Is it true that the next LOTR is going to be set in a car park in Droitwich? The quest for the golden kebab?
And it would still be better than the film version of The Two Towers.
I enjoyed the films but after the Two Towers getting a member of my family to come with me to the cinema was...challenging. My wife is still prone to mutter something about the battle of Helm's Deep to this day.
I've only seen the first film, but the scene where the 'wolves' leapt out among the audience was 'startling', to put it mildly.
I’ve not come across that. Were you in a wargzone?
We were in another dimension!
They were running rings round you, weren’t they?
Coming over our shoulders. Very, very impressive cinematography.
Yay! Another thread dressing up the age divide to pretend that lefties are smarter
You make a good point. We need to see that analysis as well. From my generation very few went to university. However these stats shouldn't be ignored, we just need the age data as well combined with it.
What does it matter if lefty voters are cleverer? The point of our democracy is that all votes are equal. This isn’t Rhodesia where there was an academic qualification required
Given that Labour were set up to give the less well educated a voice, it’s a bit galling if their supporters now condescend them. Mind you, Labour offered out low paid jobs to anyone in Europe who’d do it cheaper, so maybe they just hate commoners
If lefty voters were cleverer then they would surely be able to find a way to win political arguments, and consequently votes and elections. Alas, this does not seem to be the case.
In the UK the key number is not the number infected but the number in hospital That is hovering around 6k, having dropped a bit but currently pretty stable. There are roughly 1250 hospitals in the UK so each hospital has an average of 4.8 patients with Covid. Of course it won't be quite like that as quite a number of these hospitals will be specialist or for geriatrics etc but the burden currently being applied to the NHS is modest and not increasing. Ultimately, that is what matters.
That number of hospitals is quite misleading, including cottage hospitals and private ones. A better indicator is number of beds for acute admissions. There are about 100 000 of these (depending on what is counted as Acute) and 5000 current covid inpatients. In addition another 8000 or so are out of action because of infection control. Details here in this thread from the CEO of NHS Providers:
To give an idea of what this means, in my Trust we have about 100 Covid patients, 20 on ICU/ECMO. This means cancellations of planned surgery because of lack of beds particularly post op. Patients are often being cancelled on the day for this reason.
And when you refer to the trust will that be spread over several hospitals? It does seem to me that occupancy of 5% of beds with a particular virus should not be causing enormous problems but perhaps that reflects how stretched the system was pre Covid.
NHS Lothian has over a dozen hospitals, only 3 of them (I think) have acute beds.
Yes. I think it's 21 hospitals in NHS Lothian, but there are only three hospitals with acute beds, the Western General and Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh and St John's in Livingston.
I did a very detailed post looking at all the different hospitals in NHS Lothian, a few don't even have any inpatient beds at all, so I'm very disappointed that the silly figure of 1250 hospitals is still being used to divide the number of Covid inpatients.
There aren't going to be any Covid inpatients at a mental health hospital. Or a specialist eye surgery hospital. Or at the vast majority of facilities that are classed as "hospitals". There certainly aren't two hospitals with Covid inpatients in each parliamentary constituency. I think the right number of hospitals to use for this calculation is most likely closer to 200.
Yes, that would sound about right. There are 225 or so Trusts, but many are mental health etc which do not take acutely medically sick patients, and most Acute Trusts run several hospitals. Which works out at about 25 covid patients each acute hospital, around 15-20% of whom would be on ICU.
It is a surprisingly difficult question to answer how many hospitals that we have in the NHS, because of definitions.
I wonder if there's a difference in how Tolkein is viewed by those whose first experience was the Hobbit as kids compared with those whose first experience was LOTR as an adult.
Yay! Another thread dressing up the age divide to pretend that lefties are smarter
You make a good point. We need to see that analysis as well. From my generation very few went to university. However these stats shouldn't be ignored, we just need the age data as well combined with it.
Just to add presumably C&A and Hartlepool don't have opposite and disproportionate age distributions so just putting it down to age doesn't work either.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Give the women guns.
They couldn't do worse than the Afghan army and get some sympathy from Western countries.
Better still, give the armchair warriors SA80s and drop them on the Hindu Kush still strapped into their Parker Knolls.
That Trump supporter lawsuit is depressing. Powell seems to advance the argument that nothing said around an election is a actionable because they are political events and so it's all opinion. Ergo lying is actually more defendable during an election.
The judge didn't buy it, but even with the high bar one would hope people who lied so shamelessly (and unless they produce very specific evidence they claimed to have months ago, they did so lie) can be held to account.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Aiui "talent" has refused filming in NZ because of onerous quarantine rules and the UK has got very high level studio and non-studio production for fantasy TV shows and movies. Amazon and the production house probably didn't have much choice and if you're not picking NZ the UK is a very easy choice.
BBC: "There will be tragedy behind this story, people that came into hospital with one problem, caught Covid and sadly died," one of the researchers, Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, said.
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
And of course it happened, tragically, to @Dura's mother who went in, IIRC, for a suspected bone fracture.
Yes, she tripped in the garden and her GP sent her for an x-ray to make sure she hadn't fractured her hip (she was 81). She caught Covid in the hospital waiting room and was dead less than two weeks later.
She had absolutely no other health issues and wasn't even on any prescription medication.
BBC: "There will be tragedy behind this story, people that came into hospital with one problem, caught Covid and sadly died," one of the researchers, Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, said.
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
And of course it happened, tragically, to @Dura's mother who went in, IIRC, for a suspected bone fracture.
It doesn't always have to be that way: an elderly friend of my parents went into hospital with cancer, caught covid in hospital, and eventually left without covid and with the cancer in remission.
But there's also the other side; as I mentioned a few weeks ago, a friend thought his fatigue and other issues were long covid. By the time it was taken seriously, he discovered that it was cancer. I fear (and I hope it isn't the case) that he'll be another covid victim, without ever having caught it...
Yay! Another thread dressing up the age divide to pretend that lefties are smarter
You make a good point. We need to see that analysis as well. From my generation very few went to university. However these stats shouldn't be ignored, we just need the age data as well combined with it.
What does it matter if lefty voters are cleverer? The point of our democracy is that all votes are equal. This isn’t Rhodesia where there was an academic qualification required
Given that Labour were set up to give the less well educated a voice, it’s a bit galling if their supporters now condescend them. Mind you, Labour offered out low paid jobs to anyone in Europe who’d do it cheaper, so maybe they just hate commoners
Very good point. Interesting to know if accurate or not though. I suspect it is rather more complicated and both education and age are factors as well as other stuff.
Is it true that the next LOTR is going to be set in a car park in Droitwich? The quest for the golden kebab?
And it would still be better than the film version of The Two Towers.
I enjoyed the films but after the Two Towers getting a member of my family to come with me to the cinema was...challenging. My wife is still prone to mutter something about the battle of Helm's Deep to this day.
I've only seen the first film, but the scene where the 'wolves' leapt out among the audience was 'startling', to put it mildly.
I’ve not come across that. Were you in a wargzone?
Mr. L, you should be right but I have heard rumours the showrunners are unduly influenced by the success (until the last season...) of Game of Thrones so there'll be profanity and friskiness involved which is not very Tolkien.
That Trump supporter lawsuit is depressing. Powell seems to advance the argument that nothing said around an election is a actionable because they are political events and so it's all opinion. Ergo lying is actually more defendable during an election.
The judge didn't buy it, but even with the high bar one would hope people who lied so shamelessly (and unless they produce very specific evidence they claimed to have months ago, they did so lie) can be held to account.
Politics is dirty, but there have to be limits.
That was roughly the defence Walker put forward for his libel of Turley, of course.
‘Everyone knows I’m a left winger and pathological liar so they expect me to publish highly personal and dishonest attacks on politicians who are not themselves left wing. Therefore, nobody will have believed what I wrote.’
The judge, in his ruling, described this take as ‘absolutely incredible.’
In the UK the key number is not the number infected but the number in hospital That is hovering around 6k, having dropped a bit but currently pretty stable. There are roughly 1250 hospitals in the UK so each hospital has an average of 4.8 patients with Covid. Of course it won't be quite like that as quite a number of these hospitals will be specialist or for geriatrics etc but the burden currently being applied to the NHS is modest and not increasing. Ultimately, that is what matters.
That number of hospitals is quite misleading, including cottage hospitals and private ones. A better indicator is number of beds for acute admissions. There are about 100 000 of these (depending on what is counted as Acute) and 5000 current covid inpatients. In addition another 8000 or so are out of action because of infection control. Details here in this thread from the CEO of NHS Providers:
To give an idea of what this means, in my Trust we have about 100 Covid patients, 20 on ICU/ECMO. This means cancellations of planned surgery because of lack of beds particularly post op. Patients are often being cancelled on the day for this reason.
And when you refer to the trust will that be spread over several hospitals? It does seem to me that occupancy of 5% of beds with a particular virus should not be causing enormous problems but perhaps that reflects how stretched the system was pre Covid.
NHS Lothian has over a dozen hospitals, only 3 of them (I think) have acute beds.
Yes. I think it's 21 hospitals in NHS Lothian, but there are only three hospitals with acute beds, the Western General and Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh and St John's in Livingston.
I did a very detailed post looking at all the different hospitals in NHS Lothian, a few don't even have any inpatient beds at all, so I'm very disappointed that the silly figure of 1250 hospitals is still being used to divide the number of Covid inpatients.
There aren't going to be any Covid inpatients at a mental health hospital. Or a specialist eye surgery hospital. Or at the vast majority of facilities that are classed as "hospitals". There certainly aren't two hospitals with Covid inpatients in each parliamentary constituency. I think the right number of hospitals to use for this calculation is most likely closer to 200.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Give the women guns.
They couldn't do worse than the Afghan army and get some sympathy from Western countries.
Better still, give the armchair warriors SA80s and drop them on the Hindu Kush still strapped into their Parker Knolls.
I seem to recall that Kipling made some rather nasty comments about Afghan women's attitude to the enemy.
Quite where they got scores of air ambulances from is strange, as the Wiki List for the whole of England and Wales shows a total of about 36-37, and I doubt they pulled all the ones from North Wales, Cumbria and Northumberland down to Plymouth.
Aha - Plymouth Live says "at least 3", whilst the HeliPilot on Twitter says "four".
The incident started just after 6pm in the Keyham area of Plymouth and at least three air ambulances landed in North Prospect this evening.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Off topic
Absolutely, and a tragedy. Biden's Ruanda moment.
But that won't worry the average Joe unless the girls claim asylum in Texas via Mexico.
Do we now who's more likely to vote out of grads/non-grads?
Once more, age related I expect, as the under 30s have low turnout, though one does need to be mindful that many students are registered legally at both home and term time address, so cannot turnout more than 50%.
BBC: "There will be tragedy behind this story, people that came into hospital with one problem, caught Covid and sadly died," one of the researchers, Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, said.
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
And of course it happened, tragically, to @Dura's mother who went in, IIRC, for a suspected bone fracture.
Yes, she tripped in the garden and her GP sent her for an x-ray to make sure she hadn't fractured her hip (she was 81). She caught Covid in the hospital waiting room and was dead less than two weeks later.
She had absolutely no other health issues and wasn't even on any prescription medication.
A grim story. Sympathies.
I am hoping that the hospital where my cousin is being treated for heart trouble and cancer will be able to protect him better, but I imagine they will find it tough.
Mr. L, you should be right but I have heard rumours the showrunners are unduly influenced by the success (until the last season...) of Game of Thrones so there'll be profanity and friskiness involved which is not very Tolkien.
Not unless there are homoerotic undertones anyway.
BBC: "There will be tragedy behind this story, people that came into hospital with one problem, caught Covid and sadly died," one of the researchers, Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, said.
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
And of course it happened, tragically, to @Dura's mother who went in, IIRC, for a suspected bone fracture.
Yes, she tripped in the garden and her GP sent her for an x-ray to make sure she hadn't fractured her hip (she was 81). She caught Covid in the hospital waiting room and was dead less than two weeks later.
She had absolutely no other health issues and wasn't even on any prescription medication.
Very very sorry to hear that it is, frankly, shocking.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Aiui "talent" has refused filming in NZ because of onerous quarantine rules and the UK has got very high level studio and non-studio production for fantasy TV shows and movies. Amazon and the production house probably didn't have much choice and if you're not picking NZ the UK is a very easy choice.
If you want to go to New Zealand at the moment, quarantine rooms are currently fully booked until February - so bringing people in to film just isn't possible.
Mr. L, you should be right but I have heard rumours the showrunners are unduly influenced by the success (until the last season...) of Game of Thrones so there'll be profanity and friskiness involved which is not very Tolkien.
Not unless there are homoerotic undertones anyway.
Pratchett does refer to sexual activity, although not ad nauseam.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Off topic
Absolutely, and a tragedy. Biden's Ruanda moment.
But that won't worry the average Joe unless the girls claim asylum in Texas via Mexico.
Apart from by far the most important human tragedy, what worries me is this feeding the very common "Democrats=weak" perception that has existed in the US since Carter, and that Republicans have been able to make huge capital with, whereas in fact this is the result of Trump elevating kneejerk populist impulse into policy.
BBC: "There will be tragedy behind this story, people that came into hospital with one problem, caught Covid and sadly died," one of the researchers, Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, said.
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
And of course it happened, tragically, to @Dura's mother who went in, IIRC, for a suspected bone fracture.
It doesn't always have to be that way: an elderly friend of my parents went into hospital with cancer, caught covid in hospital, and eventually left without covid and with the cancer in remission.
But there's also the other side; as I mentioned a few weeks ago, a friend thought his fatigue and other issues were long covid. By the time it was taken seriously, he discovered that it was cancer. I fear (and I hope it isn't the case) that he'll be another covid victim, without ever having caught it...
It's a bit of a man bites dog thing. It is the norm for people to go into hospital and not emerge (if they emerge at all) with something worse than when they went in.
On topic, forget about "intelligence" and look at the groups. The WWC now votes Tory. The question will be if the Tories can retain this block without losing their previous voting block (the people who exploit/sneer at the WWC).
Brexit has been the means why which the Tories have pulled this off. "The solution to all your troubles is Brexit" combined with "Labour want to stop Brexit". Brilliant political manuevering, but now as with all projects we move from theory to delivery.
Brexit has to start delivering tangibles. Yes some people in some areas voted against too many forriners. But they weren't blindly prejudiced, it was "forriners suppress wages" or "forriners take the jobs". They want higher wages, more jobs and better jobs.
So the challenge for the Tories is to produce those - or more realistically blame their non-appearance on Covid. "Brexit will work, but Covid has ruined it" could take them a long way with this target group who don't look at the facts much.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Aiui "talent" has refused filming in NZ because of onerous quarantine rules and the UK has got very high level studio and non-studio production for fantasy TV shows and movies. Amazon and the production house probably didn't have much choice and if you're not picking NZ the UK is a very easy choice.
If you want to go to New Zealand at the moment, quarantine rooms are currently fully booked until February - so bringing people in to film just isn't possible.
Some businesses can get fast tracked and I think the movie industry is one of those, however, it's the actual quarantine that people are annoyed with.
Mr. L, you should be right but I have heard rumours the showrunners are unduly influenced by the success (until the last season...) of Game of Thrones so there'll be profanity and friskiness involved which is not very Tolkien.
Not unless there are homoerotic undertones anyway.
Pratchett does refer to sexual activity, although not ad nauseam.
Pratchett very much left the actual activity for the readers imagination - one thing you can say about the Game of Thrones TV series is that they preferred to continue filming rather than cutting away..
BBC: "There will be tragedy behind this story, people that came into hospital with one problem, caught Covid and sadly died," one of the researchers, Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, said.
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
And of course it happened, tragically, to @Dura's mother who went in, IIRC, for a suspected bone fracture.
Yes, she tripped in the garden and her GP sent her for an x-ray to make sure she hadn't fractured her hip (she was 81). She caught Covid in the hospital waiting room and was dead less than two weeks later.
She had absolutely no other health issues and wasn't even on any prescription medication.
Lumme. My wife, roughly same age, tripped in the garden a couple of months ago, hurt her shoulder and went for an x-ray (no fracture). She may have missed a bullet. The last place you want to go to in this Covid epidemic is a hospital, not a night club!
That Trump supporter lawsuit is depressing. Powell seems to advance the argument that nothing said around an election is a actionable because they are political events and so it's all opinion. Ergo lying is actually more defendable during an election.
The judge didn't buy it, but even with the high bar one would hope people who lied so shamelessly (and unless they produce very specific evidence they claimed to have months ago, they did so lie) can be held to account.
Politics is dirty, but there have to be limits.
That was roughly the defence Walker put forward for his libel of Turley, of course.
‘Everyone knows I’m a left winger and pathological liar so they expect me to publish highly personal and dishonest attacks on politicians who are not themselves left wing. Therefore, nobody will have believed what I wrote.’
The judge, in his ruling, described this take as ‘absolutely incredible.’
Its an outrage. What kind of political system do we have if you can't spend years making people susceptible to lies and manipulation and then lie openly to them without being prosecuted?
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
It's also a looooong time since the Jackson films, which, though remarkable, are starting to show their age. Plus, it's not a remake, but more stories set at a different time.
But yes, it could easily be a super-expensive flop.
For Fantasy geeks, Amazon are also investing in a Wheel of Time TV show too.
A WoT TV series has supposedly been getting made and been dragging on since before Game of Thrones was aired so my expectations for it right now are pretty low sadly but I hope to be proved wrong.
I'd rather a WoT series than LOTR backstory which is also creatively constrained. Not many shows would last sufficient seasons to complete it though.
Likely has more female characters too, for equality worriers.
Fourteen books, each of which probably could justify a season in its own right. Very hard to imagine a show doing it justice.
At least the series is finished, posthumously, so it won't end up with a farce like Game of Thrones final season when it overtook the books. Although in the books you can tell the difference between those written by Jordan himself and those by Sanderson.
Everyone is saying how wonderfully Jacinda has handled Covid.
Doesn't seem great to me not being allowed in or out of your own country but hondootedly for life within the country it must have been great and of course a huge improvement on our situation if one can separate out the two elements.
And wrt LOTR, @another_richard had it right. They, and others, are fantastic books. For children. There is something not quite right for adults to be reading them imo.
Is it true that the next LOTR is going to be set in a car park in Droitwich? The quest for the golden kebab?
And it would still be better than the film version of The Two Towers.
I enjoyed the films but after the Two Towers getting a member of my family to come with me to the cinema was...challenging. My wife is still prone to mutter something about the battle of Helm's Deep to this day.
I've only seen the first film, but the scene where the 'wolves' leapt out among the audience was 'startling', to put it mildly.
I’ve not come across that. Were you in a wargzone?
We were in another dimension!
They were running rings round you, weren’t they?
Fantasy is a bad Hobbit to get into.
That deserved a like for the sheer wretchedness of the pun.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Aiui "talent" has refused filming in NZ because of onerous quarantine rules and the UK has got very high level studio and non-studio production for fantasy TV shows and movies. Amazon and the production house probably didn't have much choice and if you're not picking NZ the UK is a very easy choice.
If you want to go to New Zealand at the moment, quarantine rooms are currently fully booked until February - so bringing people in to film just isn't possible.
Some businesses can get fast tracked and I think the movie industry is one of those, however, it's the actual quarantine that people are annoyed with.
Given the person who told me that fact - I believe it includes most fast track things.
Put it this way I wouldn't be surprised if we saw an Amanda Palmer tour this autumn / winter.
Everyone is saying how wonderfully Jacinda has handled Covid.
Doesn't seem great to me not being allowed in or out of your own country but hondootedly for life within the country it must have been great and of course a huge improvement on our situation if one can separate out the two elements.
And wrt LOTR, @another_richard had it right. They, and others, are fantastic books. For children. There is something not quite right for adults to be reading them imo.
We had a year and a half of shit but are firmly on the other side now. NZ has got no exit plan, they're basically just stuck with what they have because in NZ one COVID death is one too many.
On Afghanistan, I suppose it is arguable that Biden is doing what Obama should have done, and avoiding prolonging a mistake made by his predecessors. Taken together with his ability to get some business past Congress, and his Presidency is doing better than expected.
Mr. L, you should be right but I have heard rumours the showrunners are unduly influenced by the success (until the last season...) of Game of Thrones so there'll be profanity and friskiness involved which is not very Tolkien.
Not unless there are homoerotic undertones anyway.
Pratchett does refer to sexual activity, although not ad nauseam.
Pratchett very much left the actual activity for the readers imagination - one thing you can say about the Game of Thrones TV series is that they preferred to continue filming rather than cutting away..
Jordan had a lot more nudity in the books (especially the female Wise Ones in sweat tents) than there were sex scenes.
On topic, forget about "intelligence" and look at the groups. The WWC now votes Tory. The question will be if the Tories can retain this block without losing their previous voting block (the people who exploit/sneer at the WWC).
Brexit has been the means why which the Tories have pulled this off. "The solution to all your troubles is Brexit" combined with "Labour want to stop Brexit". Brilliant political manuevering, but now as with all projects we move from theory to delivery.
Brexit has to start delivering tangibles. Yes some people in some areas voted against too many forriners. But they weren't blindly prejudiced, it was "forriners suppress wages" or "forriners take the jobs". They want higher wages, more jobs and better jobs.
So the challenge for the Tories is to produce those - or more realistically blame their non-appearance on Covid. "Brexit will work, but Covid has ruined it" could take them a long way with this target group who don't look at the facts much.
This is absolutely right and the difficult balancing act the Tories have. Brexit has to deliver for the working class towns and communtiries.we were promised Brexit would improve things whereas all remain promised was more of,the same. If it doesn’t deliver woe betide the tories. There will be one hell of a price to pay.
This is why Johnson’s aside on mining was potentially toxic. Our communities lost well paid jobs, and this was happening well up,to new labours time, and these were replaced with minimum wage work, contract work through agencies like blue arrow.
I doubt these communities will allow them to use covid as an excuse.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
It's also a looooong time since the Jackson films, which, though remarkable, are starting to show their age. Plus, it's not a remake, but more stories set at a different time.
But yes, it could easily be a super-expensive flop.
For Fantasy geeks, Amazon are also investing in a Wheel of Time TV show too.
A WoT TV series has supposedly been getting made and been dragging on since before Game of Thrones was aired so my expectations for it right now are pretty low sadly but I hope to be proved wrong.
I'd rather a WoT series than LOTR backstory which is also creatively constrained. Not many shows would last sufficient seasons to complete it though.
Likely has more female characters too, for equality worriers.
Fourteen books, each of which probably could justify a season in its own right. Very hard to imagine a show doing it justice.
At least the series is finished, posthumously, so it won't end up with a farce like Game of Thrones final season when it overtook the books. Although in the books you can tell the difference between those written by Jordan himself and those by Sanderson.
Of course you can it says so on the covers.
The last book was basically one long battle scene, and we all know there was plenty if padding in the middle, chop a few subplots and youd get it to maybe 11 seasons. Simples.
On topic, forget about "intelligence" and look at the groups. The WWC now votes Tory. The question will be if the Tories can retain this block without losing their previous voting block (the people who exploit/sneer at the WWC).
Brexit has been the means why which the Tories have pulled this off. "The solution to all your troubles is Brexit" combined with "Labour want to stop Brexit". Brilliant political manuevering, but now as with all projects we move from theory to delivery.
Brexit has to start delivering tangibles. Yes some people in some areas voted against too many forriners. But they weren't blindly prejudiced, it was "forriners suppress wages" or "forriners take the jobs". They want higher wages, more jobs and better jobs.
So the challenge for the Tories is to produce those - or more realistically blame their non-appearance on Covid. "Brexit will work, but Covid has ruined it" could take them a long way with this target group who don't look at the facts much.
I don't think the Tories lose the previous voting block on economic grounds. These people are still in pole position when it comes to tax breaks, overcoming rules (for example during Covid travel restrictions) and for the lucky few, winning spurious NHS contracts. I am sure there are ways and means of preventing them from queueing for hours on end with the Russians at Alicante Airport. They can still be finessed whilst giving the WWC their imperial pound of forrin flesh.
"The public inquiry into Covid must be broad enough to consider the narrowness of the perspectives and experiences involved in making decisions [on lockdown] that have had such an unprecedented effect on the economic and emotional wellbeing of the youngest and worst-off members of the population."
"...we suspect that we are going to be proved right that the cure of lockdown has been much more harmful than the disease of Covid."
I read something from her earlier this week that was just astonishing. She says she was ‘quoted out of context’ on the ludicrous IFR she came up with for the U.K., and still believes we reached herd immunity last summer. Maybe just fess up and admit you got it wrong?
She writes in the article:
"let us restore it to its original meaning. Herd immunity means that the level of immunity in the population is such that the virus hovers around R=1."
I suspect we are dealing with differing definitions here.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Aiui "talent" has refused filming in NZ because of onerous quarantine rules and the UK has got very high level studio and non-studio production for fantasy TV shows and movies. Amazon and the production house probably didn't have much choice and if you're not picking NZ the UK is a very easy choice.
If you want to go to New Zealand at the moment, quarantine rooms are currently fully booked until February - so bringing people in to film just isn't possible.
Some businesses can get fast tracked and I think the movie industry is one of those, however, it's the actual quarantine that people are annoyed with.
The isolation policy will not be good for New Zealands economy
BBC: "There will be tragedy behind this story, people that came into hospital with one problem, caught Covid and sadly died," one of the researchers, Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, said.
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
And of course it happened, tragically, to @Dura's mother who went in, IIRC, for a suspected bone fracture.
It doesn't always have to be that way: an elderly friend of my parents went into hospital with cancer, caught covid in hospital, and eventually left without covid and with the cancer in remission.
But there's also the other side; as I mentioned a few weeks ago, a friend thought his fatigue and other issues were long covid. By the time it was taken seriously, he discovered that it was cancer. I fear (and I hope it isn't the case) that he'll be another covid victim, without ever having caught it...
It's a bit of a man bites dog thing. It is the norm for people to go into hospital and not emerge (if they emerge at all) with something worse than when they went in.
I wouldn't say it was the norm, but hospital acquired infection has long been an issue. Indeed tackling it is how Florence Nightingale made her name.
It is particularly an issue with a virus which is most infectious in its pre-symptomatic phase. With the abandonment from Monday of the pretence of contact isolation, it is hard to see that going down. Let's hope that vaccine effectiveness doesn't fall off a cliff.
Morris because they deal with issues, allegorical (eg Lewis) or otherwise, which are and are handled in a way as an introduction to some of the "big questions" for children. By the time you are an adult you would normally be expected to have a more sophisticated appetite either for adventure stories, or writing style, or those big questions.
Some are just atrociously written (eg Harry Potter) which makes, again, a more sophisticated reader wince but would be lapped up by children because, frankly, it doesn't matter as long as they have their noses in a book.
Some achieve crossover. When I was reading books to my very young nephews and neices for example, I thought the Wimpy Kid books were laugh out loud funny and the Big Nate ones not so far behind.
That said when I was a child it was Asterix which I could just not read now for the reasons above although I am super fond of them, and then Henty, Biggles, LOTR, Hobbit, and, yes, Billy Bunter!
Is it true that the next LOTR is going to be set in a car park in Droitwich? The quest for the golden kebab?
And it would still be better than the film version of The Two Towers.
I enjoyed the films but after the Two Towers getting a member of my family to come with me to the cinema was...challenging. My wife is still prone to mutter something about the battle of Helm's Deep to this day.
I've only seen the first film, but the scene where the 'wolves' leapt out among the audience was 'startling', to put it mildly.
I’ve not come across that. Were you in a wargzone?
We were in another dimension!
They were running rings round you, weren’t they?
Fantasy is a bad Hobbit to get into.
That deserved a like for the sheer wretchedness of the pun.
On topic, forget about "intelligence" and look at the groups. The WWC now votes Tory. The question will be if the Tories can retain this block without losing their previous voting block (the people who exploit/sneer at the WWC).
Brexit has been the means why which the Tories have pulled this off. "The solution to all your troubles is Brexit" combined with "Labour want to stop Brexit". Brilliant political manuevering, but now as with all projects we move from theory to delivery.
Brexit has to start delivering tangibles. Yes some people in some areas voted against too many forriners. But they weren't blindly prejudiced, it was "forriners suppress wages" or "forriners take the jobs". They want higher wages, more jobs and better jobs.
So the challenge for the Tories is to produce those - or more realistically blame their non-appearance on Covid. "Brexit will work, but Covid has ruined it" could take them a long way with this target group who don't look at the facts much.
It would be interesting to see this broken down by age given the greater number of degrees awarded these days.
There are two "doublings" in numbers of degrees awarded. The steady rise from 1964-1994 with the expansion of the red bricks, up from ~50k to 100k per year. Then the big "overnight" jump is in 1994 when the old Polys have become universities and start awarding degrees - another 100k or so. Since then we've had another near doubling up to ~350k or so.
The 1994 number is convenient for popular age banding. It is fair to say that the number of graduates under 50 is far and away greater than those over 50, because most of those who graduated in 1994 are ~48/49 now.
So to @Charles point, this is more or less an exact proxy for the age split.
One could argue the direction of the arrow of cause->effect but we need a other 30 years or so until we will have compelling evidence that University education trumps Age. And that will, almost by definition, be when I've left this mortal coil. (I'm 48.)
Will we need so long ? If the effect holds, you would expect to see some fairly strong evidence within a decade, I think.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
It's also a looooong time since the Jackson films, which, though remarkable, are starting to show their age. Plus, it's not a remake, but more stories set at a different time.
But yes, it could easily be a super-expensive flop.
For Fantasy geeks, Amazon are also investing in a Wheel of Time TV show too.
A WoT TV series has supposedly been getting made and been dragging on since before Game of Thrones was aired so my expectations for it right now are pretty low sadly but I hope to be proved wrong.
I'd rather a WoT series than LOTR backstory which is also creatively constrained. Not many shows would last sufficient seasons to complete it though.
Likely has more female characters too, for equality worriers.
Fourteen books, each of which probably could justify a season in its own right. Very hard to imagine a show doing it justice.
At least the series is finished, posthumously, so it won't end up with a farce like Game of Thrones final season when it overtook the books. Although in the books you can tell the difference between those written by Jordan himself and those by Sanderson.
Of course you can it says so on the covers.
The last book was basically one long battle scene, and we all know there was plenty if padding in the middle, chop a few subplots and youd get it to maybe 11 seasons. Simples.
Yes Jordan certainly put a lot of pages into simply setting and describing the scene, that could be simply done in a show. The first half of one of the later books was basically just a flashback of other characters view of what had happened in the last book.
In the UK the key number is not the number infected but the number in hospital That is hovering around 6k, having dropped a bit but currently pretty stable. There are roughly 1250 hospitals in the UK so each hospital has an average of 4.8 patients with Covid. Of course it won't be quite like that as quite a number of these hospitals will be specialist or for geriatrics etc but the burden currently being applied to the NHS is modest and not increasing. Ultimately, that is what matters.
That number of hospitals is quite misleading, including cottage hospitals and private ones. A better indicator is number of beds for acute admissions. There are about 100 000 of these (depending on what is counted as Acute) and 5000 current covid inpatients. In addition another 8000 or so are out of action because of infection control. Details here in this thread from the CEO of NHS Providers:
To give an idea of what this means, in my Trust we have about 100 Covid patients, 20 on ICU/ECMO. This means cancellations of planned surgery because of lack of beds particularly post op. Patients are often being cancelled on the day for this reason.
And when you refer to the trust will that be spread over several hospitals? It does seem to me that occupancy of 5% of beds with a particular virus should not be causing enormous problems but perhaps that reflects how stretched the system was pre Covid.
A problem is that in public services, 99% usage of capacity is seen as a good thing. So if something happens and you need an extra 5%.....
Everyone is saying how wonderfully Jacinda has handled Covid.
Doesn't seem great to me not being allowed in or out of your own country but hondootedly for life within the country it must have been great and of course a huge improvement on our situation if one can separate out the two elements.
And wrt LOTR, @another_richard had it right. They, and others, are fantastic books. For children. There is something not quite right for adults to be reading them imo.
We had a year and a half of shit but are firmly on the other side now. NZ has got no exit plan, they're basically just stuck with what they have because in NZ one COVID death is one too many.
Yes I absolutely agree you can't get to there from here, but there is something attractive about continuing as is for that time. They don't need an exit plan because they will keep their country closed.
Does not at all seem like a good idea to me (cf Australia) but I can see some would be fans.
Also a reminder to those who say the UK put countries on the red list too late or should have closed its borders. Shutting yourself off from the world is not an action to be taken lightly.
I wonder if there's a difference in how Tolkein is viewed by those whose first experience was the Hobbit as kids compared with those whose first experience was LOTR as an adult.
The Hobbit inspired Third Position Italian Fascism so anybody who is into Tolkien is a bit sus.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
I have never been a fan of the tedious LotR, since plodding through the turgid books as a teenager, but clearly others are. I suspect that the one bit that they will not spend money on will be decent scripts with rounded characterisation.
Another bloated derivative franchise from a corporate giant. Count me out.
Not sure how you can call it derivative before we know what the plot is going to be, seems a bit irrational.
But LotR is plodding, certainly. If he were writing today I imagine an editor would have quite a few notes.
Game of Thrones wasnt well known beyond geeks and only had a couple million viewers in its first season, and it then really took off, so I sort of see why Amazon are planning multiple seasons at high cost out of a brand with more name recognition, but as a fantasy fan and fan of LotR I think the inherent interest in Tolkien's backstory collections is not that high, so that first season has to be pretty good to hold onto the curious initial audience. As you imply production values being sky high only get you so far.
There is also the small problem that in Tolkein, as opposed to GOT, there is not a lot of getting your kit off. Indeed the Fellowship of the Ring managed to go a months long quest without even a toilet break.
Good morning everyone. Cloudy here, and almost 15degC.
Personally, although I've read LotR, I much prefer the writings of Sir Terry Pratchett. Lot of wry comments which could be directed at society. I couldn't NOT manage the Silmarillon.
I believe there are films, but I'm by no means convinced that making a film of a book is always a good idea.
The Silmarillon, as published is an immensely condensed version of something that would have filled a book shelf.
It's dozens of stories - and is best read like that.
BBC: "There will be tragedy behind this story, people that came into hospital with one problem, caught Covid and sadly died," one of the researchers, Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, said.
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
And of course it happened, tragically, to @Dura's mother who went in, IIRC, for a suspected bone fracture.
It doesn't always have to be that way: an elderly friend of my parents went into hospital with cancer, caught covid in hospital, and eventually left without covid and with the cancer in remission.
But there's also the other side; as I mentioned a few weeks ago, a friend thought his fatigue and other issues were long covid. By the time it was taken seriously, he discovered that it was cancer. I fear (and I hope it isn't the case) that he'll be another covid victim, without ever having caught it...
It's a bit of a man bites dog thing. It is the norm for people to go into hospital and not emerge (if they emerge at all) with something worse than when they went in.
I wouldn't say it was the norm, but hospital acquired infection has long been an issue. Indeed tackling it is how Florence Nightingale made her name.
It is particularly an issue with a virus which is most infectious in its pre-symptomatic phase. With the abandonment from Monday of the pretence of contact isolation, it is hard to see that going down. Let's hope that vaccine effectiveness doesn't fall off a cliff.
That is true. I suppose when you have a bright, new, shiny virus we the punters slightly expect there to be concomitant measures to combat it but yes I appreciate the issue is not 'there's a virus let's kill it' straightforward.
More than one in five adults said they experienced a complete breakdown in a relationship at home or at work in the past year, the UK’s largest study of social ties during the pandemic has revealed.
That really needs context: what was the pre-pandemic rate? Without that figure I cannot tell whether this is good, bad, or ugly.
Brexit has to deliver for the working class towns and communtiries.we were promised Brexit would improve things whereas all remain promised was more of,the same. If it doesn’t deliver woe betide the tories. There will be one hell of a price to pay.
The slight problem there is that Brexit can't deliver all of the things that were promised, being as it was a river of bullshit from start to finish.
On topic, forget about "intelligence" and look at the groups. The WWC now votes Tory. The question will be if the Tories can retain this block without losing their previous voting block (the people who exploit/sneer at the WWC).
Brexit has been the means why which the Tories have pulled this off. "The solution to all your troubles is Brexit" combined with "Labour want to stop Brexit". Brilliant political manuevering, but now as with all projects we move from theory to delivery.
Brexit has to start delivering tangibles. Yes some people in some areas voted against too many forriners. But they weren't blindly prejudiced, it was "forriners suppress wages" or "forriners take the jobs". They want higher wages, more jobs and better jobs.
So the challenge for the Tories is to produce those - or more realistically blame their non-appearance on Covid. "Brexit will work, but Covid has ruined it" could take them a long way with this target group who don't look at the facts much.
“ The question will be if the Tories can retain this block without losing their previous voting block (the people who exploit/sneer at the WWC).”
They’ve lost the centrist remainers already
‘Forriners’ is a poor effort, it undermines anything useful you have to say
Everyone is saying how wonderfully Jacinda has handled Covid.
Doesn't seem great to me not being allowed in or out of your own country but hondootedly for life within the country it must have been great and of course a huge improvement on our situation if one can separate out the two elements.
And wrt LOTR, @another_richard had it right. They, and others, are fantastic books. For children. There is something not quite right for adults to be reading them imo.
Dont be silly. 'Not quite right for adults' is just snobby rubbish. Some of that genre are for kids, some is more teen focused, some by content and style are most definitely for adults, and there are no genres which are 'right' and others which are not, if they are written for adults. Eddings is not the same as Martin who is not the same as Canavan or McDonald etc etc
LotR is a good introduction into the genre so works well for younger readers is all. I've not read it in over a decade.
As for Jacinda, long term it sounds awful but the Covid deaths are so low there I think the country probably sees the trade offs as worth it, vs places with high deaths so closing down to prevent marginal increases is not worth it.
"The public inquiry into Covid must be broad enough to consider the narrowness of the perspectives and experiences involved in making decisions [on lockdown] that have had such an unprecedented effect on the economic and emotional wellbeing of the youngest and worst-off members of the population."
"...we suspect that we are going to be proved right that the cure of lockdown has been much more harmful than the disease of Covid."
I read something from her earlier this week that was just astonishing. She says she was ‘quoted out of context’ on the ludicrous IFR she came up with for the U.K., and still believes we reached herd immunity last summer. Maybe just fess up and admit you got it wrong?
She writes in the article:
"let us restore it to its original meaning. Herd immunity means that the level of immunity in the population is such that the virus hovers around R=1."
I suspect we are dealing with differing definitions here.
She believed that the big falls in infections from last march and into summer were an indicator that we had reached herd immunity. She posits that the reason antibody tests didn't show anything like this is because they fade really quickly. This is not the case, as is shown by the data in the UK now (92% of adults have antibodies, including many who had their second jab in Jan or Feb (original Pfizer dosing regime). I have no issue with people being wrong, its refusing to accept/admit it when shown to be wrong that is a problem.
Mr. Topping, have to say I thought the first Harry Potter was ok (for children) but it didn't entice me to read more.
It's been a long time since I read LOTR but I think there are some interesting ideas in there. Consider, for example, that Frodo doesn't actually manage to resist the ring. The reason it's destroyed is because of mercy that he, and Bilbo, showed to a pitiable creature.
Yay! Another thread dressing up the age divide to pretend that lefties are smarter
You make a good point. We need to see that analysis as well. From my generation very few went to university. However these stats shouldn't be ignored, we just need the age data as well combined with it.
What does it matter if lefty voters are cleverer? The point of our democracy is that all votes are equal. This isn’t Rhodesia where there was an academic qualification required
Given that Labour were set up to give the less well educated a voice, it’s a bit galling if their supporters now condescend them. Mind you, Labour offered out low paid jobs to anyone in Europe who’d do it cheaper, so maybe they just hate commoners
How does it go.... "Labour, the party *for* the common man. Now shut up and vote for your betters."
Mr. L, you should be right but I have heard rumours the showrunners are unduly influenced by the success (until the last season...) of Game of Thrones so there'll be profanity and friskiness involved which is not very Tolkien.
Not unless there are homoerotic undertones anyway.
Pratchett does refer to sexual activity, although not ad nauseam.
Pratchett very much left the actual activity for the readers imagination - one thing you can say about the Game of Thrones TV series is that they preferred to continue filming rather than cutting away..
Jordan had a lot more nudity in the books (especially the female Wise Ones in sweat tents) than there were sex scenes.
Everyone is saying how wonderfully Jacinda has handled Covid.
Doesn't seem great to me not being allowed in or out of your own country but hondootedly for life within the country it must have been great and of course a huge improvement on our situation if one can separate out the two elements.
And wrt LOTR, @another_richard had it right. They, and others, are fantastic books. For children. There is something not quite right for adults to be reading them imo.
We had a year and a half of shit but are firmly on the other side now. NZ has got no exit plan, they're basically just stuck with what they have because in NZ one COVID death is one too many.
NZ has an exit plan: to open the borders once everyone has been offered vaccine. Arden was quite explicit about this the other day.
Yay! Another thread dressing up the age divide to pretend that lefties are smarter
You make a good point. We need to see that analysis as well. From my generation very few went to university. However these stats shouldn't be ignored, we just need the age data as well combined with it.
What does it matter if lefty voters are cleverer? The point of our democracy is that all votes are equal. This isn’t Rhodesia where there was an academic qualification required
Given that Labour were set up to give the less well educated a voice, it’s a bit galling if their supporters now condescend them. Mind you, Labour offered out low paid jobs to anyone in Europe who’d do it cheaper, so maybe they just hate commoners
If lefty voters were cleverer then they would surely be able to find a way to win political arguments, and consequently votes and elections. Alas, this does not seem to be the case.
Life is not like that though. Nuance is difficult to explain. Easy to say for instance that you believe in privatisation or nationalisation, but harder to explain you like either depending on the circumstances. Same for immigration, etc
Everyone is saying how wonderfully Jacinda has handled Covid.
Doesn't seem great to me not being allowed in or out of your own country but hondootedly for life within the country it must have been great and of course a huge improvement on our situation if one can separate out the two elements.
And wrt LOTR, @another_richard had it right. They, and others, are fantastic books. For children. There is something not quite right for adults to be reading them imo.
NZ (and Aus) dealt with Covid brilliantly up until the the point vaccines were available at which point they have utterly fucked it up on an epic scale.
On Afghanistan, I suppose it is arguable that Biden is doing what Obama should have done, and avoiding prolonging a mistake made by his predecessors. Taken together with his ability to get some business past Congress, and his Presidency is doing better than expected.
The Western powers have been there for 20 years so if we haven't achieved our goals yet it seems unlikely that we will - see also bombing Iraq more or less continuously for 30 years.
More than one in five adults said they experienced a complete breakdown in a relationship at home or at work in the past year, the UK’s largest study of social ties during the pandemic has revealed.
That really needs context: what was the pre-pandemic rate? Without that figure I cannot tell whether this is good, bad, or ugly.
On topic, forget about "intelligence" and look at the groups. The WWC now votes Tory. The question will be if the Tories can retain this block without losing their previous voting block (the people who exploit/sneer at the WWC).
Brexit has been the means why which the Tories have pulled this off. "The solution to all your troubles is Brexit" combined with "Labour want to stop Brexit". Brilliant political manuevering, but now as with all projects we move from theory to delivery.
Brexit has to start delivering tangibles. Yes some people in some areas voted against too many forriners. But they weren't blindly prejudiced, it was "forriners suppress wages" or "forriners take the jobs". They want higher wages, more jobs and better jobs.
So the challenge for the Tories is to produce those - or more realistically blame their non-appearance on Covid. "Brexit will work, but Covid has ruined it" could take them a long way with this target group who don't look at the facts much.
I don't think the Tories lose the previous voting block on economic grounds. These people are still in pole position when it comes to tax breaks, overcoming rules (for example during Covid travel restrictions) and for the lucky few, winning spurious NHS contracts. I am sure there are ways and means of preventing them from queueing for hours on end with the Russians at Alicante Airport. They can still be finessed whilst giving the WWC their imperial pound of forrin flesh.
My perspective is that the current voting coalition will not last - none of them do! The Tories can either sacrifice the interests of their owners and the existing voting base, or the interests of the WWC. We know which way this will go - witness the bleating from people who voted to cut education that WWC kids do poorly in cash-starved schools. They won't give any money as middle class people don't want to pay for other people's supposedly feral kids.
So the new Tories will be thrown under the bus - that is a given. The challenge for the Tories is can they keep the votes of people as the Tory bus runs them over? They can't deliver the promise of Brexit - too broadly defined, too structural, too expensive. For a while then can promise Jam tomorrow and blame the lack of jam on the EU / remainers / Covid. Won't last forever, but will almost certainly win them the 2023 election.
Its what happens afterwards that grimly fascinates me. My former community has been persuaded (with some evidence) of Labour's long-term failings, and will have concluded the Tories lied to them. Either we see a big drop in turnout as people decide "they're all the same" or we get a more extreme party emerge offering the same magic solution as Brexit only better targeted this time on the enemy. Either way it isn't good for democracy or society.
There is a real risk here that large parts of the English north go the way of the American south. Shitkickers manipulated by the right to vote for harder and harsher measures against their own interests whilst screaming that the other party (who don't care for their interests either) are out to destroy them.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
Former international development secretary Rory Stewart tells @SkyNews there will be millions of Afghans in "horrifying conditions".
"It's going to be heartbreaking."
"We're going to end up with terrorists but, above all, people in real misery."
"This is our fault."
When put to him that the UK tried to work with allies to continue a presence in Afghanistan, he said: "It seems to me very difficult to believe that you could not convince France, Turkey, Germany, the United Kingdom to put together a force of 2,500 soldiers, which is very small."
Asked about foreign aid cuts, Stewart added: "It's crazy, totally crazy. You can't have it both ways. You can't remove your troops and throw Afghanistan back into the Middle Ages affecting millions of lives and destroying 20 years of progress and not feel a moral obligation."
Mr. Topping, have to say I thought the first Harry Potter was ok (for children) but it didn't entice me to read more.
It's been a long time since I read LOTR but I think there are some interesting ideas in there. Consider, for example, that Frodo doesn't actually manage to resist the ring. The reason it's destroyed is because of mercy that he, and Bilbo, showed to a pitiable creature.
Absolutely Morris - great themes to introduce to a young mind in an accessible way.
Now, not so much, although @kle4 seems to have a better handle on the oeuvre but I will probably not be dipping into his reading list. For me any theme which such a fantasy novel includes, can be treated many times better via the medium of a non-fantasy novel.
But then I am a huge and I mean huuuuuge Black Mirror fan which is dystopian fantasy although there are no dragons.
I suppose the question then becomes where do Atwood and Ishiguro stand in that lexicon. Again, no dragons and simply creating an alternative "real life".
BBC: "There will be tragedy behind this story, people that came into hospital with one problem, caught Covid and sadly died," one of the researchers, Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, said.
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
And of course it happened, tragically, to @Dura's mother who went in, IIRC, for a suspected bone fracture.
It doesn't always have to be that way: an elderly friend of my parents went into hospital with cancer, caught covid in hospital, and eventually left without covid and with the cancer in remission.
But there's also the other side; as I mentioned a few weeks ago, a friend thought his fatigue and other issues were long covid. By the time it was taken seriously, he discovered that it was cancer. I fear (and I hope it isn't the case) that he'll be another covid victim, without ever having caught it...
It's a bit of a man bites dog thing. It is the norm for people to go into hospital and not emerge (if they emerge at all) with something worse than when they went in.
I wouldn't say it was the norm, but hospital acquired infection has long been an issue. Indeed tackling it is how Florence Nightingale made her name.
It is particularly an issue with a virus which is most infectious in its pre-symptomatic phase. With the abandonment from Monday of the pretence of contact isolation, it is hard to see that going down. Let's hope that vaccine effectiveness doesn't fall off a cliff.
That is true. I suppose when you have a bright, new, shiny virus we the punters slightly expect there to be concomitant measures to combat it but yes I appreciate the issue is not 'there's a virus let's kill it' straightforward.
In the first wave there was inadequate testing and PPE, without a doubt, mostly because of the speed of the pandemic. I think hospital acquired disease is less common now, but not absent. A lot of people are asymptomatic carriers, whether vaccinated or not.
I shall be wearing an FFP3 to the football on Saturday. I don't want to put my patients at risk next week, and staffing is very thin already. Neither do I want to be isolating instead of my break on the Isle of Wight later on.
Mr. L, you should be right but I have heard rumours the showrunners are unduly influenced by the success (until the last season...) of Game of Thrones so there'll be profanity and friskiness involved which is not very Tolkien.
It has to be admitted that the meeting of opposites will be helped by Elves being modelled on Abba-Cleancut in the films, whilst the Dwarves and Men are modelled on something rather more heavier Hairy-Viking-ZZTop-Rocker.
Brexit has to deliver for the working class towns and communtiries.we were promised Brexit would improve things whereas all remain promised was more of,the same. If it doesn’t deliver woe betide the tories. There will be one hell of a price to pay.
The slight problem there is that Brexit can't deliver all of the things that were promised, being as it was a river of bullshit from start to finish.
Hence the levelling up agenda which was intended to deliver the economic benefits Brexit had promised.
On Afghanistan, I suppose it is arguable that Biden is doing what Obama should have done, and avoiding prolonging a mistake made by his predecessors. Taken together with his ability to get some business past Congress, and his Presidency is doing better than expected.
The Western powers have been there for 20 years so if we haven't achieved our goals yet it seems unlikely that we will - see also bombing Iraq more or less continuously for 30 years.
More than one in five adults said they experienced a complete breakdown in a relationship at home or at work in the past year, the UK’s largest study of social ties during the pandemic has revealed.
Is that high or low?
A very good question that few would have the sense to ask!!! Its the sort of subject Angela Rayner might grab to pontificate upon without knowing the answer....
"The public inquiry into Covid must be broad enough to consider the narrowness of the perspectives and experiences involved in making decisions [on lockdown] that have had such an unprecedented effect on the economic and emotional wellbeing of the youngest and worst-off members of the population."
"...we suspect that we are going to be proved right that the cure of lockdown has been much more harmful than the disease of Covid."
I read something from her earlier this week that was just astonishing. She says she was ‘quoted out of context’ on the ludicrous IFR she came up with for the U.K., and still believes we reached herd immunity last summer. Maybe just fess up and admit you got it wrong?
She writes in the article:
"let us restore it to its original meaning. Herd immunity means that the level of immunity in the population is such that the virus hovers around R=1."
I suspect we are dealing with differing definitions here.
She believed that the big falls in infections from last march and into summer were an indicator that we had reached herd immunity. She posits that the reason antibody tests didn't show anything like this is because they fade really quickly. This is not the case, as is shown by the data in the UK now (92% of adults have antibodies, including many who had their second jab in Jan or Feb (original Pfizer dosing regime). I have no issue with people being wrong, its refusing to accept/admit it when shown to be wrong that is a problem.
We used shutting down large sections of the economy and isolating people from each other (to an extent) to reduce R below 1. That's not herd immunity by any definition I've heard of before....
Is she trying to merge anti-lockdownism with lockdown-foreverism?
Someone Bought a CryptoPunks NFT for $443, Sold It for $4.4 Million in Ethereum https://decrypt.co/77961/someone-bought-cryptopunks-nft-for-443-sold-for-4m-ethereum Here’s an easy way to visualize the NFT market boom: this pixelated avatar brought a nearly 1,000,000% return in less than three years... ...“I have a lot of empathy for people’s curiosity or cynicism or debate, but I have incredible confidence in this asset,” Vaynerchuk told Decrypt last week, when asked about criticism over his investment. “And I’m sure people said the same about a Jackson Pollock painting at some point.”...
Where will the members of the compradore regime (soon to be an ex-regime) run to from Afghanistan? There seems little point in forming a "government in exile", so there will probably be "individual solutions" only, with enormous premiums on seats on flights - any seats, any planes, any destination. Soon there will be no embassies to rush to, which leaves the Shah's successful exit to Panama and Honecker's unsuccessful exit to Moscow and then the Chilean embassy in that city as precedents. Nice homes in Florida and Ivy League places for their brats, under that nice Mr Biden? Er nope. Even Batista didn't manage to get to the US, despite Florida being so close to Cuba. He ran to the Dominican Republic and then to Portugal. Oh dear, there wasn't any insurance clause in the sign-up with the Land of Freedom? Swiss bank accounts maybe, but no insurance. That's life. Oops. I've had enough of hearing about the white man's skill at state-building and his deep understanding of the fuzzy-wuzzy's mind, especially if he's been schooled behind 12-foot walls at Eton. I mean who didn't see this coming? Hats off to the Guardian for remembering there was once a town called Saigon. This has been a total and utter f***-up, on the scale of the Iraq invasion or exceeding even that.
So...where will they go? I'm on a mixture of places. Their problem is that nearby "stans" won't want them, for fear of upsetting their own "Talibans" for next to no return. Ditto most Arab states, although some may benefit from arrangements in the Gulf if they've had enough foresight.
In Health surprises, a friend's grandad has been diagnosed with Diabetes Type I at the age of 86.
@Foxy, is this as unusual as I think it is? He is now doing the usual BG-check-insulin-jab routine.
It was with the usual set of symptoms. I have no reason to doubt the diagnosis.
I have advised them to watch very carefully for loss of motivation after 6-9 months, and to get a push-button emergency alarm service. He currently has carers twice a day which will help.
Morris because they deal with issues, allegorical (eg Lewis) or otherwise, which are and are handled in a way as an introduction to some of the "big questions" for children. By the time you are an adult you would normally be expected to have a more sophisticated appetite either for adventure stories, or writing style, or those big questions.
That your answer seems to imply the writing style of the entire genre is the same is the problem. It isnt all allegory and big themes for kids.
What happens for those who like the style of story is they move on to more sophisticated writing within it, deeper, darker or more sophisticated, not just graduate to 'proper' genres.
As a fan I get defensive, but it is a problem that people act like its all the same and even argue some aren't 'proper' fantasy if it is good.
Some are as different as a Disney romance and Debbie Does Dallas. Stuff for kids, for the whole family, or just for adults.
Everyone is saying how wonderfully Jacinda has handled Covid.
Doesn't seem great to me not being allowed in or out of your own country but hondootedly for life within the country it must have been great and of course a huge improvement on our situation if one can separate out the two elements.
And wrt LOTR, @another_richard had it right. They, and others, are fantastic books. For children. There is something not quite right for adults to be reading them imo.
Dont be silly. 'Not quite right for adults' is just snobby rubbish. Some of that genre are for kids, some is more teen focused, some by content and style are most definitely for adults, and there are no genres which are 'right' and others which are not, if they are written for adults. Eddings is not the same as Martin who is not the same as Canavan or McDonald etc etc
LotR is a good introduction into the genre so works well for younger readers is all. I've not read it in over a decade.
As for Jacinda, long term it sounds awful but the Covid deaths are so low there I think the country probably sees the trade offs as worth it, vs places with high deaths so closing down to prevent marginal increases is not worth it.
I agree. Some of the best films produced this millennium have been ones made for children: Wall-e, Inside Out, Coco, for example (I’m a big Pixar fan). A well done film, TV show, or book for children should also be something that their parents will also get a lot out of.
There is not here, nor is there in the US, the political will to send the hundreds of thousands of troops there that would be required to make and then keep the peace.
Rory the Tory can bewail all he wants but no government of which he is either a part or a critic will send the requisite number of troops (which in any case would be meaningless without a multiple of that number from the US).
As such Afghan will be left to its own devices. Civil wars are best left to their own devices. Too often instead of letting a winner emerge, even one we disagree with, the West intervenes to prolong for years a civil war that would otherwise be over relatively quickly with a decisive winner, as appears to be happening now in Afghan.
There is not here, nor is there in the US, the political will to send the hundreds of thousands of troops there that would be required to make and then keep the peace.
Rory the Tory can bewail all he wants but no government of which he is either a part or a critic will send the requisite number of troops (which in any case would be meaningless without a multiple of that number from the US).
As such Afghan will be left to its own devices. Civil wars are best left to their own devices. Too often instead of letting a winner emerge, even one we disagree with, the West intervenes to prolong for years a civil war that would otherwise be over relatively quickly with a decisive winner, as appears to be happening now in Afghan.
Rory may be a Tory but he’s the only one I would have been tempted to vote if ever given the chance.
Morris because they deal with issues, allegorical (eg Lewis) or otherwise, which are and are handled in a way as an introduction to some of the "big questions" for children. By the time you are an adult you would normally be expected to have a more sophisticated appetite either for adventure stories, or writing style, or those big questions.
That your answer seems to imply the writing style of the entire genre is the same is the problem. It isnt all allegory and big themes for kids.
What happens for those who like the style of story is they move on to more sophisticated writing within it, deeper, darker or more sophisticated, not just graduate to 'proper' genres.
As a fan I get defensive, but it is a problem that people act like its all the same and even argue some aren't 'proper' fantasy if it is good.
Some are as different as a Disney romance and Debbie Does Dallas. Stuff for kids, for the whole family, or just for adults.
Good day everyone.
Noooo! Don't go can you give me an example of the best of the genre and I will read it.
I need something to read after I have finished The New Snobbery, by David Skelton.
There is not here, nor is there in the US, the political will to send the hundreds of thousands of troops there that would be required to make and then keep the peace.
It seems to me that what was really needed was for the bad guys to be wiped out. But there's certainly no will for that.
Everyone is saying how wonderfully Jacinda has handled Covid.
Doesn't seem great to me not being allowed in or out of your own country but hondootedly for life within the country it must have been great and of course a huge improvement on our situation if one can separate out the two elements.
And wrt LOTR, @another_richard had it right. They, and others, are fantastic books. For children. There is something not quite right for adults to be reading them imo.
That’s my attitude to Dr Who. Fine for children, but there is something not quite right for adults to be watching it. And especially worrying when they become obsessives. Stuck in an infantile universe.
Former international development secretary Rory Stewart tells @SkyNews there will be millions of Afghans in "horrifying conditions".
"It's going to be heartbreaking."
"We're going to end up with terrorists but, above all, people in real misery."
"This is our fault."
When put to him that the UK tried to work with allies to continue a presence in Afghanistan, he said: "It seems to me very difficult to believe that you could not convince France, Turkey, Germany, the United Kingdom to put together a force of 2,500 soldiers, which is very small."
Asked about foreign aid cuts, Stewart added: "It's crazy, totally crazy. You can't have it both ways. You can't remove your troops and throw Afghanistan back into the Middle Ages affecting millions of lives and destroying 20 years of progress and not feel a moral obligation."
Probably better would have been UN peacekeepers, as British and American (and Russian) troops whiff more than a little of colonialism and drive the national resistance aspect of the Taliban.
The similarity with the Vietcong is that the ideological fanatics latch onto legitimate Nationalist resistance, and desire for economic justice. Sean T once adopted my description of ISIS as "the Khymer Rouge with prayer mats", and there is a similar issue with the Taliban.
The way to defeat such insurgency is to address the underlying national and economic injustices, so the fanatics cannot use these for their own ends. Some understanding of that would also help domestic politics too, though these are obviously less red in tooth and claw.
There is not here, nor is there in the US, the political will to send the hundreds of thousands of troops there that would be required to make and then keep the peace.
It seems to me that what was really needed was for the bad guys to be wiped out. But there's certainly no will for that.
Oh absolutely. We all want the bad guys to be wiped out. It's doing it that has proved so tricky.
Comments
It is a surprisingly difficult question to answer how many hospitals that we have in the NHS, because of definitions.
This needs more in-depth analysis.
The judge didn't buy it, but even with the high bar one would hope people who lied so shamelessly (and unless they produce very specific evidence they claimed to have months ago, they did so lie) can be held to account.
Politics is dirty, but there have to be limits.
She had absolutely no other health issues and wasn't even on any prescription medication.
But there's also the other side; as I mentioned a few weeks ago, a friend thought his fatigue and other issues were long covid. By the time it was taken seriously, he discovered that it was cancer. I fear (and I hope it isn't the case) that he'll be another covid victim, without ever having caught it...
Up to now its been more of a civil disagreement.
‘Everyone knows I’m a left winger and pathological liar so they expect me to publish highly personal and dishonest attacks on politicians who are not themselves left wing. Therefore, nobody will have believed what I wrote.’
The judge, in his ruling, described this take as ‘absolutely incredible.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58186709
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ8TlWd5pLc
The Telegraph reports the gunman had "gone berserk". Thanks for that insight.
Absolutely, and a tragedy. Biden's Ruanda moment.
But that won't worry the average Joe unless the girls claim asylum in Texas via Mexico.
I am hoping that the hospital where my cousin is being treated for heart trouble and cancer will be able to protect him better, but I imagine they will find it tough.
Brexit has been the means why which the Tories have pulled this off. "The solution to all your troubles is Brexit" combined with "Labour want to stop Brexit". Brilliant political manuevering, but now as with all projects we move from theory to delivery.
Brexit has to start delivering tangibles. Yes some people in some areas voted against too many forriners. But they weren't blindly prejudiced, it was "forriners suppress wages" or "forriners take the jobs". They want higher wages, more jobs and better jobs.
So the challenge for the Tories is to produce those - or more realistically blame their non-appearance on Covid. "Brexit will work, but Covid has ruined it" could take them a long way with this target group who don't look at the facts much.
As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent.
The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
At least the series is finished, posthumously, so it won't end up with a farce like Game of Thrones final season when it overtook the books. Although in the books you can tell the difference between those written by Jordan himself and those by Sanderson.
Doesn't seem great to me not being allowed in or out of your own country but hondootedly for life within the country it must have been great and of course a huge improvement on our situation if one can separate out the two elements.
And wrt LOTR, @another_richard had it right. They, and others, are fantastic books. For children. There is something not quite right for adults to be reading them imo.
Put it this way I wouldn't be surprised if we saw an Amanda Palmer tour this autumn / winter.
This is why Johnson’s aside on mining was potentially toxic. Our communities lost well paid jobs, and this was happening well up,to new labours time, and these were replaced with minimum wage work, contract work through agencies like blue arrow.
I doubt these communities will allow them to use covid as an excuse.
The last book was basically one long battle scene, and we all know there was plenty if padding in the middle, chop a few subplots and youd get it to maybe 11 seasons. Simples.
"let us restore it to its original meaning. Herd immunity means that the level of immunity in the population is such that the virus hovers around R=1."
I suspect we are dealing with differing definitions here.
It is particularly an issue with a virus which is most infectious in its pre-symptomatic phase. With the abandonment from Monday of the pretence of contact isolation, it is hard to see that going down. Let's hope that vaccine effectiveness doesn't fall off a cliff.
Some are just atrociously written (eg Harry Potter) which makes, again, a more sophisticated reader wince but would be lapped up by children because, frankly, it doesn't matter as long as they have their noses in a book.
Some achieve crossover. When I was reading books to my very young nephews and neices for example, I thought the Wimpy Kid books were laugh out loud funny and the Big Nate ones not so far behind.
That said when I was a child it was Asterix which I could just not read now for the reasons above although I am super fond of them, and then Henty, Biggles, LOTR, Hobbit, and, yes, Billy Bunter!
If the effect holds, you would expect to see some fairly strong evidence within a decade, I think.
Does not at all seem like a good idea to me (cf Australia) but I can see some would be fans.
Also a reminder to those who say the UK put countries on the red list too late or should have closed its borders. Shutting yourself off from the world is not an action to be taken lightly.
It's dozens of stories - and is best read like that.
They’ve lost the centrist remainers already
‘Forriners’ is a poor effort, it undermines anything useful you have to say
LotR is a good introduction into the genre so works well for younger readers is all. I've not read it in over a decade.
As for Jacinda, long term it sounds awful but the Covid deaths are so low there I think the country probably sees the trade offs as worth it, vs places with high deaths so closing down to prevent marginal increases is not worth it.
It's been a long time since I read LOTR but I think there are some interesting ideas in there. Consider, for example, that Frodo doesn't actually manage to resist the ring. The reason it's destroyed is because of mercy that he, and Bilbo, showed to a pitiable creature.
Of course his wife was editor...
https://twitter.com/economics/status/1425213085124530178?s=19
It is much easier being a Farage.
So the new Tories will be thrown under the bus - that is a given. The challenge for the Tories is can they keep the votes of people as the Tory bus runs them over? They can't deliver the promise of Brexit - too broadly defined, too structural, too expensive. For a while then can promise Jam tomorrow and blame the lack of jam on the EU / remainers / Covid. Won't last forever, but will almost certainly win them the 2023 election.
Its what happens afterwards that grimly fascinates me. My former community has been persuaded (with some evidence) of Labour's long-term failings, and will have concluded the Tories lied to them. Either we see a big drop in turnout as people decide "they're all the same" or we get a more extreme party emerge offering the same magic solution as Brexit only better targeted this time on the enemy. Either way it isn't good for democracy or society.
There is a real risk here that large parts of the English north go the way of the American south. Shitkickers manipulated by the right to vote for harder and harsher measures against their own interests whilst screaming that the other party (who don't care for their interests either) are out to destroy them.
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
"It's going to be heartbreaking."
"We're going to end up with terrorists but, above all, people in real misery."
"This is our fault."
When put to him that the UK tried to work with allies to continue a presence in Afghanistan, he said: "It seems to me very difficult to believe that you could not convince France, Turkey, Germany, the United Kingdom to put together a force of 2,500 soldiers, which is very small."
Asked about foreign aid cuts, Stewart added: "It's crazy, totally crazy. You can't have it both ways. You can't remove your troops and throw Afghanistan back into the Middle Ages affecting millions of lives and destroying 20 years of progress and not feel a moral obligation."
https://twitter.com/SophiaSleigh/status/1426094581830017026
Now, not so much, although @kle4 seems to have a better handle on the oeuvre but I will probably not be dipping into his reading list. For me any theme which such a fantasy novel includes, can be treated many times better via the medium of a non-fantasy novel.
But then I am a huge and I mean huuuuuge Black Mirror fan which is dystopian fantasy although there are no dragons.
I suppose the question then becomes where do Atwood and Ishiguro stand in that lexicon. Again, no dragons and simply creating an alternative "real life".
Edit: maybe it's all about the dragons.
I shall be wearing an FFP3 to the football on Saturday. I don't want to put my patients at risk next week, and staffing is very thin already. Neither do I want to be isolating instead of my break on the Isle of Wight later on.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-latest-where-found-heathrow-vote-afghanistan-uxbridge-mp-foreign-secretary-a8415891.html
Is she trying to merge anti-lockdownism with lockdown-foreverism?
https://decrypt.co/77961/someone-bought-cryptopunks-nft-for-443-sold-for-4m-ethereum
Here’s an easy way to visualize the NFT market boom: this pixelated avatar brought a nearly 1,000,000% return in less than three years...
...“I have a lot of empathy for people’s curiosity or cynicism or debate, but I have incredible confidence in this asset,” Vaynerchuk told Decrypt last week, when asked about criticism over his investment. “And I’m sure people said the same about a Jackson Pollock painting at some point.”...
So...where will they go? I'm on a mixture of places. Their problem is that nearby "stans" won't want them, for fear of upsetting their own "Talibans" for next to no return. Ditto most Arab states, although some may benefit from arrangements in the Gulf if they've had enough foresight.
@Foxy, is this as unusual as I think it is? He is now doing the usual BG-check-insulin-jab routine.
It was with the usual set of symptoms. I have no reason to doubt the diagnosis.
I have advised them to watch very carefully for loss of motivation after 6-9 months, and to get a push-button emergency alarm service. He currently has carers twice a day which will help.
What happens for those who like the style of story is they move on to more sophisticated writing within it, deeper, darker or more sophisticated, not just graduate to 'proper' genres.
As a fan I get defensive, but it is a problem that people act like its all the same and even argue some aren't 'proper' fantasy if it is good.
Some are as different as a Disney romance and Debbie Does Dallas. Stuff for kids, for the whole family, or just for adults.
Good day everyone.
There is not here, nor is there in the US, the political will to send the hundreds of thousands of troops there that would be required to make and then keep the peace.
Rory the Tory can bewail all he wants but no government of which he is either a part or a critic will send the requisite number of troops (which in any case would be meaningless without a multiple of that number from the US).
As such Afghan will be left to its own devices. Civil wars are best left to their own devices. Too often instead of letting a winner emerge, even one we disagree with, the West intervenes to prolong for years a civil war that would otherwise be over relatively quickly with a decisive winner, as appears to be happening now in Afghan.
Send him to negotiate an oven ready deal which he believes favours the Taleban.
They’ll be driven over the border into Iran in six months.
I need something to read after I have finished The New Snobbery, by David Skelton.
Have I mentioned that book on here before?
The similarity with the Vietcong is that the ideological fanatics latch onto legitimate Nationalist resistance, and desire for economic justice. Sean T once adopted my description of ISIS as "the Khymer Rouge with prayer mats", and there is a similar issue with the Taliban.
The way to defeat such insurgency is to address the underlying national and economic injustices, so the fanatics cannot use these for their own ends. Some understanding of that would also help domestic politics too, though these are obviously less red in tooth and claw.