy for her to come to this country now.
She arrived aged 2, born abroad to forrin parents. Aren't they now the exact kind of people that the angry folk want to keep out?
Her Romanian father and Chinese mother, both from academic families and who work in finance, wanted to give their shy daughter a diverse skillset.
I don’t if she went to private school, but I’d imagine she did.
Labour got all upset about privately educated kids counting for a disproportionate amount of our medals in 2012. But the reality is that for many sports, parental wealth/commitment is very important. Its why the children of high earning immigrants seem to do very well. We notice them more - just look the offspring of Petr Korda!
I see the anti-migrant posters really don’t like it up em.
It was the sheer scale of it (10%!) the lack of democratic consent and meaningful mitigation (house building, retraining, schools/infrastructure investment etc) that was the problem for me.
Up until a few years ago, I didn’t see it as much of a problem. I was wrong.
Controlled immigration should have been a good thing. Our uncontrolled approach between 2004-2016 was a bit of a disaster.
I used to post stuff like you. I now see it as a mistake. It’s an attempt to remove immigration from the political debate. That’s wrong. Immigration is a profoundly political question that should be openly discussed.
I don't know, maybe telling Leave voters that we might have a pretty immigrant with a Romanian sounding name reach the second week of Wimbledon would have made them forget about the pressure on their wages, job security, social harmony, school places, hospital waiting lists and so on
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
The Corbinistas were clearly banking on a Labour loss in Batley to get rid of Starmer.
Starmer has a big problem now in Angela Rayner. She was clearly “on manoeuvres” last week, but is directly elected as deputy leader and can’t be fired.
I don't think so. Angela Rayner has emerged as a diminished figure following the reports over the past week. She can only scotch the rumours by being ultra loyal now.
Rayner has really screwed up. I think she’s looked on rather suspiciously by front bench colleagues now.
Personally I think she has signalled she wants to be leader which will do her good down the line.
Forrin enough for the likes of the Daily Mail. Note how they have him as Scottish when losing and British when winning. He's not proper British like that nice Tim Henman is he?
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
The Corbinistas were clearly banking on a Labour loss in Batley to get rid of Starmer.
Starmer has a big problem now in Angela Rayner. She was clearly “on manoeuvres” last week, but is directly elected as deputy leader and can’t be fired.
I don't think so. Angela Rayner has emerged as a diminished figure following the reports over the past week. She can only scotch the rumours by being ultra loyal now.
Rayner has really screwed up. I think she’s looked on rather suspiciously by front bench colleagues now.
She'll have to get those phone lines uninstalled now.
Bloody voters. Voting Labour and spoiling it all for her.
Forrin enough for the likes of the Daily Mail. Note how they have him as Scottish when losing and British when winning. He's not proper British like that nice Tim Henman is he?
We're going to need better "cycling" infrastructure as electric scooters become more popular.
The guy who cut my hair this morning told me he is proudly no-vax, no-mask (except at work), and enjoys riding to the salon on his electric scooter (currently illegal).
One would really want him to reveal that before letting him get to work on your hair.
Emma Raducanu - half Romanian, half Chinese - is one of those immigrants PBers love to complain about.
No, I don’t mean *her*, they protest.
I think you need to work harder on your trolling, unless you genuinely believe people who want to restrict levels of immigration (and its not a subject I care about, the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned) actually want to have zero immigration at all. Otherwise your trolling attempt doesn't work, since it has to bear some relation to what people actually complain about.
I don't think anyone cares about the background of their sport stars though, even if they snuck in illegally - so just see all migrants, legal and otherwise, as potential olympians and don't risk sending anyone home.
Two or three times a week we have a little masturbatory sub-thread on how awful immigration has been over the last few years, reducing skill levels, repressing wages and increasing house prices.
Said conversations are never able to cite any actual evidence for their claim.
Ms Raducanu is a fetching riposte to such drivel.
Immigration is a fantastic thing and has brought us so many talented people. My challenge whenever people put forward a 1st generation immigrant like her as British is to check if they would be happy for her to come to this country now.
She arrived aged 2, born abroad to forrin parents. Aren't they now the exact kind of people that the angry folk want to keep out?
Most immigration discussion is unenlightened because it's so reductive.
Two things can be true at the same time: there are millions of talented people in the world who'd no doubt all make a meaningful contribution to the UK but at the same time the rate and type of admissions also needs to be controlled.
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
The Corbinistas were clearly banking on a Labour loss in Batley to get rid of Starmer.
Starmer has a big problem now in Angela Rayner. She was clearly “on manoeuvres” last week, but is directly elected as deputy leader and can’t be fired.
I don't think so. Angela Rayner has emerged as a diminished figure following the reports over the past week. She can only scotch the rumours by being ultra loyal now.
Rayner has really screwed up. I think she’s looked on rather suspiciously by front bench colleagues now.
She'll have to get those phone lines uninstalled now.
Bloody voters. Voting Labour and spoiling it all for her.
Do people still “phone lines installed”?
I presume, rather, than Angela is frantically throwing away her “burners”.
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Keep an eye on the SPotY market although she won't win. It will be a footballer if we win Euro 2020 or an Olympian if we do not.
My strategy on the SPOTY market, has usually been to lay whoever just won a title. The market almost always over-reacts to each winner as the year progresses.
This year’s winner will almost certainly be an Olympian, unless young Emma wins Wimbledon!
The olympics though is likely to be lower key due to covid and also the time zone . I really dont want a footballer to win (pro football is not really to my liking) but Raheem Sterling could win (if England win) .
The time zone is going to be a little wierd for the Olympics, but the main events will be on during UK daytime (athletics finals 10am-midday, for example) and someone will pick up a couple of medals and be leading the news for days. We forget how big an event the Olympics is, and just how much coverage it generates both during and after the Games themselves.
We’ll be collectively looking for something to celebrate, after the events of the past 18 months.
Comments
You are aware of the "Cycling Farcility of the Month" web page in Warrington. Very funny. Currently down for maintenance, but this is the latest on the Archive. The page to have lost enthusiasm after 20 years.
If the mask mandate is lifted for shops, trains and so on, however, I shall be ditching them like a shot. I think most of us have had enough and, logically, if we don't let go of these measures at some point then we'll be stuck with them forever, which nobody apart from the Michie faction of the scientists wants.
I don't think anyone cares about the background of their sport stars though, even if they snuck in illegally - so just see all migrants, legal and otherwise, as potential olympians and don't risk sending anyone home.
I'm lucky to live in London where most of the real infrastructure (as opposed to lines of paint on the road, which are if anything more dangerous since they encourage drivers to close pass) is generally decently designed.
Now, you can argue that you can gather the same information with the ONS survey, and to an extent that's true, but the daily reported case numbers are just much more visible, and timely, and this is about establishing the effectiveness of the vaccines in the most public way possible.
I almost think it would be worth seeing daily cases go way above the January peak for this reason, but it's probably best that the virus doesn't spread so much (which will also be due to the vaccine effect).
Said conversations are never able to cite any actual evidence for their claim.
Ms Raducanu is a fetching riposte to such drivel.
Ten days later, the world changed.
As far as I can work out the virus is everywhere again, the numbers are completely wrong because 80% of people won't take a test as it means they have to go in to voluntary isolation for several days. Pretending that you can control it through test and trace is just more Covid theatre.
I have £2 on Emma at 130/1 - what do you think of that? It can happen, can't it? Sometimes these young stars emerge from nowhere and women's tennis is very very open atm.
Norris is perhaps the best performing driver of the season. Quite astonished he did so well.
Factor in also the ever-increasing amount of contact tracing that has to be done as the instances which are actually known of are investigated, which must surely swamp the capacity of the system at some point, and you have to suppose that it's of little practical use altogether. Except for locking up huge numbers of perfectly well schoolchildren, who are the one group above all others who are sitting ducks for self-isolation.
Well done you.
At the back, Cav, Froome and Thomas caught up with the very large autobus, so they aren't going to be chucked out at least.
Pog got the Tour barring accidents.
Russell to McLaren, or maybe Bottas if Russell goes to Mercedes?
Edit: great minds, @Gallowgate!
Probably not from his perspective.
So, whilst the Tomljanovic match is obviously eminently winnable for a player who has now disposed of Vondrousova and Cirstea in back-to-back matches, things after that get very sticky. As it stands, one plausible route to victory would entail beating Barty, Kerber and Swiatek, and Raducanu would then become the lowest ranked player ever to win a Slam by a very considerable margin.
That is way too much to expect, but frankly she has already done very well indeed, and to reach the QF and then make Barty work for the win would constitute a magnificent achievement.
Though I'll probably be proven wrong having said that.
https://twitter.com/mattzarb/status/1411282961077522438
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
One of the things that could upset it is if Norris passes Verstappen off the line. And even if Verstappen does cruise off, still the chance of an exciting podium/midfield battle.
Although I was surprised the last race was so lacklustre...
This year’s winner will almost certainly be an Olympian, unless young Emma wins Wimbledon!
But I'm not!
It's all happening this next week. Football's coming home and she's winning Wimbledon.
In my experience no business other than Nandos has ever even vaguely enforced the track and trace system.
Two advantages:
1. No loops to hurt my ears.
2. Easier to slip on and off. I spent most of the day wearing it round my neck.
Unscientific observation, but I reckon there was more mask wearing among younger adults who aren't double jabbed yet than among the older folk.
You’ve really just collapsed in my estimation.
This is ...different...
He should take it easy on the descent. No point going for the stage.
Up until a few years ago, I didn’t see it as much of a problem. I was wrong.
Controlled immigration should have been a good thing. Our uncontrolled approach between 2004-2016 was a bit of a disaster.
I used to post stuff like you. I now see it as a mistake. It’s an attempt to remove immigration from the political debate. That’s wrong. Immigration is a profoundly political question that should be openly discussed.
/irony
And anyway, it doesn't stack up. Had that been the Sun's intention, it would have released the story as soon as possible, because a high share of votes in a low turnout by-election come through postal votes.
I'm as anti Brexit as the next man but you are having an absolute car crash. Some folks don't like dem negros but look what a fine specimen uncle Tom over here is, is roughly your point, surely?
Bizarrely (to me), migration levels continued unabated until the pandemic. We just switched European immigrants for non-European ones.
It’s difficult to argue that we are now “controlling” migration, that the necessary infrastructure is being built, or that democratic consent has been given!
However, given how conflated Brexit and immigration were/are, the issue has reduced dramatically in salience.
She arrived aged 2, born abroad to forrin parents. Aren't they now the exact kind of people that the angry folk want to keep out?
I think she’s looked on rather suspiciously by front bench colleagues now.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/03/i-have-high-standards-for-myself-emma-raducanu-britains-18-year-old-tennis-star
Her Romanian father and Chinese mother, both from academic families and who work in finance, wanted to give their shy daughter a diverse skillset.
I don’t if she went to private school, but I’d imagine she did.
Labour got all upset about privately educated kids counting for a disproportionate amount of our medals in 2012. But the reality is that for many sports, parental wealth/commitment is very important. Its why the children of high earning immigrants seem to do very well. We notice them more - just look the offspring of Petr Korda!
https://twitter.com/LauraLeslieF1/status/1411339634953621506
Bloody voters. Voting Labour and spoiling it all for her.
Two things can be true at the same time: there are millions of talented people in the world who'd no doubt all make a meaningful contribution to the UK but at the same time the rate and type of admissions also needs to be controlled.
I presume, rather, than Angela is frantically throwing away her “burners”.
We’ll be collectively looking for something to celebrate, after the events of the past 18 months.