Wine man thread. TLDR, it’s still a nightmare to import wine into the U.K. due to a failing logistics industry and complicated, country-by-country paperwork.
Definitely worth a read. I hadn't appreciated fully that it's not just motor car manufacturers who have to have much bigger stocks because of the much greater transit delays involved, but everyone else selling stuff from the EU (which makes sense if one thinks about it for about 30 seconds, raising interesting questions about UKG planning ...).
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
It clearly has two meanings. And here is the thing more generally, if the word police had been successful in limiting and controlling language throughout history we would still only be communicating through various grunts and facial expressions. Words take on new and different meanings each generation, it is progress.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
The only time I went to Greece was in 2006 - and we missed two of the hottest weeks in British history.
I can understand going on holiday to somewhere warmer in the colder, wetter, half of the British year, but I don't understand doing so at the time of year when we have the best chance of good weather. A bit of a waste really.
FPT - "Boris had been regarded by many voters in the North as one of them".
Is this a case of combining being genuinely out of touch, having an ex-public schoolboy's tendency to laugh and scoff at everybody, and enjoying the connections needed to get one's scribblings into print, however idiotic they might be - into an amusing potpourri of self-mockery? If so, it's unkind to respond in a harsh fashion, because the person is so vulnerable.
Or perhaps the former minister thinks Oxford is in "the North", as many supporters of London football clubs (claim to) believe about Bristol when they watch games at Ashton Gate while happily singing "You d**** northern b******s".
I could be wrong and perhaps since Dominic Cummings's effort in the general election less than two years ago those among his fellow northerners who have not benefited from his "Oxford and Moscow" experiences have believed the Bullingdon Club's standard greeting to be "Aye up" and its non-dress uniform to feature the flat cap.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
People who can’t afford foreign holidays? I don’t feel my parents were particularly out of their minds when they took us to Ventnor for two weeks every year between 1981 and 1983.
Yes. But that was in the dark ages.
I would argue that the top 80% income deciles can easily afford a foreign holiday once a year.
A typical flight to Europe in 1982 would have been over a weeks wages. Nowadays they are more typically a days wages and available for a few hours wages.
A train ticket from London to the Lake District or Cornwall (or vice versa) often costs more than a flight to the med, and costs are much cheaper once you get to the med.
I paid 198kr - approximately £16.50 - for a return flight Sweden Scotland. That’s just silly. And there were only about 15 folk on the flight.
And everything is much cheaper here.
In contrast I bought a train ticket on a regional train a couple of weeks ago, and it was about 300kr (25 GBP) for the 2 hour journey.
It is *much* cheaper to holiday in Scotland compared with Sweden. Better scenery too. But I do miss my daily summer dips. No way I’m freezing my nuts off in that loch.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
People who can’t afford foreign holidays? I don’t feel my parents were particularly out of their minds when they took us to Ventnor for two weeks every year between 1981 and 1983.
Yes. But that was in the dark ages.
I would argue that the top 80% income deciles can easily afford a foreign holiday once a year.
It wont be long before that we're told that people cannot afford to eat but can afford foreign holidays.
Amazed by this. Our vaccine advisory group is out of line with current evidence on this, and CDC, AAP, + US, Canada, most European countries. We've done a quantitative assessment of this, and the benefits vs risks are v. clear. How do they justify this?
I saw a post on one of these twitter accounts that admitted it’s fair to disagree. I really think is a finely balanced decision, and while we may not agree with it, it is being made in good faith, based on how these scientists see the data at the time.
I agree. The science is finely balanced. The benefits to the community are clear, to the individual teens, much less so. What I don't respect are the absolutists like Gurdasani who are 100% certain they are 100% right when they have so often been wrong in the past, yet rarely if ever admit it.
I think the problem with the individual risk/benefit analysis is, how long does the protection conferred by vaccines last?
If it’s three years, it’s not really vital for teenagers.
If it’s thirty years, the equation is different.
But we won’t know that for er, 30 years.
When it comes to community transmission, of course, depends on the community. Jabbing teenagers may be of some benefit to the UK, but sending those vaccines to Nigeria or Indonesia may be of greater benefit overall.
I think it’s actually quite a tricky decision, but in this case it’s slightly easier because there’s no point in making it until schools go back. Vaccine centres aren’t really set up to work with children and it would make more sense to jab them in school.
So I expect a decision in September.
And given the government have ruled it out, I expect them to start jabbing.
Which is probably what I would do - and if they do offer vaccines to teenagers I will urge my students to get them, talking them through the risks and benefits - but I recognise it is a very nuanced call.
Yesterday it was the racist German cycle coach been sent home, today....
A German coach has been thrown out of the Olympics for appearing to punch a horse who was refusing to jump or trot during the modern pentathlon.
That horse is the MVP of the Olympics. He refuses to accept the human/horse master/slave power axis,
Technically he wasn't not accepting his human master - the riders he's been rejecting were lent to him so to speak. I think he was the nag some of us were discussing, as a particular example of the problems of not bringing your own nag to the party but having to rely on the equine equivalent of Algerian U-bootstoff or whatever else someone had brought to the party.
Is this the infamous Saint Boy?
Said horse was conspicuously absent from the men's event...
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
Yesterday it was the racist German cycle coach been sent home, today....
A German coach has been thrown out of the Olympics for appearing to punch a horse who was refusing to jump or trot during the modern pentathlon.
That horse is the MVP of the Olympics. He refuses to accept the human/horse master/slave power axis,
Technically he wasn't not accepting his human master - the riders he's been rejecting were lent to him so to speak. I think he was the nag some of us were discussing, as a particular example of the problems of not bringing your own nag to the party but having to rely on the equine equivalent of Algerian U-bootstoff or whatever else someone had brought to the party.
Is this the infamous Saint Boy?
Said horse was conspicuously absent from the men's event...
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
The vote swing in the Scottish byelection in Livingston was interesting.
Not the vote swing from 2017 but from 2012:
SCON +18.2% SLAB -21.8%
That's not tactical voting as its a traditional SLAB area and even in 2017 SLAB were ahead of SCON.
Now we know that SLAB have problems but I'll suggest that Scots found the Cameron-Osborne gang detestable in a way they no longer do.
I tend to agree.
I am very aware of the pitfalls of complacency, but I am starting to think that Scottish Labour really have passed the point of no return. The Richard Leonard error was probably the coup de grâce.
The age profile of their remaining voters is worrying.
About 40% of their voters are pro-independence, which is astonishing as nearly everybody had assumed that they’d lost all their independence supporters back in 2015.
They have zero talent. Murray and Sarwar are a weak pass, but behind them it is a desert.
They are lazy. They never were very good at canvassing, streetwork etc, even when they had hegemony. Now they are totally invisible.
Folk are now ashamed to admit that they vote Labour to their workmates and pals.
They have no policies, or at least not a single one the general population have heard of. Apart of course from British Unionism, but you can’t out-Tory the Tories.
On the constitution, they keep trying to fire up the ignition on federalism, about every three months. They’ve been doing that for half a century now. That motor ain’t never going to start; the technology is obsolete.
Maybe all this SLab to SCon and SLD to SCon “tactical voting” is a mirage? Maybe those voters are lost for good? The SLab to SNP and SLab to SGP voters don’t look like they’re ever going “home”.
There’s simply no space for them in Scotland.
The SNP have become the main left wing party. (With the Greens of you are even more left wing, although my knowledge of the Scottish Greens is admittedly zero).
Until we get an indyref2 and No wins again, dealing a potentially fatal blow to the SNP, or Yes wins and SLab can position itself to be the main centre left party again in an independent Scotland, then SLab is not really going anywhere.
Hence it is in the Tories interest to keep denying indyref2 as long as they are in power at Westminster as it ensures they continue to benefit from most of the Unionist vote in Scotland while the SNP take most of the Nationalist and leftwing vote
Glad we cleared that up. Boris Johnson is not acting in the best interest of the Union but in the best interests of his party.
He is acting in the best interests of both and respecting the once in a generation 2014 vote
Boris Johnson doesn’t even respect himself. The word respect is totally lacking from his vocabulary.
Wine man thread. TLDR, it’s still a nightmare to import wine into the U.K. due to a failing logistics industry and complicated, country-by-country paperwork.
Definitely worth a read. I hadn't appreciated fully that it's not just motor car manufacturers who have to have much bigger stocks because of the much greater transit delays involved, but everyone else selling stuff from the EU (which makes sense if one thinks about it for about 30 seconds, raising interesting questions about UKG planning ...).
Thank you leave and tory voters for your marvellous 'brexit'.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
It clearly has two meanings. And here is the thing more generally, if the word police had been successful in limiting and controlling language throughout history we would still only be communicating through various grunts and facial expressions. Words take on new and different meanings each generation, it is progress.
Absolutely. Language has always evolved and changed and is the richer for it. Still hate this example because the new meaning is so at odds with the old. It also devalues all my previous U.K. holidays as somehow inferior. Which they weren’t.
Wine man thread. TLDR, it’s still a nightmare to import wine into the U.K. due to a failing logistics industry and complicated, country-by-country paperwork.
Definitely worth a read. I hadn't appreciated fully that it's not just motor car manufacturers who have to have much bigger stocks because of the much greater transit delays involved, but everyone else selling stuff from the EU (which makes sense if one thinks about it for about 30 seconds, raising interesting questions about UKG planning ...).
Thank you leave and tory voters for your marvellous 'brexit'.
At least if Scotland goes independent it will all be much easier and cause no disruption at all.
That’s right, isn’t it? Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have both said it so it must be true as they never lie.
Amazed by this. Our vaccine advisory group is out of line with current evidence on this, and CDC, AAP, + US, Canada, most European countries. We've done a quantitative assessment of this, and the benefits vs risks are v. clear. How do they justify this?
I saw a post on one of these twitter accounts that admitted it’s fair to disagree. I really think is a finely balanced decision, and while we may not agree with it, it is being made in good faith, based on how these scientists see the data at the time.
I agree. The science is finely balanced. The benefits to the community are clear, to the individual teens, much less so. What I don't respect are the absolutists like Gurdasani who are 100% certain they are 100% right when they have so often been wrong in the past, yet rarely if ever admit it.
I think the problem with the individual risk/benefit analysis is, how long does the protection conferred by vaccines last?
If it’s three years, it’s not really vital for teenagers.
If it’s thirty years, the equation is different.
But we won’t know that for er, 30 years.
When it comes to community transmission, of course, depends on the community. Jabbing teenagers may be of some benefit to the UK, but sending those vaccines to Nigeria or Indonesia may be of greater benefit overall.
I think it’s actually quite a tricky decision, but in this case it’s slightly easier because there’s no point in making it until schools go back. Vaccine centres aren’t really set up to work with children and it would make more sense to jab them in school.
So I expect a decision in September.
And given the government have ruled it out, I expect them to start jabbing.
Which is probably what I would do - and if they do offer vaccines to teenagers I will urge my students to get them, talking them through the risks and benefits - but I recognise it is a very nuanced call.
From the point of Darwinian inclusive fitness, as well as social common sense, there is benefit to a child in not passing it on to mum and dad and grandparents too. And, also, teachers! [edit] Not sure if that is being considered too (as a very special element of the wider community immunity issue).
after all that discussion, there's the narrow chance of 65 total hoving into view.
boxing - nailed on 2 x cycling possibles, 1 a bit less likely modern pentathlon team jumping possible
Overall medals seems on par with the last 2 Games, Golds down quite a bit, but a great result to get 4th place especially considering the home team ahead of us.
Rowing was the most disappointing.
Public schools & Oxbridge letting us down?
The coach who had been in charge for decades left, and I guess took his 'box of tricks' with him.
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
If the US had not invaded Bin Laden would still be alive and Al Qaeda still in the country.
If the Taliban retake the whole country (which is unlikely given US air support still for the elected government and warlords who will resist them) and invite Al Qaeda back we would have no choice but to re invade or face future 9/11s and terrorist attacks launched on New York, London and Paris from cells trained in Afghanistan
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
I'm afraid you have to deal with reality.
A holiday in your own country is a holiday.
People claiming it isn't come across as somewhat entitled and insecure.
Amazed by this. Our vaccine advisory group is out of line with current evidence on this, and CDC, AAP, + US, Canada, most European countries. We've done a quantitative assessment of this, and the benefits vs risks are v. clear. How do they justify this?
I saw a post on one of these twitter accounts that admitted it’s fair to disagree. I really think is a finely balanced decision, and while we may not agree with it, it is being made in good faith, based on how these scientists see the data at the time.
I agree. The science is finely balanced. The benefits to the community are clear, to the individual teens, much less so. What I don't respect are the absolutists like Gurdasani who are 100% certain they are 100% right when they have so often been wrong in the past, yet rarely if ever admit it.
I think the problem with the individual risk/benefit analysis is, how long does the protection conferred by vaccines last?
If it’s three years, it’s not really vital for teenagers.
If it’s thirty years, the equation is different.
But we won’t know that for er, 30 years.
When it comes to community transmission, of course, depends on the community. Jabbing teenagers may be of some benefit to the UK, but sending those vaccines to Nigeria or Indonesia may be of greater benefit overall.
I think it’s actually quite a tricky decision, but in this case it’s slightly easier because there’s no point in making it until schools go back. Vaccine centres aren’t really set up to work with children and it would make more sense to jab them in school.
So I expect a decision in September.
And given the government have ruled it out, I expect them to start jabbing.
Which is probably what I would do - and if they do offer vaccines to teenagers I will urge my students to get them, talking them through the risks and benefits - but I recognise it is a very nuanced call.
From the point of Darwinian inclusive fitness, as well as social common sense, there is benefit to a child in not passing it on to mum and dad and grandparents too. And, also, teachers! [edit] Not sure if that is being considered too (as a very special element of the wider community immunity issue).
But most of us have now been vaccinated, which again changes the cost/benefit analysis.
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
They did, and nobody took it.
They probably didn't offer enough then. Or, maybe they should have done it through Muslim agents. Handing over a fellow Muslim to Christians could have been a bit meh, even for Afghan warlords. If the Saudis had offered, though........
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
They did, and nobody took it.
They probably didn't offer enough then. Or, maybe they should have done it through Muslim agents. Handing over a fellow Muslim to Christians could have been a bit meh, even for Afghan warlords. If the Saudis had offered, though........
The vote swing in the Scottish byelection in Livingston was interesting.
Not the vote swing from 2017 but from 2012:
SCON +18.2% SLAB -21.8%
That's not tactical voting as its a traditional SLAB area and even in 2017 SLAB were ahead of SCON.
Now we know that SLAB have problems but I'll suggest that Scots found the Cameron-Osborne gang detestable in a way they no longer do.
mental assumption
The facts are the facts Malcy.
And SCON are doing much better in areas where they shouldn't even be the main unionist option.
Gosh, if only there was some kind of event or events that occurred between 2012 and 2017?
SIndy and Brexit realigned Scottish voting coalitions quite dramatically.
To the benefit of SCON.
Something PB's SCON haters didn't predict.
Yes some of the narrative on Scotland has been oversimplified. This ward was a real bellwether ward and while East Calder is a traditional working class Labour area the rest of the ward is more lower middle class/middle class. It's the sort of area which should support a ~20% Tory vote easily and of course West Lothian was only 58% remain. It is a dire result for Labour result and what I expect for the Tories and largely what I would expect for the SNP as they are strong in the eastern suburbs of Livingston with the Greens doing surprisingly well.
I wish people would stop calling a holiday in the U.K. a “staycation”. A staycation is when you stay at home on your time off but take day trips in your local area but a leisure trip to the Lake District for a week is a holiday in the Lake District for a week. I didn’t leave the shores of Great Britain until I was 10 (something true of many pre-Millenials) but did have holidays before that, largely in Cornwall and the Isle of Wight. They weren’t staycations.
Too late, Doug, I'm afraid. It's out of the bottle.
I am but a linguistic Canute.
Cnut surely, to be pedantic.
Actually he was Knútr inn ríki in his native Old Norse. I can pedant with the best of them.
I can't tell the difference between the dives. They all look good.
Big splash is bad. Otherwise wait for the commentator. That's my method fwiw.
So top.bombing doesn't get you many points ;-)
Bombing from 10m up is going to hurt like hell!
Has anyone here ever dived from a 10m board?
I looked down from the 3m springboard and chickened out!
Many years ago. Nearly concussed myself.
There was one at the Central Swimming Pool in Reading where we lived before decamping to Canterbury. I saw some horrific things at an early age from the muppets who threw themselves off it. My younger brother braved it but I never did.
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
If the US had not invaded Bin Laden would still be alive and Al Qaeda still in the country.
If the Taliban retake the whole country (which is unlikely given US air support still for the elected government and warlords who will resist them) and invite Al Qaeda back we would have no choice but to re invade or face future 9/11s and terrorist attacks launched on New York, London and Paris from cells trained in Afghanistan
9/11 was down to dissident Saudi's. IIRC Afghans had nothing to do with it until Bin Laden fled there. In any event, wasn't he captured in Pakistan?
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
I'm afraid you have to deal with reality.
A holiday in your own country is a holiday.
People claiming it isn't come across as somewhat entitled and insecure.
Mr. Richard, Rusedski reached the US Open final that year.
And lost.
Henman reached the semis of every Grand Slam except the Aussie Open.
And lost.
Rusedski also had an unfair advantage, in that he has a personality.
Tim Henman, a lovely tennis player whose best surface was grass, never won Queens and never made a final at Wimbledon. It was a good career - a very good career - but one which ultimately fell short.
If someone was the fourth best footballer in the world (Neymar, Mbappe level?) have they fallen short? If someone was the fourth best politician in the world have they fallen short? If someone was the fourth best teacher in the world have they fallen short?
No. But Tim's grass court pedigree was such that he should have won at least a Queens and made at least a Wimbo final. So he underachieved in this sense. I think he would feel that himself.
Only the Ivanisevic game which might have been different without the rain delays. Otherwise he lost his grand slam semi finals to world number 1s Sampras x2, Federer, Hewitt, and Coria world number 3 on clay.
Yes, things just didn't break for him. 2001 in particular, that semi, was a real downer. I also think he underperformed vs Hewitt in the 2002 semi. Still remember how disappointed I was with that match. Nalbandian in the final would have been eminently beatable. I was a big fan of Tim, used to get quite involved.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
I'm afraid you have to deal with reality.
A holiday in your own country is a holiday.
People claiming it isn't come across as somewhat entitled and insecure.
"I've had ten days in Devon and fortnight in the Scottish Highlands plus a week at the Edinburgh festival and long weekends in Liverpool and York. But I haven't had a holiday this year."
The end result of 'a staycation is a holiday in the UK' twattery.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
I'm afraid you have to deal with reality.
A holiday in your own country is a holiday.
People claiming it isn't come across as somewhat entitled and insecure.
The word you are looking for is "ponce"
But nobody is claiming a holiday in one’s own country is not a holiday.
So, people grizzling are at high risk of coming off like Harry Enfield’s “Doberman Brothers”, riling themselves to fury over literally nothing.
On my 2nd train of the day. The Aberdeen - London train was filling up at every station down the east coast, with a large number then boarding at Waverley. I've changed trains onto one that stops in Peterborough. Its rammed, and the gripper warning it will be fully rammed further along the way.
Yes I'm in 1st on a solo seat so thats better, but this is still more people that I'm in close proximity to than I've seen for *months*. I never enjoyed packed trains, even less so now. Does show that people are back travelling for their holidays.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
I'm afraid you have to deal with reality.
A holiday in your own country is a holiday.
People claiming it isn't come across as somewhat entitled and insecure.
The word you are looking for is "ponce"
But nobody is claiming a holiday in one’s own country is not a holiday.
So, people grizzling are at high risk of coming off like Harry Enfield’s “Doberman Brothers”, riling themselves to fury over literally nothing.
Its a fun bit of pedantry objecting to the people who genuinely don't think a UK holiday is a holiday. Hence a trip abroad being "holiday" and one in the UK being "staycation".
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
They did, and nobody took it.
They probably didn't offer enough then. Or, maybe they should have done it through Muslim agents. Handing over a fellow Muslim to Christians could have been a bit meh, even for Afghan warlords. If the Saudis had offered, though........
$25 million wasn’t enough?!!
Obviously. They're making some big profits from the heroin trade.
As I suggested too, they might have been more amenable to handing over to fellow Muslims.
See too, the comment I made to HYUFD; that he was captured in Pakistan.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
I'm afraid you have to deal with reality.
A holiday in your own country is a holiday.
People claiming it isn't come across as somewhat entitled and insecure.
The word you are looking for is "ponce"
But nobody is claiming a holiday in one’s own country is not a holiday.
So, people grizzling are at high risk of coming off like Harry Enfield’s “Doberman Brothers”, riling themselves to fury over literally nothing.
Its a fun bit of pedantry objecting to the people who genuinely don't think a UK holiday is a holiday. Hence a trip abroad being "holiday" and one in the UK being "staycation".
If you really want pedantry, a holiday is a day off for a religious observance (“Holy Day”) rather than a trip anywhere, domestic or foreign.
Good morning from LNER. Pingdemic still creating staffing issues. Happily the rules do not apply to Liar so we can all benefit from his ministrations.
Get a life
Bless. I think I have a pretty good life thanks. Unlike you sheep who bleat away that anyone who isn't cheering on good old Boris are unpatriotic or whatever.
I never said that or say that I think you should get a life as you are broken record unable to post without insulting Boris somewhere...
The vote swing in the Scottish byelection in Livingston was interesting.
Not the vote swing from 2017 but from 2012:
SCON +18.2% SLAB -21.8%
That's not tactical voting as its a traditional SLAB area and even in 2017 SLAB were ahead of SCON.
Now we know that SLAB have problems but I'll suggest that Scots found the Cameron-Osborne gang detestable in a way they no longer do.
mental assumption
The facts are the facts Malcy.
And SCON are doing much better in areas where they shouldn't even be the main unionist option.
Gosh, if only there was some kind of event or events that occurred between 2012 and 2017?
SIndy and Brexit realigned Scottish voting coalitions quite dramatically.
To the benefit of SCON.
Something PB's SCON haters didn't predict.
Yes some of the narrative on Scotland has been oversimplified. This ward was a real bellwether ward and while East Calder is a traditional working class Labour area the rest of the ward is more lower middle class/middle class. It's the sort of area which should support a ~20% Tory vote easily and of course West Lothian was only 58% remain. It is a dire result for Labour result and what I expect for the Tories and largely what I would expect for the SNP as they are strong in the eastern suburbs of Livingston with the Greens doing surprisingly well.
Doesn't surprise me, actually. As I've said on occasion here, SLAB were always going to lose out to the SCUP in the unionist stakes, even though acting as their little helpers in 2014 - so the progressive ones also abandoned them.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
I'm afraid you have to deal with reality.
A holiday in your own country is a holiday.
People claiming it isn't come across as somewhat entitled and insecure.
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
If the US had not invaded Bin Laden would still be alive and Al Qaeda still in the country.
If the Taliban retake the whole country (which is unlikely given US air support still for the elected government and warlords who will resist them) and invite Al Qaeda back we would have no choice but to re invade or face future 9/11s and terrorist attacks launched on New York, London and Paris from cells trained in Afghanistan
There is no USAF left in Afghanistan. The nearest air assets are at Al Udeid in Qatar the Nimitz strike group in the Gulf. Using them relies on the not entirely reliable cooperation of Pakistan to allow access to Afghan air space via 'The Boulevard'.
Mr. Richard, Rusedski reached the US Open final that year.
And lost.
Henman reached the semis of every Grand Slam except the Aussie Open.
And lost.
Rusedski also had an unfair advantage, in that he has a personality.
Tim Henman, a lovely tennis player whose best surface was grass, never won Queens and never made a final at Wimbledon. It was a good career - a very good career - but one which ultimately fell short.
If someone was the fourth best footballer in the world (Neymar, Mbappe level?) have they fallen short? If someone was the fourth best politician in the world have they fallen short? If someone was the fourth best teacher in the world have they fallen short?
No. But Tim's grass court pedigree was such that he should have won at least a Queens and made at least a Wimbo final. So he underachieved in this sense. I think he would feel that himself.
I think anyone good enough to to reach slam semi finals, but not go on, would always feel that they could have done. Herman’s best shot was probably undone by the weather against Goran ivanisevic, as he had the momentum. I guess time mellows so he may well look back on a good but not stellar career. Murray would definitely have underachieved if he hadn’t won a slam, even up against the big three, as he was for a time up there at the same level.
I think Tim's ability and hard work merited a Queens title and a Wimbledon final. That was his "par" if you like, in golf terms, so he shot a couple over. Murray is intrinsically a level and a half higher. He has 9 slam finals with 3 wins, many masters, 2 olympic golds, a tour finals win, and a spell at world number 1. I'd say he's shot par. It's about right.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
That's a very East London point of view. Tens of millions of people spend all summer in the UK.
As do many Londoners. Home for summer, skiing in winter, somewhere warmer in early spring and late autumn is the ideal combo.
That's my usual pattern too. Early spring break in Feb/March, often for a running race. Holidays are May/June or Sept/Oct. Maybe a short trip at or after Christmas. May as well spend the best of the weather in the UK and I avoid the school holidays as much as possible.
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
They did, and nobody took it.
They probably didn't offer enough then. Or, maybe they should have done it through Muslim agents. Handing over a fellow Muslim to Christians could have been a bit meh, even for Afghan warlords. If the Saudis had offered, though........
$25 million wasn’t enough?!!
Obviously. They're making some big profits from the heroin trade.
As I suggested too, they might have been more amenable to handing over to fellow Muslims.
See too, the comment I made to HYUFD; that he was captured in Pakistan.
He only fled to Pakistan where US special forces killed him as the US forced him out of Afghanistan
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
If the US had not invaded Bin Laden would still be alive and Al Qaeda still in the country.
If the Taliban retake the whole country (which is unlikely given US air support still for the elected government and warlords who will resist them) and invite Al Qaeda back we would have no choice but to re invade or face future 9/11s and terrorist attacks launched on New York, London and Paris from cells trained in Afghanistan
On my 2nd train of the day. The Aberdeen - London train was filling up at every station down the east coast, with a large number then boarding at Waverley. I've changed trains onto one that stops in Peterborough. Its rammed, and the gripper warning it will be fully rammed further along the way.
Yes I'm in 1st on a solo seat so thats better, but this is still more people that I'm in close proximity to than I've seen for *months*. I never enjoyed packed trains, even less so now. Does show that people are back travelling for their holidays.
Weekend or leisure travel seems to have recovered far more quickly than commuter travel.
That's not wholly borne out by the Government's own statistics which suggest passenger numbers on the trains are barely above half pre-Covid numbers.
Oddly enough the weekend immediately after "Freedom Day" saw more travel than last weekend though the weather might have been a factor.
On the London Underground, weekday passenger numbers have a pattern of being lowest on Mondays and rising to their peak on Thursday - on 26th July it was 42% of pre-Covid and by the 29th it was 49%. Weekend numbers are a little higher - just over 50%.
The garden is deluged. The patio is flooded. The water has entered the kitchen. I have placed towels down to try to create a barrier against it going much further.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
I'm afraid you have to deal with reality.
A holiday in your own country is a holiday.
People claiming it isn't come across as somewhat entitled and insecure.
The word you are looking for is "ponce"
But nobody is claiming a holiday in one’s own country is not a holiday.
So, people grizzling are at high risk of coming off like Harry Enfield’s “Doberman Brothers”, riling themselves to fury over literally nothing.
Its a fun bit of pedantry objecting to the people who genuinely don't think a UK holiday is a holiday. Hence a trip abroad being "holiday" and one in the UK being "staycation".
If you really want pedantry, a holiday is a day off for a religious observance (“Holy Day”) rather than a trip anywhere, domestic or foreign.
The Presbyterian Scots idea of that sort of day off was at the communion table on a communion day, or in the kirk for a Day of Prayer, Fasting and Humiliation, the latter often called at short notice. It used to drive Victorian commercial travellers from the South up the wall when they arrived somewhere and found all their local contacts' places closed and everyone in the kirk till the morrow.
Good morning from LNER. Pingdemic still creating staffing issues. Happily the rules do not apply to Liar so we can all benefit from his ministrations.
Get a life
Bless. I think I have a pretty good life thanks. Unlike you sheep who bleat away that anyone who isn't cheering on good old Boris are unpatriotic or whatever.
I never said that or say that I think you should get a life as you are broken record unable to post without insulting Boris somewhere...
Bless. You would have a point were I not embroiled in a pedant contest over "staycation". Perhaps Liar needs "insulting" because of what he says and does? Perhaps in a free country we should be allowed to have an honest disagreement and divergence of views without apologists trying to "cancel" us.
The environmentalists made a mistake calling climate change global warming. They should have called it global shit weather. Global warming sounded quite good and positive to many people in colder climates, whereas the reality it is so interspersed by torrential rain, droughts, storms, cold snaps, heatwaves and unpredictability that it is good for no-one.
after all that discussion, there's the narrow chance of 65 total hoving into view.
boxing - nailed on 2 x cycling possibles, 1 a bit less likely modern pentathlon team jumping possible
Overall medals seems on par with the last 2 Games, Golds down quite a bit, but a great result to get 4th place especially considering the home team ahead of us.
Rowing was the most disappointing.
Public schools & Oxbridge letting us down?
The coach who had been in charge for decades left, and I guess took his 'box of tricks' with him.
Yes I have to recant what I said a few days ago about the poor performances in general and not good enough to match Beijing. Team GB has done well in quite a few new areas which almost cancelled out the rowing lackage. The cycling is not as good but maybe because other countries have upped their game? Good results in Mod Pent, BMX, horse dancing.
On my 2nd train of the day. The Aberdeen - London train was filling up at every station down the east coast, with a large number then boarding at Waverley. I've changed trains onto one that stops in Peterborough. Its rammed, and the gripper warning it will be fully rammed further along the way.
Yes I'm in 1st on a solo seat so thats better, but this is still more people that I'm in close proximity to than I've seen for *months*. I never enjoyed packed trains, even less so now. Does show that people are back travelling for their holidays.
Weekend or leisure travel seems to have recovered far more quickly than commuter travel.
That's not wholly borne out by the Government's own statistics which suggest passenger numbers on the trains are barely above half pre-Covid numbers.
Oddly enough the weekend immediately after "Freedom Day" saw more travel than last weekend though the weather might have been a factor.
On the London Underground, weekday passenger numbers have a pattern of being lowest on Mondays and rising to their peak on Thursday - on 26th July it was 42% of pre-Covid and by the 29th it was 49%. Weekend numbers are a little higher - just over 50%.
Is there any data on whether the weather in London has been more extreme this year ?
I don't remember any other part of the country continually complaining.
What's your problem?
Who is continually complaining - the only thing I'm complaining about is some boring poster going on about how people in London are complaining about the weather?
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
They did, and nobody took it.
They probably didn't offer enough then. Or, maybe they should have done it through Muslim agents. Handing over a fellow Muslim to Christians could have been a bit meh, even for Afghan warlords. If the Saudis had offered, though........
$25 million wasn’t enough?!!
Obviously. They're making some big profits from the heroin trade.
As I suggested too, they might have been more amenable to handing over to fellow Muslims.
See too, the comment I made to HYUFD; that he was captured in Pakistan.
He only fled to Pakistan where US special forces killed him as the US forced him out of Afghanistan
He was moving about in the border areas, where, AIUI, the definition is 'somewhat fluid'.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
People who can’t afford foreign holidays? I don’t feel my parents were particularly out of their minds when they took us to Ventnor for two weeks every year between 1981 and 1983.
Yes. But that was in the dark ages.
I would argue that the top 80% income deciles can easily afford a foreign holiday once a year.
It wont be long before that we're told that people cannot afford to eat but can afford foreign holidays.
The garden is deluged. The patio is flooded. The water has entered the kitchen. I have placed towels down to try to create a barrier against it going much further.
It is still raining, on and off.
Oh dear. Hope it's not too bad. Supposed to stop raining in an hour or so. Luckily the patio is a couple of steps down for us so our living room should be fine.
Are these really the best two opening batsmen in the country?
We've a chap, Cook, at Essex who is pretty good.
James Bracey would do far better.
*Turns expectantly towards Manchester to see what TSE blowing up looks like*
More seriously, I think Hameed will replace Burns, possibly alongside Crawley rather than Sibley.
Crawley has scored 704 test runs for England in 24 innings, an average of 29.3 - very poor. 267 of these runs were in one innings, so in the remaining 23 innings he's scored 437 at an average of 19 - about the same as Broad's. Crawley will need to improve quickly if he's going to make it.
Mr. 86, aye, I was just referring to the general reverence when he did exactly the same thing as Schumacher did but Senna was almost always portrayed in a good light/as a true racer, and Schumacher, to an extent, vilified.
Ironically, Hamilton, who does exalt Senna, appears to be a better character (Verstappen crash was not deliberate, I think, unlike when Senna struck Prost).
I always thought of Schumacher and Senna similarly. Great drivers; poor sportsmen.
Wine man thread. TLDR, it’s still a nightmare to import wine into the U.K. due to a failing logistics industry and complicated, country-by-country paperwork.
Definitely worth a read. I hadn't appreciated fully that it's not just motor car manufacturers who have to have much bigger stocks because of the much greater transit delays involved, but everyone else selling stuff from the EU (which makes sense if one thinks about it for about 30 seconds, raising interesting questions about UKG planning ...).
Thank you leave and tory voters for your marvellous 'brexit'.
At least if Scotland goes independent it will all be much easier and cause no disruption at all.
That’s right, isn’t it? Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have both said it so it must be true as they never lie.
Not sure where you've gotten that from, if I had a vote I would have voted No in 2014.
At least in financial services, firms have been steadily reducing their operations in Scotland since 2014 and the handing over of extra powers to the Scottish Government, in anticipation of an eventual split.
Sheberghan is a stronghold of the former Afghan vice-president and warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostum, whose supporters have been leading the fight against the insurgents.
If 'warlords' are still the main force to defend against something it says something about the strength of the state.
Wine man thread. TLDR, it’s still a nightmare to import wine into the U.K. due to a failing logistics industry and complicated, country-by-country paperwork.
Definitely worth a read. I hadn't appreciated fully that it's not just motor car manufacturers who have to have much bigger stocks because of the much greater transit delays involved, but everyone else selling stuff from the EU (which makes sense if one thinks about it for about 30 seconds, raising interesting questions about UKG planning ...).
Thank you leave and tory voters for your marvellous 'brexit'.
At least if Scotland goes independent it will all be much easier and cause no disruption at all.
That’s right, isn’t it? Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have both said it so it must be true as they never lie.
Not sure where you've gotten that from, if I had a vote I would have voted No in 2014.
At least in financial services, firms have been steadily reducing their operations in Scotland since 2014 and the handing over of extra powers to the Scottish Government, in anticipation of an eventual split.
It was gentle sarcasm and not particularly aimed at you.
One of the things that led me to vote Remain in 2016 was a realisation that pretty much every argument implausibly advanced for Scottish independence in 2014 was being advanced for leaving the EU as well.
Mr. 86, aye, I was just referring to the general reverence when he did exactly the same thing as Schumacher did but Senna was almost always portrayed in a good light/as a true racer, and Schumacher, to an extent, vilified.
Ironically, Hamilton, who does exalt Senna, appears to be a better character (Verstappen crash was not deliberate, I think, unlike when Senna struck Prost).
I always thought of Schumacher and Senna similarly. Great drivers; poor sportsmen.
Senna was a man of contrasts; his actions towards Erik Comas were superb and caring.
Yet he was also willing to cause crashes to get what he wants. I was lucky enough to know Prof Watkins a little, and he seemed almost to love Senna. I think there may have been a personal magnetism about him that many other drivers lack.
Staycation, meaning “stuck in Britain”, is here to - er - stay. Sorry, PB pedants.
And who, in their right mind, would spend all of summer in the U.K.?
It’s still torrential here in East London.
It's one of the most interminable arguments as well. No, staycation doesn't mean staying in my house, it means staying in my home country. Deal with it.
People don't have to just give up on a fight. Next time we'll redefine something you don't want to redefine - everyone has such a pet peeve. Deal with it.
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
If the US had not invaded Bin Laden would still be alive and Al Qaeda still in the country.
If the Taliban retake the whole country (which is unlikely given US air support still for the elected government and warlords who will resist them) and invite Al Qaeda back we would have no choice but to re invade or face future 9/11s and terrorist attacks launched on New York, London and Paris from cells trained in Afghanistan
I think we are both likely agree that what we know as Afghanistan is really a loose association of tribal fiefdoms in a perpetual state of war with each other, although, it did seem to be moving in what we might consider a 'good' direction until the Soviet Union was ill-advised enough to poke it's nose in 1979, consequent on the failure of the 'communist' revolution of the previous year.
Belatedly on topic - agree, but this may underestimate the health factor. If I were Biden I'd hang on grimly at achieving my life's desire. But there comes a point where you're not dead but you're so unwell (mentally or physically) that you can't cope. 3/5 is probably a decent bet but not a shoo-in.
Trying to control Afghanistan from outside has been a damnfool idea from day 1. If I'm not mistaken Alexander the Great came a bit of a cropper there, and no-one else has come closer.
We did not invade to colonise Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of it in 1996 and we left them in power for 5 years.
We only invaded in 2001 because 9\11 was launched by Bin Laden from Afghanistan and the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Bin Laden is now dead but we will have to do a deal with the Taliban to give them some of rural Afghanistan in return for not allowing Al Qaeda back in
It was still a damnfool idea. The US would have done far better to offer money for him. Somebody would have bitten. That's how Afghanistan seems to work.
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
If the US had not invaded Bin Laden would still be alive and Al Qaeda still in the country.
If the Taliban retake the whole country (which is unlikely given US air support still for the elected government and warlords who will resist them) and invite Al Qaeda back we would have no choice but to re invade or face future 9/11s and terrorist attacks launched on New York, London and Paris from cells trained in Afghanistan
AQ is still in the country, and across the world. It might not be called AQ, there’ll be many names for the many groups, but they’ll all share the same broad Islamist ideology. It’s a franchise model.
One of Bin Laden’s main objectives for 9/11 broadly succeeded. We were deliberately sucked into an unwinnable war. We have been stung, and we will no longer commit ourselves to large scale combat operations in Muslim countries. Western populations won’t accept it.
The Islamists will regain full control of Afghanistan. Call them AQ, call them Talibs, call them what you like. A rose by any other name, and all that.
The Islamists will carry out their struggle for years to come and apart from firing missiles from drones and a few Special Forces on the ground we will probably do very little, unless there’s another big terrorist spectacular in the West. And why would they do that? Let sleeping dogs lie.
Is there any data on whether the weather in London has been more extreme this year ?
I don't remember any other part of the country continually complaining.
What's your problem?
Who is continually complaining - the only thing I'm complaining about is some boring poster going on about how people in London are complaining about the weather?
No need to get touchy.
From April onwards PB has been treated to regular negative reports of the London weather.
I'm just asking if there is any meteorological data to back this up.
Because it doesn't seem to be happening elsewhere.
As a member of the "metropolitan elite" (though I leave lunching at The Groucho to @Leon and much prefer my cafe in the Barking Road), I probably don't get it - why would I?
I note Cottrell's point about devolution and the Prime Minister's ham-fisted attempts at this betray what I can only see as an internal contradiction. If you give more powers to elected Councils (whether Unitary, County, Borough, District or whatever), you take that power from Westminster and Whitehall.
That would be no bad thing but it goes against both the Conservative and Labour grain to give substantive power (especially financial power) to political opponents (and indeed allies).
The current Government's ethos seems to be to concentrate more powers in Whitehall and with Ministers let alone empowering local authorities so we can expect a lot of bluster from the Prime Minister but very little of substance.
Thus Cottrell's Conundrum (well, that's what I'm calling it) goes unresolved. How do you make England work fairly and reasonably for all the English? How do you decentralise England?
Good morning from LNER. Pingdemic still creating staffing issues. Happily the rules do not apply to Liar so we can all benefit from his ministrations.
Get a life
Bless. I think I have a pretty good life thanks. Unlike you sheep who bleat away that anyone who isn't cheering on good old Boris are unpatriotic or whatever.
I never said that or say that I think you should get a life as you are broken record unable to post without insulting Boris somewhere...
Bless. You would have a point were I not embroiled in a pedant contest over "staycation". Perhaps Liar needs "insulting" because of what he says and does? Perhaps in a free country we should be allowed to have an honest disagreement and divergence of views without apologists trying to "cancel" us.
You are like a person who cant complete a sentence without saying fuck somewhere in the sentence.
Belatedly on topic - agree, but this may underestimate the health factor. If I were Biden I'd hang on grimly at achieving my life's desire. But there comes a point where you're not dead but you're so unwell (mentally or physically) that you can't cope. 3/5 is probably a decent bet but not a shoo-in.
More importantly where does the President stand on the definition of holiday?
Is there any data on whether the weather in London has been more extreme this year ?
I don't remember any other part of the country continually complaining.
What's your problem?
Who is continually complaining - the only thing I'm complaining about is some boring poster going on about how people in London are complaining about the weather?
No need to get touchy.
From April onwards PB has been treated to regular negative reports of the London weather.
I'm just asking if there is any meteorological data to back this up.
Because it doesn't seem to be happening elsewhere.
Has to be said the weather has been less than stellar here as well. We had a proper monsoon downpour on Tuesday, and thunderstorms forecast for today or tomorrow.
We had one longish hot spell in June/July, but otherwise we’ve had a fair amount of rain.
I would say it’s why I haven’t got the patio finished, but the truth is I keep falling asleep.
Is there any data on whether the weather in London has been more extreme this year ?
I don't remember any other part of the country continually complaining.
What's your problem?
Who is continually complaining - the only thing I'm complaining about is some boring poster going on about how people in London are complaining about the weather?
No need to get touchy.
From April onwards PB has been treated to regular negative reports of the London weather.
I'm just asking if there is any meteorological data to back this up.
Because it doesn't seem to be happening elsewhere.
We are used to fabulous summers here in London, and are now having to suffer a northern summer thanks to Boris' levelling down agenda kicking in.
As a member of the "metropolitan elite" (though I leave lunching at The Groucho to @Leon and much prefer my cafe in the Barking Road), I probably don't get it - why would I?
I note Cottrell's point about devolution and the Prime Minister's ham-fisted attempts at this betray what I can only see as an internal contradiction. If you give more powers to elected Councils (whether Unitary, County, Borough, District or whatever), you take that power from Westminster and Whitehall.
That would be no bad thing but it goes against both the Conservative and Labour grain to give substantive power (especially financial power) to political opponents (and indeed allies).
The current Government's ethos seems to be to concentrate more powers in Whitehall and with Ministers let alone empowering local authorities so we can expect a lot of bluster from the Prime Minister but very little of substance.
Thus Cottrell's Conundrum (well, that's what I'm calling it) goes unresolved. How do you make England work fairly and reasonably for all the English? How do you decentralise England?
Why is this a conundrum?
40 odd counties or metros, to take on responsibility for local health, education, policing, economic development, transport and planning.
The environmentalists made a mistake calling climate change global warming. They should have called it global shit weather. Global warming sounded quite good and positive to many people in colder climates, whereas the reality it is so interspersed by torrential rain, droughts, storms, cold snaps, heatwaves and unpredictability that it is good for no-one.
In the 1970s the experts were saying we were facing global cooling.
Is there any data on whether the weather in London has been more extreme this year ?
I don't remember any other part of the country continually complaining.
What's your problem?
Who is continually complaining - the only thing I'm complaining about is some boring poster going on about how people in London are complaining about the weather?
No need to get touchy.
From April onwards PB has been treated to regular negative reports of the London weather.
I'm just asking if there is any meteorological data to back this up.
Because it doesn't seem to be happening elsewhere.
We are used to fabulous summers here in London, and are now having to suffer a northern summer thanks to Boris' levelling down agenda kicking in.
More like his lack of a climate agenda.
I know, I know, not literally true much, he hasn't been in power long enough, but sooner or later the issue really will resonate. Maybe we should be hoping for another 3 months of this weather pattern - sun and showers here in Scotland, and repeated thunderstorms in the Home Counties - to encourage Mr Johnson to get his act together before November in Glasgow.
The environmentalists made a mistake calling climate change global warming. They should have called it global shit weather. Global warming sounded quite good and positive to many people in colder climates, whereas the reality it is so interspersed by torrential rain, droughts, storms, cold snaps, heatwaves and unpredictability that it is good for no-one.
In the 1970s the experts were saying we were facing global cooling.
According to wikipedia (I know), it was those moronic journalists at it again, not the experts.
Comments
If you think 'we'...... the US will have to 'give' the Taliban 'some of rural Afghanistan' you'd better think again. Afghanistan will soon all be under Taliban control and, seriously, our best hope is to ignore the US and concentrate on encouraging their very capable cricket team.
The water on the patio finally ingressed under the patio door into the kitchen.
Incredible.
The rain has stopped, momentarily?
England is best in May and June.
Is this a case of combining being genuinely out of touch, having an ex-public schoolboy's tendency to laugh and scoff at everybody, and enjoying the connections needed to get one's scribblings into print, however idiotic they might be - into an amusing potpourri of self-mockery? If so, it's unkind to respond in a harsh fashion, because the person is so vulnerable.
Or perhaps the former minister thinks Oxford is in "the North", as many supporters of London football clubs (claim to) believe about Bristol when they watch games at Ashton Gate while happily singing "You d**** northern b******s".
I could be wrong and perhaps since Dominic Cummings's effort in the general election less than two years ago those among his fellow northerners who have not benefited from his "Oxford and Moscow" experiences have believed the Bullingdon Club's standard greeting to be "Aye up" and its non-dress uniform to feature the flat cap.
And everything is much cheaper here.
In contrast I bought a train ticket on a regional train a couple of weeks ago, and it was about 300kr (25 GBP) for the 2 hour journey.
It is *much* cheaper to holiday in Scotland compared with Sweden. Better scenery too. But I do miss my daily summer dips. No way I’m freezing my nuts off in that loch.
If it’s three years, it’s not really vital for teenagers.
If it’s thirty years, the equation is different.
But we won’t know that for er, 30 years.
When it comes to community transmission, of course, depends on the community. Jabbing teenagers may be of some benefit to the UK, but sending those vaccines to Nigeria or Indonesia may be of greater benefit overall.
I think it’s actually quite a tricky decision, but in this case it’s slightly easier because there’s no point in making it until schools go back. Vaccine centres aren’t really set up to work with children and it would make more sense to jab them in school.
So I expect a decision in September.
And given the government have ruled it out, I expect them to start jabbing.
Which is probably what I would do - and if they do offer vaccines to teenagers I will urge my students to get them, talking them through the risks and benefits - but I recognise it is a very nuanced call.
Said horse was conspicuously absent from the men's event...
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/07/german-modern-pentathlon-kim-raisner-coach-thrown-out-of-tokyo-olympics-for-punching-horse-annika-schleu
That’s right, isn’t it? Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have both said it so it must be true as they never lie.
If the Taliban retake the whole country (which is unlikely given US air support still for the elected government and warlords who will resist them) and invite Al Qaeda back we would have no choice but to re invade or face future 9/11s and terrorist attacks launched on New York, London and Paris from cells trained in Afghanistan
A holiday in your own country is a holiday.
People claiming it isn't come across as somewhat entitled and insecure.
If the Saudis had offered, though........
The end result of 'a staycation is a holiday in the UK' twattery.
So, people grizzling are at high risk of coming off like Harry Enfield’s “Doberman Brothers”, riling themselves to fury over literally nothing.
Yes I'm in 1st on a solo seat so thats better, but this is still more people that I'm in close proximity to than I've seen for *months*. I never enjoyed packed trains, even less so now. Does show that people are back travelling for their holidays.
Am I really in a minority on this? I never thought so until I read this thread.
As I suggested too, they might have been more amenable to handing over to fellow Muslims.
See too, the comment I made to HYUFD; that he was captured in Pakistan.
In fact the only times I've heard the word staycation in real life is from people mocking it as a description of a holiday in this country.
The one group who do use the word staycation are the media - who we know are absolutely obsessed with foreign holidays.
Can we stop pretending it is some preserve of the North London chatterati? It’s a truly pathetic mindset.
Still, all or nothing gets you medals while being average doesn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban–ISIL_conflict_in_Afghanistan
*Turns expectantly towards Manchester to see what TSE blowing up looks like*
More seriously, I think Hameed will replace Burns, possibly alongside Crawley rather than Sibley.
That's not wholly borne out by the Government's own statistics which suggest passenger numbers on the trains are barely above half pre-Covid numbers.
Oddly enough the weekend immediately after "Freedom Day" saw more travel than last weekend though the weather might have been a factor.
On the London Underground, weekday passenger numbers have a pattern of being lowest on Mondays and rising to their peak on Thursday - on 26th July it was 42% of pre-Covid and by the 29th it was 49%. Weekend numbers are a little higher - just over 50%.
The garden is deluged. The patio is flooded.
The water has entered the kitchen. I have placed towels down to try to create a barrier against it going much further.
It is still raining, on and off.
I don't remember any other part of the country continually complaining.
Who is continually complaining - the only thing I'm complaining about is some boring poster going on about how people in London are complaining about the weather?
At least in financial services, firms have been steadily reducing their operations in Scotland since 2014 and the handing over of extra powers to the Scottish Government, in anticipation of an eventual split.
Sheberghan is a stronghold of the former Afghan vice-president and warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostum, whose supporters have been leading the fight against the insurgents.
If 'warlords' are still the main force to defend against something it says something about the strength of the state.
One of the things that led me to vote Remain in 2016 was a realisation that pretty much every argument implausibly advanced for Scottish independence in 2014 was being advanced for leaving the EU as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbTrNKBAfI8
Yet he was also willing to cause crashes to get what he wants. I was lucky enough to know Prof Watkins a little, and he seemed almost to love Senna. I think there may have been a personal magnetism about him that many other drivers lack.
One of Bin Laden’s main objectives for 9/11 broadly succeeded. We were deliberately sucked into an unwinnable war. We have been stung, and we will no longer commit ourselves to large scale combat operations in Muslim countries. Western populations won’t accept it.
The Islamists will regain full control of Afghanistan. Call them AQ, call them Talibs, call them what you like. A rose by any other name, and all that.
The Islamists will carry out their struggle for years to come and apart from firing missiles from drones and a few Special Forces on the ground we will probably do very little, unless there’s another big terrorist spectacular in the West. And why would they do that? Let sleeping dogs lie.
From April onwards PB has been treated to regular negative reports of the London weather.
I'm just asking if there is any meteorological data to back this up.
Because it doesn't seem to be happening elsewhere.
Just caught up with this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58127256
As a member of the "metropolitan elite" (though I leave lunching at The Groucho to @Leon and much prefer my cafe in the Barking Road), I probably don't get it - why would I?
I note Cottrell's point about devolution and the Prime Minister's ham-fisted attempts at this betray what I can only see as an internal contradiction. If you give more powers to elected Councils (whether Unitary, County, Borough, District or whatever), you take that power from Westminster and Whitehall.
That would be no bad thing but it goes against both the Conservative and Labour grain to give substantive power (especially financial power) to political opponents (and indeed allies).
The current Government's ethos seems to be to concentrate more powers in Whitehall and with Ministers let alone empowering local authorities so we can expect a lot of bluster from the Prime Minister but very little of substance.
Thus Cottrell's Conundrum (well, that's what I'm calling it) goes unresolved. How do you make England work fairly and reasonably for all the English? How do you decentralise England?
Test Match Special statistician
Since Zak Crawley's 267 against Pakistan, he has scored 156 runs at an average of 11.1.
Oof, that's a drop in form alright!
We had one longish hot spell in June/July, but otherwise we’ve had a fair amount of rain.
I would say it’s why I haven’t got the patio finished, but the truth is I keep falling asleep.
40 odd counties or metros, to take on responsibility for local health, education, policing, economic development, transport and planning.
End of.
… on another subject, the Archbishop of York needs to have a long hard look at the Diocese of Leeds and ask why they need six bishops…
I know, I know, not literally true much, he hasn't been in power long enough, but sooner or later the issue really will resonate. Maybe we should be hoping for another 3 months of this weather pattern - sun and showers here in Scotland, and repeated thunderstorms in the Home Counties - to encourage Mr Johnson to get his act together before November in Glasgow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling