AstraZeneca may be done with vaccines. That’s sad but not surprising The company did the world a solid by agreeing to offer its treatment at cost price. The world snarled back in response. Will anyone do the same in future? Doubtful
Who can blame them? They did the world a massive favour and have received no plaudits. It perhaps didn't help that our government crowed about our vaccine rollout so much and made it a nationalistic willy waving contest.
Agreed. The bragging by Johnson was highly counterproductive.
Starship Troopers is one of my favourite films of all time. Brilliant satire. Certainly on the list of great war films. Ice Cold in Alex and The Guns of Navarone probably my favourite British ones. Saving Private Ryan I saw for the first time a month or two ago and I thought it was great. The Good the Bad and the Ugly has some fantastic war scenes in it, even if it's not really a war film per se. Then of course there is Casablanca, the greatest film ever made, and certainly a war film. I'd also put in an honourable mention for Oh What A Lovely War, not necessarily the film version but it's a really powerful piece of theatre (I have performed in two separate productions of it, and found it easily the most devastating play I've ever been in).
I love Ice Cold in Alex for an odd reason.
War was mainly a male domain. Many war films made in the 1950s and 1960s try to shoehorn in a love interest, often putting women where they would not realistically have been. In Ice Cold in Alex, the presence of the two women makes sense, they kill one woman off, and neither are particularly treated as sex objects. This makes the story feel so much more realistic than many other films.
It is a wonderful film for this, and many other, reasons.
In a way, 'Went the Day Well' is also quite good: the women felt like realistic characters placed in an unreal, horrid situation.
Mr. Malmesbury, I'm shocked that the Empire led by a genocidal megalomaniac and a seven foot, child-murdering, space wizard isn't au fait with the niceties of health and safety
At this stage of the Olympics I always like to play spot the nation who has no medals at all (san marino have one FFS) and really should have!
The honour this time goes to ---Sweden who have nothing so far. Given Sweden seem to top every league table from education to wellbeing etc I think the rest of the world can feel a little smug at this!
Craig Murray gives us all a salutary warning that you shouldn't mess with judges during a live trial.
I'm guessing Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill praised the decision of SCOTUK to not get involved in Scottish Affairs?
It's still very odd because other journalists were reputedly giving markedly more pieces of the jigsaw out.
Has the written judgement been issued?
I've tried avoiding Murraygate twitter on the same basis I avoid other twitter cesspools, but I've seen 'the other journo were at it' allegations without any supporting evidence. I guess providing that evidence may repeat the original crime?
As far as I can see (apart from whether he's a journalist or not), Murray seems to have been doing a huge wink about the identities of those involved which may suggest intent, eg "I implore you to read this article very, very carefully indeed. Between the lines."
That is the general problem: how can one discuss Mr Murray's case, or indeed Mr Salmond's, rationally under such a prohibition - and also under such an information clampdown in the first place?
This is why you need David Davis.
I suspect the thing that has complicated discussion of it is
1) Roddy Dunlop's not so private views on Alex Salmond
2) Alex Salmond admitting he was no angel
3) A not proven verdict on serious charge. Now you and I know that not proven is not guilty, but for some a not proven is tantamount to saying guilty/no smoke without fire.
Not sure a real SNP whistleblower would have picked Mr Davis - why him?
On other points - all complications indeed. As was the BBC's reportage, even after the trial (AIUI their overall prorgamme about the trial had to be edited pdq after broadcast and before putting on ther internet, but I didn't see its original broadcast which was just after the verdict, I believe).
Not a war film as such, I admit, but a stunning piece of film making.
I know not all films are about pulse pounding entertainment, but that seems too much like work to watch it.
It's definitely an investment, both in time and emotion. But well worth it. I've watched it twice now, first time about 10 years ago, second time earlier this year. I'll no doubt watch it again at some point.
Mr. Malmesbury, I'm shocked that the Empire led by a genocidal megalomaniac and a seven foot, child-murdering, space wizard isn't au fait with the niceties of health and safety
It caught up with them in the end - the genocidal maniac didn't bother to cover the miles deep shaft opening in the floor of his own throne room.
When I am unDictator of Britain, HSE compliance in all my palaces, lairs, hollowed out volcanoes etc will be enforced.
Mr. Malmesbury, I'm shocked that the Empire led by a genocidal megalomaniac and a seven foot, child-murdering, space wizard isn't au fait with the niceties of health and safety
It caught up with them in the end - the genocidal maniac didn't bother to cover the miles deep shaft opening in the floor of his own throne room.
When I am unDictator of Britain, HSE compliance in all my palaces, lairs, hollowed out volcanoes etc will be enforced.
I can't believe the Greens would get anywhere near 9% in a GE held tomorrow.
I know they've increased numbers, but do they stand in enough places to get that much?
They've stood in 472 seats in England and Wales in 2019, which is a fair proportion when you consider it will include mostly their best prospects.
Historically they've struggled to avoid being squeezed by tactical voting, both because they're a smaller party, but also because of the demographics of their voters.
UKIP voters were always much less inclined to vote tactically as opposed to bloody-mindedly as a point of comparison.
Craig Murray gives us all a salutary warning that you shouldn't mess with judges during a live trial.
I'm guessing Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill praised the decision of SCOTUK to not get involved in Scottish Affairs?
It's still very odd because other journalists were reputedly giving markedly more pieces of the jigsaw out.
Has the written judgement been issued?
I've tried avoiding Murraygate twitter on the same basis I avoid other twitter cesspools, but I've seen 'the other journo were at it' allegations without any supporting evidence. I guess providing that evidence may repeat the original crime?
As far as I can see (apart from whether he's a journalist or not), Murray seems to have been doing a huge wink about the identities of those involved which may suggest intent, eg "I implore you to read this article very, very carefully indeed. Between the lines."
That is the general problem: how can one discuss Mr Murray's case, or indeed Mr Salmond's, rationally under such a prohibition - and also under such an information clampdown in the first place?
This is why you need David Davis.
I suspect the thing that has complicated discussion of it is
1) Roddy Dunlop's not so private views on Alex Salmond
2) Alex Salmond admitting he was no angel
3) A not proven verdict on serious charge. Now you and I know that not proven is not guilty, but for some a not proven is tantamount to saying guilty/no smoke without fire.
Not sure a real SNP whistleblower would have picked Mr Davis - why him?
On other points - all complications indeed. As was the BBC's reportage, even after the trial (AIUI their overall prorgamme about the trial had to be edited pdq after broadcast and before putting on ther internet, but I didn't see its original broadcast which was just after the verdict, I believe).
Craig Murray gives us all a salutary warning that you shouldn't mess with judges during a live trial.
I'm guessing Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill praised the decision of SCOTUK to not get involved in Scottish Affairs?
It's still very odd because other journalists were reputedly giving markedly more pieces of the jigsaw out.
Has the written judgement been issued?
I've tried avoiding Murraygate twitter on the same basis I avoid other twitter cesspools, but I've seen 'the other journo were at it' allegations without any supporting evidence. I guess providing that evidence may repeat the original crime?
As far as I can see (apart from whether he's a journalist or not), Murray seems to have been doing a huge wink about the identities of those involved which may suggest intent, eg "I implore you to read this article very, very carefully indeed. Between the lines."
That is the general problem: how can one discuss Mr Murray's case, or indeed Mr Salmond's, rationally under such a prohibition - and also under such an information clampdown in the first place?
This is why you need David Davis.
I suspect the thing that has complicated discussion of it is
1) Roddy Dunlop's not so private views on Alex Salmond
2) Alex Salmond admitting he was no angel
3) A not proven verdict on serious charge. Now you and I know that not proven is not guilty, but for some a not proven is tantamount to saying guilty/no smoke without fire.
Not sure a real SNP whistleblower would have picked Mr Davis - why him?
On other points - all complications indeed. As was the BBC's reportage, even after the trial (AIUI their overall prorgamme about the trial had to be edited pdq after broadcast and before putting on ther internet, but I didn't see its original broadcast which was just after the verdict, I believe).
Craig Murray gives us all a salutary warning that you shouldn't mess with judges during a live trial.
I'm guessing Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill praised the decision of SCOTUK to not get involved in Scottish Affairs?
It's still very odd because other journalists were reputedly giving markedly more pieces of the jigsaw out.
Has the written judgement been issued?
I've tried avoiding Murraygate twitter on the same basis I avoid other twitter cesspools, but I've seen 'the other journo were at it' allegations without any supporting evidence. I guess providing that evidence may repeat the original crime?
As far as I can see (apart from whether he's a journalist or not), Murray seems to have been doing a huge wink about the identities of those involved which may suggest intent, eg "I implore you to read this article very, very carefully indeed. Between the lines."
That is the general problem: how can one discuss Mr Murray's case, or indeed Mr Salmond's, rationally under such a prohibition - and also under such an information clampdown in the first place?
This is why you need David Davis.
I suspect the thing that has complicated discussion of it is
1) Roddy Dunlop's not so private views on Alex Salmond
2) Alex Salmond admitting he was no angel
3) A not proven verdict on serious charge. Now you and I know that not proven is not guilty, but for some a not proven is tantamount to saying guilty/no smoke without fire.
Not sure a real SNP whistleblower would have picked Mr Davis - why him?
On other points - all complications indeed. As was the BBC's reportage, even after the trial (AIUI their overall prorgamme about the trial had to be edited pdq after broadcast and before putting on ther internet, but I didn't see its original broadcast which was just after the verdict, I believe).
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
I loved the bit where the Martians run around saying "we come in peace" and literally blasting humans with a death ray at the same time. I always think of this scene whenever the PM mentions Levelling Up, for some reason.
Craig Murray gives us all a salutary warning that you shouldn't mess with judges during a live trial.
I'm guessing Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill praised the decision of SCOTUK to not get involved in Scottish Affairs?
It's still very odd because other journalists were reputedly giving markedly more pieces of the jigsaw out.
Has the written judgement been issued?
I've tried avoiding Murraygate twitter on the same basis I avoid other twitter cesspools, but I've seen 'the other journo were at it' allegations without any supporting evidence. I guess providing that evidence may repeat the original crime?
As far as I can see (apart from whether he's a journalist or not), Murray seems to have been doing a huge wink about the identities of those involved which may suggest intent, eg "I implore you to read this article very, very carefully indeed. Between the lines."
That is the general problem: how can one discuss Mr Murray's case, or indeed Mr Salmond's, rationally under such a prohibition - and also under such an information clampdown in the first place?
This is why you need David Davis.
I suspect the thing that has complicated discussion of it is
1) Roddy Dunlop's not so private views on Alex Salmond
2) Alex Salmond admitting he was no angel
3) A not proven verdict on serious charge. Now you and I know that not proven is not guilty, but for some a not proven is tantamount to saying guilty/no smoke without fire.
Not sure a real SNP whistleblower would have picked Mr Davis - why him?
On other points - all complications indeed. As was the BBC's reportage, even after the trial (AIUI their overall prorgamme about the trial had to be edited pdq after broadcast and before putting on ther internet, but I didn't see its original broadcast which was just after the verdict, I believe).
That's what I mean - why pick a Tory right winger (unless there is something I am missing)?
I think if an SNP/Alba person did what Davis did the story might get lost in the Scottish independence factionalism angle.
Letting someone who has no personal dog in that fight is the best way.
As an aside, I'd give the devolved assemblies the freedom of privilege that Westminster has, with the obvious caveat about sub judice.
Plus David Davis has a history of being deeply interested in freed of expression etc - with him, it can't just be painted as "partisan jumping on a bandwagon".
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID thing or is it a personal choice (because they are basically imprisoned) ? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
All athletes have to depart once they have finished competing.
Craig Murray gives us all a salutary warning that you shouldn't mess with judges during a live trial.
I'm guessing Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill praised the decision of SCOTUK to not get involved in Scottish Affairs?
It's still very odd because other journalists were reputedly giving markedly more pieces of the jigsaw out.
Has the written judgement been issued?
I've tried avoiding Murraygate twitter on the same basis I avoid other twitter cesspools, but I've seen 'the other journo were at it' allegations without any supporting evidence. I guess providing that evidence may repeat the original crime?
As far as I can see (apart from whether he's a journalist or not), Murray seems to have been doing a huge wink about the identities of those involved which may suggest intent, eg "I implore you to read this article very, very carefully indeed. Between the lines."
That is the general problem: how can one discuss Mr Murray's case, or indeed Mr Salmond's, rationally under such a prohibition - and also under such an information clampdown in the first place?
This is why you need David Davis.
I suspect the thing that has complicated discussion of it is
1) Roddy Dunlop's not so private views on Alex Salmond
2) Alex Salmond admitting he was no angel
3) A not proven verdict on serious charge. Now you and I know that not proven is not guilty, but for some a not proven is tantamount to saying guilty/no smoke without fire.
Not sure a real SNP whistleblower would have picked Mr Davis - why him?
On other points - all complications indeed. As was the BBC's reportage, even after the trial (AIUI their overall prorgamme about the trial had to be edited pdq after broadcast and before putting on ther internet, but I didn't see its original broadcast which was just after the verdict, I believe).
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
All athletes have to depart once they have finished competing.
Is it normal or is it a COVID thing? Seems a bit crap to have an event early on, win, then right you, pack your bags, get on that plane and sod off.
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
General rule of this Games: AIUI all competitors are required to leave within 48 hours of completing their event(s). The principle being, one would assume, that the fewer people there are left in the athlete's village, the lower the likelihood of Plague outbreaks.
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
All athletes have to depart once they have finished competing.
Is it normal or is it a COVID thing?
Covid rules. Normally the Village is one massive party city once events start finishing. In Rio they had to ship in more condoms.
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
General rule of this Games: AIUI all competitors are required to leave within 48 hours of completing their event(s). The principle being, one would assume, that the fewer people there are left in the athlete's village, the lower the likelihood of Plague outbreaks.
Right, I thought it might be that. I am going to guess they aren't that unhappy to go, given COVID and that they can't get out and explore, although bit shitty not to be able to cheer your mates on.
So by the end, some events really aren't going to have anybody watching them, in the way the swimmers have had a bit of a crowd to cheer them on. And the closing ceremony is going to be a couple of athletes wandering around looking lost.
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
All athletes have to depart once they have finished competing.
Is it normal or is it a COVID thing?
That thing about Olympians shagging each other which someone posted the other day made it clear that it is normal, apparently.
There was a story about someome who stayed on illicitly in a whole house that had been vacated by the team because he didn't want to miss the final party - turned outt hat the empty rooms were extremely popular.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
All athletes have to depart once they have finished competing.
Is it normal or is it a COVID thing?
Covid rules. Normally the Village is one massive party city once events start finishing. In Rio they had to ship in more condoms.
That was my recollection, but I wondered if it was normal that perhaps there might be some unfortunate ones who have events in the first day or two, who have to go to make room for those in the last week.
I loved the bit where the Martians run around saying "we come in peace" and literally blasting humans with a death ray at the same time. I always think of this scene whenever the PM mentions Levelling Up, for some reason.
Also the fact that it's the bloke releasing the dove that triggers them, and the double take Glenn Close does when they zap the dog.
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
All athletes have to depart once they have finished competing.
Is it normal or is it a COVID thing?
Covid rules. Normally the Village is one massive party city once events start finishing. In Rio they had to ship in more condoms.
That was my recollection, but I wondered if there might be some unfortunate ones who have events in the first day or two, who have to go to make room for those in the last week.
No, I think the rule is every athlete has to have a bed for every night of the games. London had a bit of an argument with the IOC about this as they said the sailors in Weymouth didn't need accommodation in the village.
Craig Murray gives us all a salutary warning that you shouldn't mess with judges during a live trial.
I'm guessing Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill praised the decision of SCOTUK to not get involved in Scottish Affairs?
It's still very odd because other journalists were reputedly giving markedly more pieces of the jigsaw out.
Has the written judgement been issued?
I've tried avoiding Murraygate twitter on the same basis I avoid other twitter cesspools, but I've seen 'the other journo were at it' allegations without any supporting evidence. I guess providing that evidence may repeat the original crime?
As far as I can see (apart from whether he's a journalist or not), Murray seems to have been doing a huge wink about the identities of those involved which may suggest intent, eg "I implore you to read this article very, very carefully indeed. Between the lines."
That is the general problem: how can one discuss Mr Murray's case, or indeed Mr Salmond's, rationally under such a prohibition - and also under such an information clampdown in the first place?
This is why you need David Davis.
I suspect the thing that has complicated discussion of it is
1) Roddy Dunlop's not so private views on Alex Salmond
2) Alex Salmond admitting he was no angel
3) A not proven verdict on serious charge. Now you and I know that not proven is not guilty, but for some a not proven is tantamount to saying guilty/no smoke without fire.
Not sure a real SNP whistleblower would have picked Mr Davis - why him?
On other points - all complications indeed. As was the BBC's reportage, even after the trial (AIUI their overall prorgamme about the trial had to be edited pdq after broadcast and before putting on ther internet, but I didn't see its original broadcast which was just after the verdict, I believe).
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
All athletes have to depart once they have finished competing.
Is it normal or is it a COVID thing? Seems a bit crap to have an event early on, win, then right you, pack your bags, get on that plane and sod off.
Or compete on the last day to an empty Olympic village
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
Indeed. I hate riding in a group for this reason.
On narrow country roads with little traffic I usually pull into a gateway or similar to let cars past. What do I care if I'm 20 seconds slower? I might have the right to ride in the middle of the lane but sharing the road applies to me as much as it does to the many idiots in cars whom all cyclists curse.
Too many taking Strava seriously. If you think you can race, enter one!
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
I'm not a violent man by any means but whatever formation they choose to adopt makes me want to get them bouncing off my bonnet.
I'm probably overexposed to them, the road past my house leads to flat farmland with quiet roads that stretches all the way to the Humber estuary so they're constantly using it to get out into the sticks and getting in my way!
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
General rule of this Games: AIUI all competitors are required to leave within 48 hours of completing their event(s). The principle being, one would assume, that the fewer people there are left in the athlete's village, the lower the likelihood of Plague outbreaks.
Right, I thought it might be that. I am going to guess they aren't that unhappy to go, given COVID and that they can't get out and explore, although bit shitty not to be able to cheer your mates on.
So by the end, some events really aren't going to have anybody watching them, in the way the swimmers have had a bit of a crowd to cheer them on. And the closing ceremony is going to be a couple of athletes wandering around looking lost.
Someone posted an article yesterday (apols can't remember who) about all the sex going on in the Olympic Village and one of the stories had a team from somewhere bribing the hotel staff to allow them to keep their rooms so I think it has been a thing for some time.
Which I can understand - your big event is tomorrow and the b******s who have finished their events and won medals are partying all night next door to you..
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
Nope.
The tanks in WWI were arguably not as revolutionary as better assault tactics. The typical tank attack ran out of working tanks within a few miles.
Read some actual accounts of the tank VCs - last tank working, on its own, getting surrounded by Germans, fights as a static pillbox until they die or escape on foot.
I accept that early tanks were rubbish. But by 1939 they were good enough for Blitzkrieg
That’s my point. Read my comment. We invented them first - if only we’d invented them earlier we could have made them war winners by the time WW1 came along
We might also have developed the standard tactics of tank warfare before the battlefield became a quagmire which didn't help.
I've often wondered what would have happened if there had never been the brief period when (horse) cavalry become an ineffective tool due to the invention of the machine gun, before motorized infantry, tanks, then helicopters, became the new cavalry. WWI and even the US Civil War might have been very different affairs.
Good point on the US Civil War. One of the bloodiest wars, per capita, ever fought? Because of machine guns, primarily.ecomes, ironically, the price of rampant imperialism
History has a strange way of slowly but surely serving justice
Defensive massed rifle fire was even more deadly.
The British learned this the hard way from the Boer War. That's why we escaped with far fewer casualties than the French or Germans.
The European powers learned the wrong lessons from the Boer war and the Russo Japanese war. They realised that rifle fire was deadly, but took the view that attacks that were pressed home with sufficient vigour, and sufficient willingness to take casualties, would eventually prevail.
Yes - I guess we always use "invention of the machine gun" as a shorthand for a much more comprehensive set of developments in the ability to fire a large number of bullets, continuously, by a comparatively smaller number of defenders, and the lack of recognition of the tactical impact of those developments.
Every Boer was at least a competent marksman, and their best snipers were deadly. They had a habit of shooting down British officers and couriers at 1,000 yards, something our own commanders thought terribly unsporting. A lot of military careers were destroyed in the early months of that war.
British riflemen were pretty good in the film ‘Zulu’. IIRC
Incidentally, is that the best war movie ever made? Zulu? Certainly in my top 5
Best war movies -
1. Paths of Glory 2. Threads 3. Grave of the Fireflies 4. Apocalypse Now 5. The Deer Hunter
Some amazing-sounding movies I’ve never even heard of. I’m making a list for my own reference
Graves of the Fireflies The Way Ahead Angels One Five War Requiem
??!
Coincidentally, talking of Great War movies, I watched the BBC 2014 version of Testament of Youth last night, for the first time. Deeply moving, really well done. You will weep
Threads probably stretches it but it came out when I was 10 and even just the Radio Times cover scarred me for life. Genuinely the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.
Yes I also saw Threads at a tender age. Bloody hell
The Exorcist is scarier, but the Exorcist is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, so that’s a high bar
Interesting. I actually went to see the Exorcist at the pictures when it was re-released once and, as a person who hid behind the sofa when Dr Who and Star Trek came on until a ridiculously advanced age, was surprised how little I was scared.
Fear is a very personal thing. I’ve watched countless movies and TV dramas where people have assured me I will be ‘petrified’ - yet, meh. I’m actually quite hard to scare
But the Exorcist had me gibbering at the age of 14 when I snuck into a london cinema on a school trip and saw it, and it can still freak me out now if I re-watch it 40 years later
True fear is probably quite a hard thing to manufacture in movies, almost as hard as comedy? It’s almost impossible to do in books.
Horror works best in short stories. The story I read which frightened me the most upon reading it was The Colours Out of Space.
Yes quite true. The Monkey’s Paw is one of the most terrifying works of literature. And it’s about 5 pages long?
There are very few genuinely frightening stories or novels. It’s a fiendishly difficult emotion to evoke with mere words
Thanks for the suggestion. Will try!
Have you read any MR James?
Lord Mountdrago - Somerset Maugham short story. Chiller.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
Nope.
The tanks in WWI were arguably not as revolutionary as better assault tactics. The typical tank attack ran out of working tanks within a few miles.
Read some actual accounts of the tank VCs - last tank working, on its own, getting surrounded by Germans, fights as a static pillbox until they die or escape on foot.
I accept that early tanks were rubbish. But by 1939 they were good enough for Blitzkrieg
That’s my point. Read my comment. We invented them first - if only we’d invented them earlier we could have made them war winners by the time WW1 came along
We might also have developed the standard tactics of tank warfare before the battlefield became a quagmire which didn't help.
I've often wondered what would have happened if there had never been the brief period when (horse) cavalry become an ineffective tool due to the invention of the machine gun, before motorized infantry, tanks, then helicopters, became the new cavalry. WWI and even the US Civil War might have been very different affairs.
Good point on the US Civil War. One of the bloodiest wars, per capita, ever fought? Because of machine guns, primarily.ecomes, ironically, the price of rampant imperialism
History has a strange way of slowly but surely serving justice
Defensive massed rifle fire was even more deadly.
The British learned this the hard way from the Boer War. That's why we escaped with far fewer casualties than the French or Germans.
The European powers learned the wrong lessons from the Boer war and the Russo Japanese war. They realised that rifle fire was deadly, but took the view that attacks that were pressed home with sufficient vigour, and sufficient willingness to take casualties, would eventually prevail.
Yes - I guess we always use "invention of the machine gun" as a shorthand for a much more comprehensive set of developments in the ability to fire a large number of bullets, continuously, by a comparatively smaller number of defenders, and the lack of recognition of the tactical impact of those developments.
Every Boer was at least a competent marksman, and their best snipers were deadly. They had a habit of shooting down British officers and couriers at 1,000 yards, something our own commanders thought terribly unsporting. A lot of military careers were destroyed in the early months of that war.
British riflemen were pretty good in the film ‘Zulu’. IIRC
Incidentally, is that the best war movie ever made? Zulu? Certainly in my top 5
Best war movies -
1. Paths of Glory 2. Threads 3. Grave of the Fireflies 4. Apocalypse Now 5. The Deer Hunter
Some amazing-sounding movies I’ve never even heard of. I’m making a list for my own reference
Graves of the Fireflies The Way Ahead Angels One Five War Requiem
??!
Coincidentally, talking of Great War movies, I watched the BBC 2014 version of Testament of Youth last night, for the first time. Deeply moving, really well done. You will weep
Threads probably stretches it but it came out when I was 10 and even just the Radio Times cover scarred me for life. Genuinely the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.
Yes I also saw Threads at a tender age. Bloody hell
The Exorcist is scarier, but the Exorcist is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, so that’s a high bar
Interesting. I actually went to see the Exorcist at the pictures when it was re-released once and, as a person who hid behind the sofa when Dr Who and Star Trek came on until a ridiculously advanced age, was surprised how little I was scared.
Fear is a very personal thing. I’ve watched countless movies and TV dramas where people have assured me I will be ‘petrified’ - yet, meh. I’m actually quite hard to scare
But the Exorcist had me gibbering at the age of 14 when I snuck into a london cinema on a school trip and saw it, and it can still freak me out now if I re-watch it 40 years later
True fear is probably quite a hard thing to manufacture in movies, almost as hard as comedy? It’s almost impossible to do in books.
Horror works best in short stories. The story I read which frightened me the most upon reading it was The Colours Out of Space.
Yes quite true. The Monkey’s Paw is one of the most terrifying works of literature. And it’s about 5 pages long?
There are very few genuinely frightening stories or novels. It’s a fiendishly difficult emotion to evoke with mere words
Thanks for the suggestion. Will try!
Have you read any MR James?
Yes! There are vanishingly few writers that can do Scary. He’s one of them
Try Chalotte Perkins Gilman's story The Yellow Wallpaper. Utterly powerful and terrifying, based on personal experience. And for film, the recent Nicolas Cage version of Color Out of Space is a very trippy, modern-day version of the Lovecraft story. With Cage, you can never be sure if you'll get good Cage or bad Cage - but this is definitely he former.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
I’m surprised there’s not more support for Sam Mendes’ 1917. Too recent?
It’s magnificent. The night sequence alone is mind-blowing
It's a cinematic masterpiece, though I find it harder to enjoy plot wise when he arrives too late and being 1 minute earlier would have saved hundreds and sending one more bloke would have worked fine. All totally works in the moment, but definitely visual over anything else.
AstraZeneca may be done with vaccines. That’s sad but not surprising The company did the world a solid by agreeing to offer its treatment at cost price. The world snarled back in response. Will anyone do the same in future? Doubtful
Who can blame them? They did the world a massive favour and have received no plaudits. It perhaps didn't help that our government crowed about our vaccine rollout so much and made it a nationalistic willy waving contest.
Agreed. The bragging by Johnson was highly counterproductive.
Utterly ridiculous to blame him for the reactions and decisions of others, for one of things he actually isnt responsible for.
Its preposterous for people to blame others for their choices, or for us to excuse others by doing so.
Boris does it, let's not emulate that by infantilising others and making it his fault for their words and actions.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
To my mind, cycling on country roads with speed limits at 40+ seems a lot scarier than urban/suburban cycling. But I suspect you're right that urban cycling is more dangerous.
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
General rule of this Games: AIUI all competitors are required to leave within 48 hours of completing their event(s). The principle being, one would assume, that the fewer people there are left in the athlete's village, the lower the likelihood of Plague outbreaks.
Right, I thought it might be that. I am going to guess they aren't that unhappy to go, given COVID and that they can't get out and explore, although bit shitty not to be able to cheer your mates on.
So by the end, some events really aren't going to have anybody watching them, in the way the swimmers have had a bit of a crowd to cheer them on. And the closing ceremony is going to be a couple of athletes wandering around looking lost.
Someone posted an article yesterday (apols can't remember who) about all the sex going on in the Olympic Village and one of the stories had a team from somewhere bribing the hotel staff to allow them to keep their rooms so I think it has been a thing for some time.
Which I can understand - your big event is tomorrow and the b******s who have finished their events and won medals are partying all night next door to you..
I should think supplies of condoms etc has been a part of Olympic village planning for decades.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm getting increasingly bemused by the cyclists-vs-motorist-vs-pedestrians-vs-runners wars that occur online.
I walk, cycle, run and drive. I've seen bad pedestrians, runners, cyclists and motorists. In fact, I've sadly been a bad pedestrian, runner, cyclist and motorist at times. No-one is perfect, and neither are any of the above groups.
We all have to use the roads, and in most cases all the above have a right to use the road. It is a case of being respectful and considerate of other road users: they have as much right to use it as you do. If you're a cyclist and a car's been trying to get past you for a while, pull in. If you're a driver trying to pass a cyclist, give them plenty of room and don't be impatient. If you're a cyclist on a road, don't hit and kill a pedestrian.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
I cycle a fair bit but these days I stick almost exclusively to canal towpaths, closed railway lines and other segregated infrastructure. I'm fortunate that where I live is well-served by these options.
I did everything as safely as I could when sharing the roads with cars, but in the end fear overtook righteous indignation, because it will be no comfort to be morally in the right when my luck runs out and I end up in hospital.
So I find it baffling when car drivers object to infrastructure that would give cyclists somewhere separate to cycle.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
To my mind, cycling on country roads with speed limits at 40+ seems a lot scarier than urban/suburban cycling. But I suspect you're right that urban cycling is more dangerous.
Depends on the country road. Plenty are wide and empty enough it's pure relaxation.
Just wondering do Team GB athletes have to return as soon as they have finished their events, is it COVID things or is it a personal choice? Because the lad who won the gold with Tom Daley in the diving is already back in the UK.
General rule of this Games: AIUI all competitors are required to leave within 48 hours of completing their event(s). The principle being, one would assume, that the fewer people there are left in the athlete's village, the lower the likelihood of Plague outbreaks.
Right, I thought it might be that. I am going to guess they aren't that unhappy to go, given COVID and that they can't get out and explore, although bit shitty not to be able to cheer your mates on.
So by the end, some events really aren't going to have anybody watching them, in the way the swimmers have had a bit of a crowd to cheer them on. And the closing ceremony is going to be a couple of athletes wandering around looking lost.
Someone posted an article yesterday (apols can't remember who) about all the sex going on in the Olympic Village and one of the stories had a team from somewhere bribing the hotel staff to allow them to keep their rooms so I think it has been a thing for some time.
Which I can understand - your big event is tomorrow and the b******s who have finished their events and won medals are partying all night next door to you..
I should think supplies of condoms etc has been a part of Olympic village planning for decades.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
I cycle a fair bit but these days I stick almost exclusively to canal towpaths, closed railway lines and other segregated infrastructure. I'm fortunate that where I live is well-served by these options.
I did everything as safely as I could when sharing the roads with cars, but in the end fear overtook righteous indignation, because it will be no comfort to be morally in the right when my luck runs out and I end up in hospital.
So I find it baffling when car drivers object to infrastructure that would give cyclists somewhere separate to cycle.
Separate places for different modes of transport is recommended.
What drivers usually object to, is when roads get closed or subject to calming measures like chicanes, irrespective of the reasons why.
I could do plenty of pieces and betting threads on 'Could Starmer lose a 28,000 majority seat in a by election?'
"My comrades and friends, in Poplar and Limehouse, and beyond, have stood by me, I have and will always stand by them."
Always good to see the word comrades being used.
It's a good indication of who is mentally stuck in the 80s or someone with a romantic vision of repeating battles fought then that are simpler than dealing the messy present.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
I cycle a fair bit but these days I stick almost exclusively to canal towpaths, closed railway lines and other segregated infrastructure. I'm fortunate that where I live is well-served by these options.
I did everything as safely as I could when sharing the roads with cars, but in the end fear overtook righteous indignation, because it will be no comfort to be morally in the right when my luck runs out and I end up in hospital.
So I find it baffling when car drivers object to infrastructure that would give cyclists somewhere separate to cycle.
The issue is that there is no balance as it is often driven by people with an anti-car agenda
Take for example Euston road, one of the main E/W roads in London
It used to be 3 car lanes going east. Busy but manageable
Now it is 1 bike lane (usually empty), 1 bus lane (mainly empty) and 1 car lane (backed up for hundreds of yards)
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
Nope.
The tanks in WWI were arguably not as revolutionary as better assault tactics. The typical tank attack ran out of working tanks within a few miles.
Read some actual accounts of the tank VCs - last tank working, on its own, getting surrounded by Germans, fights as a static pillbox until they die or escape on foot.
I accept that early tanks were rubbish. But by 1939 they were good enough for Blitzkrieg
That’s my point. Read my comment. We invented them first - if only we’d invented them earlier we could have made them war winners by the time WW1 came along
We might also have developed the standard tactics of tank warfare before the battlefield became a quagmire which didn't help.
I've often wondered what would have happened if there had never been the brief period when (horse) cavalry become an ineffective tool due to the invention of the machine gun, before motorized infantry, tanks, then helicopters, became the new cavalry. WWI and even the US Civil War might have been very different affairs.
Good point on the US Civil War. One of the bloodiest wars, per capita, ever fought? Because of machine guns, primarily.ecomes, ironically, the price of rampant imperialism
History has a strange way of slowly but surely serving justice
Defensive massed rifle fire was even more deadly.
The British learned this the hard way from the Boer War. That's why we escaped with far fewer casualties than the French or Germans.
The European powers learned the wrong lessons from the Boer war and the Russo Japanese war. They realised that rifle fire was deadly, but took the view that attacks that were pressed home with sufficient vigour, and sufficient willingness to take casualties, would eventually prevail.
Yes - I guess we always use "invention of the machine gun" as a shorthand for a much more comprehensive set of developments in the ability to fire a large number of bullets, continuously, by a comparatively smaller number of defenders, and the lack of recognition of the tactical impact of those developments.
Every Boer was at least a competent marksman, and their best snipers were deadly. They had a habit of shooting down British officers and couriers at 1,000 yards, something our own commanders thought terribly unsporting. A lot of military careers were destroyed in the early months of that war.
British riflemen were pretty good in the film ‘Zulu’. IIRC
Incidentally, is that the best war movie ever made? Zulu? Certainly in my top 5
Best war movies -
1. Paths of Glory 2. Threads 3. Grave of the Fireflies 4. Apocalypse Now 5. The Deer Hunter
Some amazing-sounding movies I’ve never even heard of. I’m making a list for my own reference
Graves of the Fireflies The Way Ahead Angels One Five War Requiem
??!
Coincidentally, talking of Great War movies, I watched the BBC 2014 version of Testament of Youth last night, for the first time. Deeply moving, really well done. You will weep
Threads probably stretches it but it came out when I was 10 and even just the Radio Times cover scarred me for life. Genuinely the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.
Yes I also saw Threads at a tender age. Bloody hell
The Exorcist is scarier, but the Exorcist is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, so that’s a high bar
Interesting. I actually went to see the Exorcist at the pictures when it was re-released once and, as a person who hid behind the sofa when Dr Who and Star Trek came on until a ridiculously advanced age, was surprised how little I was scared.
Fear is a very personal thing. I’ve watched countless movies and TV dramas where people have assured me I will be ‘petrified’ - yet, meh. I’m actually quite hard to scare
But the Exorcist had me gibbering at the age of 14 when I snuck into a london cinema on a school trip and saw it, and it can still freak me out now if I re-watch it 40 years later
True fear is probably quite a hard thing to manufacture in movies, almost as hard as comedy? It’s almost impossible to do in books.
Horror works best in short stories. The story I read which frightened me the most upon reading it was The Colours Out of Space.
Yes quite true. The Monkey’s Paw is one of the most terrifying works of literature. And it’s about 5 pages long?
There are very few genuinely frightening stories or novels. It’s a fiendishly difficult emotion to evoke with mere words
Thanks for the suggestion. Will try!
Have you read any MR James?
Yes! There are vanishingly few writers that can do Scary. He’s one of them
Try Chalotte Perkins Gilman's story The Yellow Wallpaper. Utterly powerful and terrifying, based on personal experience. And for film, the recent Nicolas Cage version of Color Out of Space is a very trippy, modern-day version of the Lovecraft story. With Cage, you can never be sure if you'll get good Cage or bad Cage - but this is definitely he former.
I've just re-read "The Yellow Wallpaper" for an online course I am doing on literature and madness. It is really frightening.
Incidentally, was anyone here a fan of the Pan Book of Horror Stories series in their youth? The series did go off when it got into the 20 somethings in the series but the early books are great. I've just been looking at the First Pan Book of Horror Stories and the authors include C.S. Forester, L.P. Hartley, Nigel Kneale (of "Quatermass" fame), Bram Stoker, Muriel Spark and Angus Wilson.
A few years back, a major access road in our village was closed for the weekend, splitting the village in two and leaving a ~four-mile diversion. At the location where it was closed there is a wide pavement and grassy verge. I was walking along the pavement with my young son when a car mounted the pavement, drove the fifty metres past the road works, then went back onto the road. I had to pull my son out of its way. Two other cars followed, and when I took my phone out of my pocket to take a photo of the third the driver stopped, reversed, and taught my son a few new words.
No apology, no admitting that he was in the wrong. It was, apparently, my fault.
The same road is closing for two weeks next month; it's going to be fun!
I could do plenty of pieces and betting threads on 'Could Starmer lose a 28,000 majority seat in a by election?'
"My comrades and friends, in Poplar and Limehouse, and beyond, have stood by me, I have and will always stand by them."
Always good to see the word comrades being used.
And if you look at the whole quotation, it is surely noteworthy that Sky News has to explain exactly who this "Johnson" is:-
"I would now like to get on with my job of representing my constituents - opposing the negligent COVID decisions made by (Prime Minister Boris) Johnson's reckless Tory government which has caused so many families to lose loved ones who should still be with us today and so much hardship that could have been avoided.
"My comrades and friends, in Poplar and Limehouse, and beyond, have stood by me, I have and will always stand by them."
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
Nope.
The tanks in WWI were arguably not as revolutionary as better assault tactics. The typical tank attack ran out of working tanks within a few miles.
Read some actual accounts of the tank VCs - last tank working, on its own, getting surrounded by Germans, fights as a static pillbox until they die or escape on foot.
I accept that early tanks were rubbish. But by 1939 they were good enough for Blitzkrieg
That’s my point. Read my comment. We invented them first - if only we’d invented them earlier we could have made them war winners by the time WW1 came along
We might also have developed the standard tactics of tank warfare before the battlefield became a quagmire which didn't help.
I've often wondered what would have happened if there had never been the brief period when (horse) cavalry become an ineffective tool due to the invention of the machine gun, before motorized infantry, tanks, then helicopters, became the new cavalry. WWI and even the US Civil War might have been very different affairs.
Good point on the US Civil War. One of the bloodiest wars, per capita, ever fought? Because of machine guns, primarily.ecomes, ironically, the price of rampant imperialism
History has a strange way of slowly but surely serving justice
Defensive massed rifle fire was even more deadly.
The British learned this the hard way from the Boer War. That's why we escaped with far fewer casualties than the French or Germans.
The European powers learned the wrong lessons from the Boer war and the Russo Japanese war. They realised that rifle fire was deadly, but took the view that attacks that were pressed home with sufficient vigour, and sufficient willingness to take casualties, would eventually prevail.
Yes - I guess we always use "invention of the machine gun" as a shorthand for a much more comprehensive set of developments in the ability to fire a large number of bullets, continuously, by a comparatively smaller number of defenders, and the lack of recognition of the tactical impact of those developments.
Every Boer was at least a competent marksman, and their best snipers were deadly. They had a habit of shooting down British officers and couriers at 1,000 yards, something our own commanders thought terribly unsporting. A lot of military careers were destroyed in the early months of that war.
British riflemen were pretty good in the film ‘Zulu’. IIRC
Incidentally, is that the best war movie ever made? Zulu? Certainly in my top 5
Best war movies -
1. Paths of Glory 2. Threads 3. Grave of the Fireflies 4. Apocalypse Now 5. The Deer Hunter
Some amazing-sounding movies I’ve never even heard of. I’m making a list for my own reference
Graves of the Fireflies The Way Ahead Angels One Five War Requiem
??!
Coincidentally, talking of Great War movies, I watched the BBC 2014 version of Testament of Youth last night, for the first time. Deeply moving, really well done. You will weep
Threads probably stretches it but it came out when I was 10 and even just the Radio Times cover scarred me for life. Genuinely the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.
Yes I also saw Threads at a tender age. Bloody hell
The Exorcist is scarier, but the Exorcist is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, so that’s a high bar
Interesting. I actually went to see the Exorcist at the pictures when it was re-released once and, as a person who hid behind the sofa when Dr Who and Star Trek came on until a ridiculously advanced age, was surprised how little I was scared.
Fear is a very personal thing. I’ve watched countless movies and TV dramas where people have assured me I will be ‘petrified’ - yet, meh. I’m actually quite hard to scare
But the Exorcist had me gibbering at the age of 14 when I snuck into a london cinema on a school trip and saw it, and it can still freak me out now if I re-watch it 40 years later
True fear is probably quite a hard thing to manufacture in movies, almost as hard as comedy? It’s almost impossible to do in books.
Horror works best in short stories. The story I read which frightened me the most upon reading it was The Colours Out of Space.
Yes quite true. The Monkey’s Paw is one of the most terrifying works of literature. And it’s about 5 pages long?
There are very few genuinely frightening stories or novels. It’s a fiendishly difficult emotion to evoke with mere words
Thanks for the suggestion. Will try!
Have you read any MR James?
Yes! There are vanishingly few writers that can do Scary. He’s one of them
Try Chalotte Perkins Gilman's story The Yellow Wallpaper. Utterly powerful and terrifying, based on personal experience. And for film, the recent Nicolas Cage version of Color Out of Space is a very trippy, modern-day version of the Lovecraft story. With Cage, you can never be sure if you'll get good Cage or bad Cage - but this is definitely he former.
I've just re-read "The Yellow Wallpaper" for an online course I am doing on literature and madness. It is really frightening.
Incidentally, was anyone here a fan of the Pan Book of Horror Stories series in their youth? The series did go off when it got into the 20 somethings in the series but the early books are great. I've just been looking at the First Pan Book of Horror Stories and the authors include C.S. Forester, L.P. Hartley, Nigel Kneale (of "Quatermass" fame), Bram Stoker, Muriel Spark and Angus Wilson.
I was! As a youngster. In the late 1960s. Perhaps they deserve a revisit.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
I cycle a fair bit but these days I stick almost exclusively to canal towpaths, closed railway lines and other segregated infrastructure. I'm fortunate that where I live is well-served by these options.
I did everything as safely as I could when sharing the roads with cars, but in the end fear overtook righteous indignation, because it will be no comfort to be morally in the right when my luck runs out and I end up in hospital.
So I find it baffling when car drivers object to infrastructure that would give cyclists somewhere separate to cycle.
The issue is that there is no balance as it is often driven by people with an anti-car agenda
Take for example Euston road, one of the main E/W roads in London
It used to be 3 car lanes going east. Busy but manageable
Now it is 1 bike lane (usually empty), 1 bus lane (mainly empty) and 1 car lane (backed up for hundreds of yards)
So the balance in your view is that there is nowhere for cyclists?
My best second world war films (I prefer the more "wasting nazis " type ones to more moral higher message ones)
Where Eagles Dare (probably in my top three fav movies of any genre especially the score ,opening shots and scenery)
Das Boot - bit more deeper I suppose but strangely cosy
633 Squadron - sucker for the leader being brave and going rogue
The Longest Day - To me this is better than Saving Private Ryan as a depiction of D -Day .
A Bridge too Far - Great scenery as well as a lot of action
Downfall - great mix of action, politics and drama
Unlike most serious critics (who were upset by historical inaccuracies, notably the tanks), I really liked Battle of the Bulge. Credibly shows why it was important, mixes human interest with a clear overview, and has an anti-hero who you can kind of empathise with, as well as a hero who's difficult to like at first. And the battle itself was finely balanced, making for a better scenario than the ones where it was clear from the start who was going to win.
NEW: lots of attention on ONS Infection Survey today, but some confusion over how it should (and should not) be used to asses whether England’s fall in cases is "real"
Quick thread:
Most attention has gone on ONS “% of people testing positive” metric showing a continued rise
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
To my mind, cycling on country roads with speed limits at 40+ seems a lot scarier than urban/suburban cycling. But I suspect you're right that urban cycling is more dangerous.
Sample size 1:
Hit whilst commuting: 2 Hit whilst touring: 0 Broken bones: 0 Smashed helmets: 1
[Mountain bike crashes would actually top the table, but I don't think that counts]
Segregated infrastructure would help with the commuting, but most cycling infrastructure I see is designed by idiots who don't actually ride at all.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
To my mind, cycling on country roads with speed limits at 40+ seems a lot scarier than urban/suburban cycling. But I suspect you're right that urban cycling is more dangerous.
Sample size 1:
Hit whilst commuting: 2 Hit whilst touring: 0 Broken bones: 0 Smashed helmets: 1
[Mountain bike crashes would actually top the table, but I don't think that counts]
Segregated infrastructure would help with the commuting, but most cycling infrastructure I see is designed by idiots who don't actually ride at all.
I'm also 2-0 on being hit while commuting vs touring, includes one bicycle that didn't wheel away from one incident. Thankfully no broken bones.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
No they’re not. It’s an offence for cyclists to ride more than two abreast on a public road (Rule 66).
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
I cycle a fair bit but these days I stick almost exclusively to canal towpaths, closed railway lines and other segregated infrastructure. I'm fortunate that where I live is well-served by these options.
I did everything as safely as I could when sharing the roads with cars, but in the end fear overtook righteous indignation, because it will be no comfort to be morally in the right when my luck runs out and I end up in hospital.
So I find it baffling when car drivers object to infrastructure that would give cyclists somewhere separate to cycle.
The issue is that there is no balance as it is often driven by people with an anti-car agenda
Take for example Euston road, one of the main E/W roads in London
It used to be 3 car lanes going east. Busy but manageable
Now it is 1 bike lane (usually empty), 1 bus lane (mainly empty) and 1 car lane (backed up for hundreds of yards)
So the balance in your view is that there is nowhere for cyclists?
It does annoy me that with so many derelict railway lines about only a handful are used as cycle tracks.
There is an old coal siding from Penkridge to Huntington less than a mile from where I live. Totally intact, totally unused. It could be converted into a beautiful cycle track for a few thousand quid in gravel.
Instead - it’s doing nothing.
Similarly, where I come from in Gloucestershire there is a closed railway line from Rudford to Highnam. Part of it is even a bridleway. Avoids a dangerous road carrying around 18,000 vehicles a day and a very steep hill. Would make a beautiful cycle run. As it is, there’s no chance of that until the canal is restored. Which, given they have been trying and completely failing to restore it for 38 years, doesn’t seem like a profitable option.
Robert Cohen @kodacohen A letter from Dr. Faisal Khan, acting director of the St. Louis County Dept of Public Health, to the county council concerning last night's meeting on mask mandates. Read this
Election 2024 has the potential to see the worst political violence America has seen in a very long time. Never mind the aftermath. They need to move on legal action on Trump over tax or whatever before it is too late to stop a run.
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
Nope.
The tanks in WWI were arguably not as revolutionary as better assault tactics. The typical tank attack ran out of working tanks within a few miles.
Read some actual accounts of the tank VCs - last tank working, on its own, getting surrounded by Germans, fights as a static pillbox until they die or escape on foot.
I accept that early tanks were rubbish. But by 1939 they were good enough for Blitzkrieg
That’s my point. Read my comment. We invented them first - if only we’d invented them earlier we could have made them war winners by the time WW1 came along
We might also have developed the standard tactics of tank warfare before the battlefield became a quagmire which didn't help.
I've often wondered what would have happened if there had never been the brief period when (horse) cavalry become an ineffective tool due to the invention of the machine gun, before motorized infantry, tanks, then helicopters, became the new cavalry. WWI and even the US Civil War might have been very different affairs.
Good point on the US Civil War. One of the bloodiest wars, per capita, ever fought? Because of machine guns, primarily.ecomes, ironically, the price of rampant imperialism
History has a strange way of slowly but surely serving justice
Defensive massed rifle fire was even more deadly.
The British learned this the hard way from the Boer War. That's why we escaped with far fewer casualties than the French or Germans.
The European powers learned the wrong lessons from the Boer war and the Russo Japanese war. They realised that rifle fire was deadly, but took the view that attacks that were pressed home with sufficient vigour, and sufficient willingness to take casualties, would eventually prevail.
Yes - I guess we always use "invention of the machine gun" as a shorthand for a much more comprehensive set of developments in the ability to fire a large number of bullets, continuously, by a comparatively smaller number of defenders, and the lack of recognition of the tactical impact of those developments.
Every Boer was at least a competent marksman, and their best snipers were deadly. They had a habit of shooting down British officers and couriers at 1,000 yards, something our own commanders thought terribly unsporting. A lot of military careers were destroyed in the early months of that war.
British riflemen were pretty good in the film ‘Zulu’. IIRC
Incidentally, is that the best war movie ever made? Zulu? Certainly in my top 5
Best war movies -
1. Paths of Glory 2. Threads 3. Grave of the Fireflies 4. Apocalypse Now 5. The Deer Hunter
Some amazing-sounding movies I’ve never even heard of. I’m making a list for my own reference
Graves of the Fireflies The Way Ahead Angels One Five War Requiem
??!
Coincidentally, talking of Great War movies, I watched the BBC 2014 version of Testament of Youth last night, for the first time. Deeply moving, really well done. You will weep
Threads probably stretches it but it came out when I was 10 and even just the Radio Times cover scarred me for life. Genuinely the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.
Yes I also saw Threads at a tender age. Bloody hell
The Exorcist is scarier, but the Exorcist is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, so that’s a high bar
Interesting. I actually went to see the Exorcist at the pictures when it was re-released once and, as a person who hid behind the sofa when Dr Who and Star Trek came on until a ridiculously advanced age, was surprised how little I was scared.
Fear is a very personal thing. I’ve watched countless movies and TV dramas where people have assured me I will be ‘petrified’ - yet, meh. I’m actually quite hard to scare
But the Exorcist had me gibbering at the age of 14 when I snuck into a london cinema on a school trip and saw it, and it can still freak me out now if I re-watch it 40 years later
True fear is probably quite a hard thing to manufacture in movies, almost as hard as comedy? It’s almost impossible to do in books.
The two most frightening films I ever watched (actually stopped me sleeping) were Threads and Se7en.
I saw an utterly sick film at university (laddish dare to a few of us) called Cannibal Holocaust.
It was previously banned, and rightly so. I had nightmares and trauma for weeks afterwards.
What amazes me about The Exorcist is that they actually TOOK OUT scenes as creepy as this - the infamous spider walk scene
As for Cannibal Holocaust (1980), director Ruggero Deodato was charged with murder...but then the supposed victims were produced alive and well. It's a disgusting film, but it was a key moment in the "found footage" genre later exemplified by the little-remembered Ghostwatch, broadcast by the BBC on Halloween night 1992 and featuring (yes) Michael Parkinson, and then the Blair Witch Project in 1999. The BWP was an important point in the whole history of internet marketing and "clicks".
@BristOliver Hospital admissions data showing the first (tiny) fall in 7 day average for over a month - 728, was 783 last Friday. And to state the obvious, considering lags this is clearly evidence that last week's falls in cases were giving a more up-to-date picture than today's ONS.
(NB - Oliver's tweet relates to England admissions only)
Robert Cohen @kodacohen A letter from Dr. Faisal Khan, acting director of the St. Louis County Dept of Public Health, to the county council concerning last night's meeting on mask mandates. Read this
Election 2024 has the potential to see the worst political violence America has seen in a very long time. Never mind the aftermath. They need to move on legal action on Trump over tax or whatever before it is too late to stop a run.
@BristOliver Hospital admissions data showing the first (tiny) fall in 7 day average for over a month - 728, was 783 last Friday. And to state the obvious, considering lags this is clearly evidence that last week's falls in cases were giving a more up-to-date picture than today's ONS.
(NB - Oliver's tweet relates to England admissions only)
The admissions numbers should drop steadily for some time.
Cricky lad in the 10km running set off like he desperately needs the toilet.
I did 10,000 metres tuesday and thursday evening. Tuesday was a quick(ish) one for me and took ~ 53 and a half minutes, thursday just over an hour. Really amazing how fast these boys go.
I'm a 'transport cyclist', who cycles for my commute/shopping/etc but doesn't do any club riding or similar. Nonetheless, it keeps me in decent shape and I'm pretty comfortable in the saddle now.
Sometimes in the summer I go for leisure rides in the good weather, and my longest regular route is 26 miles, coincidentally almost exactly a marathon. I can do it in roughly 2 hours exactly, perhaps 2 hours 5 minutes at most. Which means that if I set off at the start of the marathon, on my bike, it would be a photo finish with the elite runners.
I know they are elite, but it still blows my mind. The bike is a pretty massive advantage!
What puts me off cycling?
Motorists (particularly white van man, and I'm never convinced it's safe on the road) and other cyclists - the lycra louts.
They really are tossers.
I do quite a bit of cycling, by myself, but what, as a motorist, really irritates me about the lycra louts is how they deem it acceptable to form a peloton, thus blocking the entire road, as if they were in the Tour de France. It doesn't seem to occur to them that the roads are closed for professional cycle races so the peloton doesn't enrage drivers who get caught behind it, pootling along at 20mph on a busy A road when it's impossible to get by.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
It's so they can chat while riding. Plus there is another reason. Imagine a group of 12 cyclists in a club go out for a ride. They have several options of how they could be on the road: - Single line of 12 riders - 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long - 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
This is very true on a wide open A road. On a lot of small country roads, as preferred by cyclists (including me), there's often no safe way to overtake a large group for many miles.
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
I agree on small country roads that riding in a big peloton must be frustrating to be stuck behind. I don't think you can put the blame on cyclists for accidents because drivers are impatient.
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
I'm not saying this is the cyclist's fault as such. Incidents and near misses are indeed all too frequent, and I too have lost count of dangerous overtakes and close passes. I swear at cars with the best of them.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
To my mind, cycling on country roads with speed limits at 40+ seems a lot scarier than urban/suburban cycling. But I suspect you're right that urban cycling is more dangerous.
Sample size 1:
Hit whilst commuting: 2 Hit whilst touring: 0 Broken bones: 0 Smashed helmets: 1
[Mountain bike crashes would actually top the table, but I don't think that counts]
Segregated infrastructure would help with the commuting, but most cycling infrastructure I see is designed by idiots who don't actually ride at all.
Or by idiots who have to take more than cyclists into account.
Without totally redesigning our cities and knocking down all the buildings, there is limited space with a whole host of different users. The infrastructure needs designing for cars, pedestrians, cyclists, the disabled, the blind, etc. This means there has to be compromises.
A recent post on FB showed a cycle lane with a pavement alongside. The cycle path is wider, but there is a lamppost in the middle. Why not place the cyclelane where there is no lamppost? The answer is obvious: although pedestrians can step around the post, people pushing prams or wheelchairs would have to go into the cycle lane. And the blind might find it difficult. Perhaps the lamp post could be moved? Perhaps (or perhaps not), but you're also significantly increasing the cost.
As an aside, I'd say a serious issue with urban cyclists I know is that most seem to see it as a fundamental right to cycle at 20 MPH along the roads without stopping. I can see why, as it is fun (though my current bike hardly lets me get that fast). But it is also unrealistic and selfish to expect to be able to do so at the expense of other road users.
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
Nope.
The tanks in WWI were arguably not as revolutionary as better assault tactics. The typical tank attack ran out of working tanks within a few miles.
Read some actual accounts of the tank VCs - last tank working, on its own, getting surrounded by Germans, fights as a static pillbox until they die or escape on foot.
I accept that early tanks were rubbish. But by 1939 they were good enough for Blitzkrieg
That’s my point. Read my comment. We invented them first - if only we’d invented them earlier we could have made them war winners by the time WW1 came along
We might also have developed the standard tactics of tank warfare before the battlefield became a quagmire which didn't help.
I've often wondered what would have happened if there had never been the brief period when (horse) cavalry become an ineffective tool due to the invention of the machine gun, before motorized infantry, tanks, then helicopters, became the new cavalry. WWI and even the US Civil War might have been very different affairs.
Good point on the US Civil War. One of the bloodiest wars, per capita, ever fought? Because of machine guns, primarily.ecomes, ironically, the price of rampant imperialism
History has a strange way of slowly but surely serving justice
Defensive massed rifle fire was even more deadly.
The British learned this the hard way from the Boer War. That's why we escaped with far fewer casualties than the French or Germans.
The European powers learned the wrong lessons from the Boer war and the Russo Japanese war. They realised that rifle fire was deadly, but took the view that attacks that were pressed home with sufficient vigour, and sufficient willingness to take casualties, would eventually prevail.
Yes - I guess we always use "invention of the machine gun" as a shorthand for a much more comprehensive set of developments in the ability to fire a large number of bullets, continuously, by a comparatively smaller number of defenders, and the lack of recognition of the tactical impact of those developments.
Every Boer was at least a competent marksman, and their best snipers were deadly. They had a habit of shooting down British officers and couriers at 1,000 yards, something our own commanders thought terribly unsporting. A lot of military careers were destroyed in the early months of that war.
British riflemen were pretty good in the film ‘Zulu’. IIRC
Incidentally, is that the best war movie ever made? Zulu? Certainly in my top 5
Best war movies -
1. Paths of Glory 2. Threads 3. Grave of the Fireflies 4. Apocalypse Now 5. The Deer Hunter
Some amazing-sounding movies I’ve never even heard of. I’m making a list for my own reference
Graves of the Fireflies The Way Ahead Angels One Five War Requiem
??!
Coincidentally, talking of Great War movies, I watched the BBC 2014 version of Testament of Youth last night, for the first time. Deeply moving, really well done. You will weep
Threads probably stretches it but it came out when I was 10 and even just the Radio Times cover scarred me for life. Genuinely the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.
Yes I also saw Threads at a tender age. Bloody hell
The Exorcist is scarier, but the Exorcist is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, so that’s a high bar
Interesting. I actually went to see the Exorcist at the pictures when it was re-released once and, as a person who hid behind the sofa when Dr Who and Star Trek came on until a ridiculously advanced age, was surprised how little I was scared.
Fear is a very personal thing. I’ve watched countless movies and TV dramas where people have assured me I will be ‘petrified’ - yet, meh. I’m actually quite hard to scare
But the Exorcist had me gibbering at the age of 14 when I snuck into a london cinema on a school trip and saw it, and it can still freak me out now if I re-watch it 40 years later
True fear is probably quite a hard thing to manufacture in movies, almost as hard as comedy? It’s almost impossible to do in books.
The two most frightening films I ever watched (actually stopped me sleeping) were Threads and Se7en.
I saw an utterly sick film at university (laddish dare to a few of us) called Cannibal Holocaust.
It was previously banned, and rightly so. I had nightmares and trauma for weeks afterwards.
What amazes me about The Exorcist is that they actually TOOK OUT scenes as creepy as this - the infamous spider walk scene
As for Cannibal Holocaust (1980), director Ruggero Deodato was charged with murder...but then the supposed victims were produced alive and well. It's a disgusting film, but it was a key moment in the "found footage" genre later exemplified by the little-remembered Ghostwatch, broadcast by the BBC on Halloween night 1992 and featuring (yes) Michael Parkinson, and then the Blair Witch Project in 1999. The BWP was an important point in the whole history of internet marketing and "clicks".
Ghostwatch has never been reshown on British TV.
I was scared witless as a 14 year old by Ghostwatch. The fact they presented it as a documentary, using ‘presenters’ familiar to kids’ TV, made it even more frightening!
Separate places for different modes of transport is recommended.
What drivers usually object to, is when roads get closed or subject to calming measures like chicanes, irrespective of the reasons why.
I've been surprised since returning to Britain about the level of cyclist-driver aggro (both ways), but I think it can be traced back to the limited scope for separate paths. Cycle paths were ubiquitous in Denmark and as a driver I don't remember ever having any kind of tricky or angry interaction with a cyclist. Difficult in our cities with streets designed to be narrow, though.
Currently translating a 180000-word annotated translation of the German Highway Code. I'm startled by the effort it puts into stressing the need for pacifist defensive driving - again and again, it says essentially that you should assume that others may be aggressive idiots, but it's your duty to accept that, give way and don't prioritise getting somewhere quickly over the risk of killing someone, however mistaken they may be. Someone is cutting you up? Fine, slow down to let him in. A cyclist is veering across your path? OK, slow down so he can veer safely. Do not hoot or protest. Is that a common theme in British driving lessons?
Covid stats: first drop in the UK hospital patient total since June 23rd. A drop of 132, following a rise of only 5 reported yesterday.
Cases are also down, relative both to yesterday and last Friday.
Also, I know it's far too early to draw any firmish conclusions, but... my recent prediction that the Covid patient total would reach around 7,500 before levelling off may even have been unduly pessimistic. At the moment it's only about 6k.
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
I was assured that one of the few (only?) Brexit wins would be reduced salience of “immigration” as an issue.
It is an itch that no amount of scratching will ever salve.
I don't know whether you're talking about immigration or Brexit? I imagine both. Brexit discontent will be with us forever. The country's biggest folly and greatest shame.
I meant immigration but Brexit too will never be over. I wouldn't say it was our biggest folly or greatest shame, though. Biggest folly would be stumbling into the disaster of WW1 I think, and greatest shame the Atlantic slave trade, IMHO, although there are many contenders especially on the shame front. (In the interests of balance and not doing down the country, would also point out we have a long list of achievements and things to be proud of).
How would you suggest that Britain stayed out of WW1?
I know the likes of Morley and Macdonald said it was feasible, but leaving aside treaty obligations do you really think Britain could have stayed out of a war that without our involvement would have led to the conquest of France and Belgium by a hostile power?
Yes, I think our cultural idea of WW1 as a four-year long pointless blunder is possibly misplaced. It was a genuine civilisational clash, on which Britain was on the right side. We possibly could have stayed out, but it would have been to the shame of Britain had we done so and to the detriment of European history. I also think the common image of the generals us unthinking and uncaring buffoons could probably do with a bit of revision.
This is, for me, an interesting area. I wrote my BA dissertation on the social effects of WW1 on the UK.
Personally I think WW1 was a massive blunder, a continent wide failure of statecraft, a dick swinging contest between the various powers, envious of each other and splitting themselves into various blocs. That all came crashing down. This belief is the essence of my Remainerism - having read many, many personal accounts of soldiers from WW1 and 2, by far the lesser evil is subjecting ourselves to the EU, and binding ourselves so closely we would never fight European countries again, rather than risk inflicting the horrors of warfare on our populations once more. I'm sure many will not find that argument convincing.
In military terms, many WW1 historians decry the 'Blackadder Effect', that has cemented the idea (that first emerged in the 60s with the 'Lions Led by Donkeys' idea) that the WW1 generals were callous, ruthless and incompetent, with no idea how to fight modern war. Debate continues, and will for evermore, between historians, but there is a revisionist bloc who argue that tactics did gradually develop (creeping barrages, improvements in the accuracy of artillery, etc, etc) that showed the generals could adapt tactically and did care about losses.
I remain to be convinced personally. I struggle to get past the sheer scale of seemingly pointless loss. Every day on the western front the British and it's colonial allies suffered something like1500 casualties on average, called 'Trench Wastage'. Around a third of those will have been killed instantly, more will have succumbed later to their wounds. The scale of losses that were deemed acceptable seem incomprehensible now.
The British did develop tanks. If only they’d arrived five years earlier we would have perfected them by 1915, crushed the Germans easily, and now everyone would be speaking English from Bonn to Brno (as well as speaking English everywhere else)
Imagine a British Empire 3.0 that incorporated most of Europe AS WELL. No Nazism or Communism. Just wise, benign and perpetual rule of the entire globe from London. The world had no such luck, unfortunately
Nope.
The tanks in WWI were arguably not as revolutionary as better assault tactics. The typical tank attack ran out of working tanks within a few miles.
Read some actual accounts of the tank VCs - last tank working, on its own, getting surrounded by Germans, fights as a static pillbox until they die or escape on foot.
I accept that early tanks were rubbish. But by 1939 they were good enough for Blitzkrieg
That’s my point. Read my comment. We invented them first - if only we’d invented them earlier we could have made them war winners by the time WW1 came along
We might also have developed the standard tactics of tank warfare before the battlefield became a quagmire which didn't help.
I've often wondered what would have happened if there had never been the brief period when (horse) cavalry become an ineffective tool due to the invention of the machine gun, before motorized infantry, tanks, then helicopters, became the new cavalry. WWI and even the US Civil War might have been very different affairs.
Good point on the US Civil War. One of the bloodiest wars, per capita, ever fought? Because of machine guns, primarily.ecomes, ironically, the price of rampant imperialism
History has a strange way of slowly but surely serving justice
Defensive massed rifle fire was even more deadly.
The British learned this the hard way from the Boer War. That's why we escaped with far fewer casualties than the French or Germans.
The European powers learned the wrong lessons from the Boer war and the Russo Japanese war. They realised that rifle fire was deadly, but took the view that attacks that were pressed home with sufficient vigour, and sufficient willingness to take casualties, would eventually prevail.
Yes - I guess we always use "invention of the machine gun" as a shorthand for a much more comprehensive set of developments in the ability to fire a large number of bullets, continuously, by a comparatively smaller number of defenders, and the lack of recognition of the tactical impact of those developments.
Every Boer was at least a competent marksman, and their best snipers were deadly. They had a habit of shooting down British officers and couriers at 1,000 yards, something our own commanders thought terribly unsporting. A lot of military careers were destroyed in the early months of that war.
British riflemen were pretty good in the film ‘Zulu’. IIRC
Incidentally, is that the best war movie ever made? Zulu? Certainly in my top 5
Best war movies -
1. Paths of Glory 2. Threads 3. Grave of the Fireflies 4. Apocalypse Now 5. The Deer Hunter
Some amazing-sounding movies I’ve never even heard of. I’m making a list for my own reference
Graves of the Fireflies The Way Ahead Angels One Five War Requiem
??!
Coincidentally, talking of Great War movies, I watched the BBC 2014 version of Testament of Youth last night, for the first time. Deeply moving, really well done. You will weep
Threads probably stretches it but it came out when I was 10 and even just the Radio Times cover scarred me for life. Genuinely the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.
Yes I also saw Threads at a tender age. Bloody hell
The Exorcist is scarier, but the Exorcist is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, so that’s a high bar
Interesting. I actually went to see the Exorcist at the pictures when it was re-released once and, as a person who hid behind the sofa when Dr Who and Star Trek came on until a ridiculously advanced age, was surprised how little I was scared.
Fear is a very personal thing. I’ve watched countless movies and TV dramas where people have assured me I will be ‘petrified’ - yet, meh. I’m actually quite hard to scare
But the Exorcist had me gibbering at the age of 14 when I snuck into a london cinema on a school trip and saw it, and it can still freak me out now if I re-watch it 40 years later
True fear is probably quite a hard thing to manufacture in movies, almost as hard as comedy? It’s almost impossible to do in books.
Horror works best in short stories. The story I read which frightened me the most upon reading it was The Colours Out of Space.
Yes quite true. The Monkey’s Paw is one of the most terrifying works of literature. And it’s about 5 pages long?
There are very few genuinely frightening stories or novels. It’s a fiendishly difficult emotion to evoke with mere words
Thanks for the suggestion. Will try!
Have you read any MR James?
Yes! There are vanishingly few writers that can do Scary. He’s one of them
Try Chalotte Perkins Gilman's story The Yellow Wallpaper. Utterly powerful and terrifying, based on personal experience. And for film, the recent Nicolas Cage version of Color Out of Space is a very trippy, modern-day version of the Lovecraft story. With Cage, you can never be sure if you'll get good Cage or bad Cage - but this is definitely he former.
I've just re-read "The Yellow Wallpaper" for an online course I am doing on literature and madness. It is really frightening.
Incidentally, was anyone here a fan of the Pan Book of Horror Stories series in their youth? The series did go off when it got into the 20 somethings in the series but the early books are great. I've just been looking at the First Pan Book of Horror Stories and the authors include C.S. Forester, L.P. Hartley, Nigel Kneale (of "Quatermass" fame), Bram Stoker, Muriel Spark and Angus Wilson.
PS What really scared me was a big hardback book of horror stories, which may not have been the Pan ones? The one that really upset me was about the man challenged to sleep overnight in a haunted room - in the morning, one irreparably demented man and nothing else but a trail of chicken feet along the floor, up the wall and back along the ceiling ... no, there was no explanation. And that was the most frightening of the lot.
Comments
War was mainly a male domain. Many war films made in the 1950s and 1960s try to shoehorn in a love interest, often putting women where they would not realistically have been. In Ice Cold in Alex, the presence of the two women makes sense, they kill one woman off, and neither are particularly treated as sex objects. This makes the story feel so much more realistic than many other films.
It is a wonderful film for this, and many other, reasons.
In a way, 'Went the Day Well' is also quite good: the women felt like realistic characters placed in an unreal, horrid situation.
The honour this time goes to ---Sweden who have nothing so far. Given Sweden seem to top every league table from education to wellbeing etc I think the rest of the world can feel a little smug at this!
https://youtu.be/VBT68a56s70
On other points - all complications indeed. As was the BBC's reportage, even after the trial (AIUI their overall prorgamme about the trial had to be edited pdq after broadcast and before putting on ther internet, but I didn't see its original broadcast which was just after the verdict, I believe).
When I am unDictator of Britain, HSE compliance in all my palaces, lairs, hollowed out volcanoes etc will be enforced.
Historically they've struggled to avoid being squeezed by tactical voting, both because they're a smaller party, but also because of the demographics of their voters.
UKIP voters were always much less inclined to vote tactically as opposed to bloody-mindedly as a point of comparison.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56422589
Letting someone who has no personal dog in that fight is the best way.
As an aside, I'd give the devolved assemblies the freedom of privilege that Westminster has, with the obvious caveat about sub judice.
They must be drivers too, the vast bulk of them, I can't understand why they can't appreciate how irritating it is.
I always think of this scene whenever the PM mentions Levelling Up, for some reason.
Though it's still impossible to verify the accuracy of what Mr David came out with.
Edit: Malmesbury has pointed out Mr Davis's known special interest in freedom of expression. Objection withdrawn!
So by the end, some events really aren't going to have anybody watching them, in the way the swimmers have had a bit of a crowd to cheer them on. And the closing ceremony is going to be a couple of athletes wandering around looking lost.
There was a story about someome who stayed on illicitly in a whole house that had been vacated by the team because he didn't want to miss the final party - turned outt hat the empty rooms were extremely popular.
- Single line of 12 riders
- 2 riders abreast, 6 bikes long
- 3 riders abreast, 4 bikes long
It is easier to overtake the last of these rather than the first. The limiting factor being the length of the peloton rather than the width.
One time I was very nearly killed by a peloton of bastards in lycra all whizzing at top speed either side of me.
I was in THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET in Edinburgh, with the lights red and the green man on. (I double checked those last.)
The shites were doing a 'Reclaim the Streets' ride.
I wish I'd had a couple of cartons of tacks with me - I was so frightened and anglered by their lethal arrogance.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-40918376
They are bessie mates.
On narrow country roads with little traffic I usually pull into a gateway or similar to let cars past. What do I care if I'm 20 seconds slower? I might have the right to ride in the middle of the lane but sharing the road applies to me as much as it does to the many idiots in cars whom all cyclists curse.
Too many taking Strava seriously. If you think you can race, enter one!
I'm probably overexposed to them, the road past my house leads to flat farmland with quiet roads that stretches all the way to the Humber estuary so they're constantly using it to get out into the sticks and getting in my way!
Frustrating drivers leads to accidents. It shouldn't, but it does.
Which I can understand - your big event is tomorrow and the b******s who have finished their events and won medals are partying all night next door to you..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qopdYE3_QoU
I don't have time to cycle much these days but when I did it was almost entirely solo and mostly on quiet country roads. I have lost count of the number of very dangerous maneuvers car drivers have made in their desperation to not slow down when getting past. The most common one is overtaking on blind corners. I do not know what goes through these drivers' minds when they go around a corner on the wrong side of the road without being able to see what is coming the other way. I have been witness to quite a few near misses.
And for film, the recent Nicolas Cage version of Color Out of Space is a very trippy, modern-day version of the Lovecraft story. With Cage, you can never be sure if you'll get good Cage or bad Cage - but this is definitely he former.
The problem is that deliberately blocking the road (as groups of cyclists are entirely permitted to) is like going into the wrong bar and saying the wrong thing. The person that punches you is at fault, but that doesn't help you get off the floor.
Having said that, I don't have statistics as to accidents per mile in a group as opposed to solo, so perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression.
Commuting in rush hour traffic is infinitely more dangerous than most leisure rides.
Its preposterous for people to blame others for their choices, or for us to excuse others by doing so.
Boris does it, let's not emulate that by infantilising others and making it his fault for their words and actions.
https://news.sky.com/story/labour-mp-apsana-begum-found-not-guilty-of-housing-fraud-12367797
I wanted a by election.
I could do plenty of pieces and betting threads on 'Could Starmer lose a 28,000 majority seat in a by election?'
I walk, cycle, run and drive. I've seen bad pedestrians, runners, cyclists and motorists. In fact, I've sadly been a bad pedestrian, runner, cyclist and motorist at times. No-one is perfect, and neither are any of the above groups.
We all have to use the roads, and in most cases all the above have a right to use the road. It is a case of being respectful and considerate of other road users: they have as much right to use it as you do. If you're a cyclist and a car's been trying to get past you for a while, pull in. If you're a driver trying to pass a cyclist, give them plenty of room and don't be impatient. If you're a cyclist on a road, don't hit and kill a pedestrian.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58009784
I did everything as safely as I could when sharing the roads with cars, but in the end fear overtook righteous indignation, because it will be no comfort to be morally in the right when my luck runs out and I end up in hospital.
So I find it baffling when car drivers object to infrastructure that would give cyclists somewhere separate to cycle.
Always good to see the word comrades being used.
What drivers usually object to, is when roads get closed or subject to calming measures like chicanes, irrespective of the reasons why.
Take for example Euston road, one of the main E/W roads in London
It used to be 3 car lanes going east. Busy but manageable
Now it is 1 bike lane (usually empty), 1 bus lane (mainly empty) and 1 car lane (backed up for hundreds of yards)
Incidentally, was anyone here a fan of the Pan Book of Horror Stories series in their youth? The series did go off when it got into the 20 somethings in the series but the early books are great. I've just been looking at the First Pan Book of Horror Stories and the authors include C.S. Forester, L.P. Hartley, Nigel Kneale (of "Quatermass" fame), Bram Stoker, Muriel Spark and Angus Wilson.
No apology, no admitting that he was in the wrong. It was, apparently, my fault.
The same road is closing for two weeks next month; it's going to be fun!
"I would now like to get on with my job of representing my constituents - opposing the negligent COVID decisions made by (Prime Minister Boris) Johnson's reckless Tory government which has caused so many families to lose loved ones who should still be with us today and so much hardship that could have been avoided.
"My comrades and friends, in Poplar and Limehouse, and beyond, have stood by me, I have and will always stand by them."
https://twitter.com/ApsanaBegumMP/status/1421117482102890508?s=20
Quick thread:
Most attention has gone on ONS “% of people testing positive” metric showing a continued rise
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1421117152019554307?s=20
As someone who lives in that constituency I 100% was not looking forward to a nasty Labour/Galloway by-election
https://twitter.com/AGKD123/status/1421120424088326144
Hit whilst commuting: 2
Hit whilst touring: 0
Broken bones: 0
Smashed helmets: 1
[Mountain bike crashes would actually top the table, but I don't think that counts]
Segregated infrastructure would help with the commuting, but most cycling infrastructure I see is designed by idiots who don't actually ride at all.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-cyclists-59-to-82
There is an old coal siding from Penkridge to Huntington less than a mile from where I live. Totally intact, totally unused. It could be converted into a beautiful cycle track for a few thousand quid in gravel.
Instead - it’s doing nothing.
Similarly, where I come from in Gloucestershire there is a closed railway line from Rudford to Highnam. Part of it is even a bridleway. Avoids a dangerous road carrying around 18,000 vehicles a day and a very steep hill. Would make a beautiful cycle run. As it is, there’s no chance of that until the canal is restored. Which, given they have been trying and completely failing to restore it for 38 years, doesn’t seem like a profitable option.
Robert Cohen
@kodacohen
A letter from Dr. Faisal Khan, acting director of the St. Louis County Dept of Public Health, to the county council concerning last night's meeting on mask mandates. Read this
https://twitter.com/kodacohen/status/1420556870775885826
Election 2024 has the potential to see the worst political violence America has seen in a very long time. Never mind the aftermath. They need to move on legal action on Trump over tax or whatever before it is too late to stop a run.
Daily: 29,622
Last 7 days 197,902 down -111,840 (-36.1%)
Rate per 100,000 people: 333.1
I expect the Covidiots will be pointing at the ONS numbers they clearly don't understand....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-4f_NMUxcY
Part of the reason they took it out was that the harness showed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w-YuakAIqU
As for Cannibal Holocaust (1980), director Ruggero Deodato was charged with murder...but then the supposed victims were produced alive and well. It's a disgusting film, but it was a key moment in the "found footage" genre later exemplified by the little-remembered Ghostwatch, broadcast by the BBC on Halloween night 1992 and featuring (yes) Michael Parkinson, and then the Blair Witch Project in 1999. The BWP was an important point in the whole history of internet marketing and "clicks".
Ghostwatch has never been reshown on British TV.
Hospital admissions data showing the first (tiny) fall in 7 day average for over a month - 728, was 783 last Friday. And to state the obvious, considering lags this is clearly evidence that last week's falls in cases were giving a more up-to-date picture than today's ONS.
(NB - Oliver's tweet relates to England admissions only)
The peak daily average was 47,696 on 21/7.
England PCR positivity drops again to 9.2% down from 9.5% yesterday and a peak of 11.8% on 19/7.
https://twitter.com/fact_covid/status/1421125187429359620?s=20
For more on this and other news visit http://news.sky.com
Perhaps he can push for a recall anyway.
Cases are also down, relative both to yesterday and last Friday.
https://twitter.com/mjstainbank/status/1421050456915185665?s=21
Without totally redesigning our cities and knocking down all the buildings, there is limited space with a whole host of different users. The infrastructure needs designing for cars, pedestrians, cyclists, the disabled, the blind, etc. This means there has to be compromises.
A recent post on FB showed a cycle lane with a pavement alongside. The cycle path is wider, but there is a lamppost in the middle. Why not place the cyclelane where there is no lamppost? The answer is obvious: although pedestrians can step around the post, people pushing prams or wheelchairs would have to go into the cycle lane. And the blind might find it difficult. Perhaps the lamp post could be moved? Perhaps (or perhaps not), but you're also significantly increasing the cost.
As an aside, I'd say a serious issue with urban cyclists I know is that most seem to see it as a fundamental right to cycle at 20 MPH along the roads without stopping. I can see why, as it is fun (though my current bike hardly lets me get that fast). But it is also unrealistic and selfish to expect to be able to do so at the expense of other road users.
Currently translating a 180000-word annotated translation of the German Highway Code. I'm startled by the effort it puts into stressing the need for pacifist defensive driving - again and again, it says essentially that you should assume that others may be aggressive idiots, but it's your duty to accept that, give way and don't prioritise getting somewhere quickly over the risk of killing someone, however mistaken they may be. Someone is cutting you up? Fine, slow down to let him in. A cyclist is veering across your path? OK, slow down so he can veer safely. Do not hoot or protest. Is that a common theme in British driving lessons?
The Johnson Variant is already out of control - and we're heading to 100,000 cases a day”