Anyway good news this morning as vax passports scrapped. A ludicrous idea as shown by this tweet from peston
been double vaxxed (see attached). I was surprised by what looks like high prevalence among the double vaxxed. And according to leading scientists at least part of the explanation is that “vaccine efficacy is not as good as we would like for the Delta variant”. Now
Double vaxxed in middle aged categories being infected at much higher rate than unvaxxed. Case closed
And there we have proof of why Preston’s tweet was so dangerous.
What's he said this time? As for the differing rates, isn't that just because there are many many more vaccinated people these days?
It was quoted on a thread yesterday, but I think the gist of it was to note that most people now catching COVID have been double jabbed without taking into account the fact that a large majority of the adult population are in that category and so misleading people into thinking the vaccines don’t work.
Its rates per 100000 so it takes into account that
Anyway good news this morning as vax passports scrapped. A ludicrous idea as shown by this tweet from peston
been double vaxxed (see attached). I was surprised by what looks like high prevalence among the double vaxxed. And according to leading scientists at least part of the explanation is that “vaccine efficacy is not as good as we would like for the Delta variant”. Now
Double vaxxed in middle aged categories being infected at much higher rate than unvaxxed. Case closed
And there we have proof of why Preston’s tweet was so dangerous.
What's he said this time? As for the differing rates, isn't that just because there are many many more vaccinated people these days?
It was quoted on a thread yesterday, but I think the gist of it was to note that most people now catching COVID have been double jabbed without taking into account the fact that a large majority of the adult population are in that category and so misleading people into thinking the vaccines don’t work.
Its rates per 100000 so it takes into account that
Anyway good news this morning as vax passports scrapped. A ludicrous idea as shown by this tweet from peston
been double vaxxed (see attached). I was surprised by what looks like high prevalence among the double vaxxed. And according to leading scientists at least part of the explanation is that “vaccine efficacy is not as good as we would like for the Delta variant”. Now
Double vaxxed in middle aged categories being infected at much higher rate than unvaxxed. Case closed
And there we have proof of why Preston’s tweet was so dangerous.
What's he said this time? As for the differing rates, isn't that just because there are many many more vaccinated people these days?
It was quoted on a thread yesterday, but I think the gist of it was to note that most people now catching COVID have been double jabbed without taking into account the fact that a large majority of the adult population are in that category and so misleading people into thinking the vaccines don’t work.
Its rates per 100000 so it takes into account that
But which 100000? Gen population or each category?
In each category. In middle aged people rates of infection are higher in double jabbed. Just read his tweet
Anyway good news this morning as vax passports scrapped. A ludicrous idea as shown by this tweet from peston
been double vaxxed (see attached). I was surprised by what looks like high prevalence among the double vaxxed. And according to leading scientists at least part of the explanation is that “vaccine efficacy is not as good as we would like for the Delta variant”. Now
Double vaxxed in middle aged categories being infected at much higher rate than unvaxxed. Case closed
And there we have proof of why Preston’s tweet was so dangerous.
What's he said this time? As for the differing rates, isn't that just because there are many many more vaccinated people these days?
It was quoted on a thread yesterday, but I think the gist of it was to note that most people now catching COVID have been double jabbed without taking into account the fact that a large majority of the adult population are in that category and so misleading people into thinking the vaccines don’t work.
Its rates per 100000 so it takes into account that
But which 100000? Gen population or each category?
In each category. In middle aged people rates of infection are higher in double jabbed. Just read his tweet
The tweet does not say whether the 100000 is taken from the general population and then the two categories counted, or whether the two categories are divided before the 100000 is taken from each.
It's divided by the subset with and without vaccines. So number of vaccinated people with a case/number of vaccinated people with a vaccine.
Of course the numerator is biased by many different things, even behavioural. And it turns out the denominator may be wrong too.
Just back from the morning/very early afternoon constitutional. Mask wearing in East Ham 5% including in shops. The two groups still wearing are older asian men and women, who I suspect (though have no evidence) have not been vaccinated and some younger people (a few teenagers). Otherwise, I'll avoid the stentorian pronouncements.
Norway votes tomorrow - the Kantar poll late last evening told us nothing new. The centre-left bloc looks on course for a convincing win - the Kantar poll has roughly a 51-39 lead.
Congratulations to Emma Raducanu on winning the US Open. I confess tennis isn't really my sport - to me, events at The Curragh and Longchamp this afternoon are of much more interest - but it seems the women's game is currently in a period of transition and it may be she will become part of the new elite. I imagine she will be competitive in Australia but whether she will be as effective on clay for example I have no idea.
Nearer to home, it's clear the Government is now in all-out "charm offensive" mode plying us with good news by the bucket load. The modern mouthpiece of the Conservative Party, the Daily Express, seems not to let a day go by without leading with some press release promising utopia from either the Prime Minister or the Chancellor.
Psychologically and culturally, I'm finding the current "mood" fascinating. In some quarters, there an almost pathological desire to return to "normal", i.e.: pre-Covid life, mores et al. It's based on a desire to compartmentalise and forget the last 16 months almost to the point of denying they happened. If we party hard enough and long enough and loud enough we'll never have to think about lockdown again. That could be called the "Roaring Twenties" approach, Carpe Diem, life is for living, you're wasting life if you aren't living it etc.
And yet...
Covid has changed us, whether we acknowledge it or not. Obviously, those who have had it and especially those for whom it was a genuinely life-threatening experience (and indeed for those for whom it has become a life-changing experience), as well as for those close to them, the change may be fundamental.
For those who have not had it, life has also changed and how we process our experiences individually will vary. For some, hope has been replaced by fear, for others it's made little difference. A lot will, I think, depend on where you are in life, your personal circumstances and your psychological make-up. Some will have found strength they never knew they had, others will have seen a part of themselves they possibly didn't like.
I've never been a fan of Governments telling me what to do or how to live my life. The current messaging is about as subtle as being slapped in the face with a wet fish (thank you M.Python) but it ignores the undercurrents which will emerge with time.
Good post. Would add. For a great many long standing habits have been broken. And new ones adopted. Whether these will continue, or old ones resurface has yet to be seen. But the fundamental change is that when an individual ponders "Does my life really have to be this way?" The answer is far, far more likely to be "Of course not."
‘🏆 Congratulations to @EmmaRaducanu! 👏🏼 A peak audience of 9.2m watched her historic #USOpenFinal victory on @Channel4 - a 39.9% share of total audience & 48% of 16-34 year olds’
Add in the Amazon viewers and the catch-up viewers…. She’s turned an entire new generation of Brits into tennis fans. Her value to the sport is monumental
Anyway good news this morning as vax passports scrapped. A ludicrous idea as shown by this tweet from peston
been double vaxxed (see attached). I was surprised by what looks like high prevalence among the double vaxxed. And according to leading scientists at least part of the explanation is that “vaccine efficacy is not as good as we would like for the Delta variant”. Now
Double vaxxed in middle aged categories being infected at much higher rate than unvaxxed. Case closed
And there we have proof of why Preston’s tweet was so dangerous.
What's he said this time? As for the differing rates, isn't that just because there are many many more vaccinated people these days?
It was quoted on a thread yesterday, but I think the gist of it was to note that most people now catching COVID have been double jabbed without taking into account the fact that a large majority of the adult population are in that category and so misleading people into thinking the vaccines don’t work.
Its rates per 100000 so it takes into account that
Just realised who Emma Raducanu reminds me of. Tiger Woods. Both of mixed European/Asian descent. Both have this completely calm self-confidence. And supreme skill. She could dominate female tennis the way Woods dominated golf
Obviously there are differences. She has is more charming (tho that could just be her youth). Hopefully she won’t echo Woods’ later career…
And the manner of her breakthrough. Seed 150, a qualifier, only 2nd major, no sets dropped, goes on to win. That is unprecedented in top world sport. The only comparison that occurs to me is one of those amateur Spanish matadors that used to jump out of the crowd and fight the bull with such style they went on to be huge pro stars.
Good spot. That was my first thought as a cf. She won't end up quite that mega - TW was Michael Jackson with clubs - but yes, definite similarities. Tiger WAS pretty charming with the media, btw, when he first hit the big time. One slight difference is he was a noted child prodigy in golf, and all fans of the sport knew about him as a junior.
She could easily out-Tiger the Tiger. Tennis is potentially bigger than golf (if it isn’t already). She’s also young, female and extremely telegenic and she has that backstory that everyone can get behind - in their different ways.
She could be THE biggest sports star in the world (excepting football, of course)
Can she handle the pressure, tho? She looks like she can, but wow. Wimbledon next year will be insane, for her
Hold your horses....she isn't martina navratilova, steffi graff or williams sisters just yet.....
Woods didn't just win, as soon as he turned pro, he changed the game of golf...no more tubby 30 year olds puffing on cigars between shots. Woods.came with a totally new style that ripped the world best courses apart, winning by country miles and they had to redesign them.
I sense we're a baw hair away from comparing the Pantone shades of the Romanian flag with those of Raducanu's get up. It'll make the recent O2 stushie look Socratic.
the absolutely towering insecurity of british nationalism really is something
Unlike the rocklike certainty of Scottish nationalism? Where you potent, self-confident SCOTS actually had a referendum where you could finally throw off the shackles of oppression, rise up and be a nation again, but instead you all said, ‘errr, no. No thanks. We’d rather stay kinda British but moan about it for a decade after’
It’s the sort of thing tiny nervous islands in the pacific do, when offered the chance to be not-French, and instead proudly themselves. They say ‘uh, um. Non?’
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
No, I don't think he is saying that. Is someone who says 2021 is better saying the Taliban are a bunch of cuddly teddybears who would not harm a fly? Again, no.
Fwiw a decade later when I was 9 or 10, we'd spend summer holidays exploring London from the top deck of a bus with not a parent in sight, or get the train to Southend and play on the fruit machines and bumper cars. These days we'd be lucky to walk to school unescorted.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
It's a load of nostalgic hogwash by Hitchens. The 1960s were safer for children in one respect: there was much less traffic, and many roads were empty, so kids could wander more freely and unsupervised. But there was no culture of safeguarding, and children who were abused, physically and sexually, had no recourse, usually just keeping quiet. I'm very confident that a lot more children were beaten or abused in other ways by their parents, or through religious institutions, Boy Scouts etc. in the 60s than are now. But it was mainly hidden away, as is apparent from historic child abuse cases.
At the risk of making this worse. I can see her wearing red with blue trim. 2 of the colours of Romania, sure. But 2 of the UK too. To be implying Romania there'd need to be yellow. That's what I associate the Romanian football and rugby team with.
Yellow visor, DD.
Ah. OK. I really didn’t notice. But I am famously unobservant. Maybe this kind of thing is why Wimbledon insists on white.?
I sense we're a baw hair away from comparing the Pantone shades of the Romanian flag with those of Raducanu's get up. It'll make the recent O2 stushie look Socratic.
the absolutely towering insecurity of british nationalism really is something
Unlike the rocklike certainty of Scottish nationalism? Where you potent, self-confident SCOTS actually had a referendum where you could finally throw off the shackles of oppression, rise up and be a nation again, but instead you all said, ‘errr, no. No thanks. We’d rather stay kinda British but moan about it for a decade after’
It’s the sort of thing tiny nervous islands in the pacific do, when offered the chance to be not-French, and instead proudly themselves. They say ‘uh, um. Non?’
Scotland, the rainy little Papeete of the North
DA Scottish? The Jim Clark* de nos jours?
*A good friend of my father lived in Duns. I remember being told whenever we visited that Jim Clark learnt his skills on the curving and very up and down country roads of the Merse.
Just realised who Emma Raducanu reminds me of. Tiger Woods. Both of mixed European/Asian descent. Both have this completely calm self-confidence. And supreme skill. She could dominate female tennis the way Woods dominated golf
Obviously there are differences. She has is more charming (tho that could just be her youth). Hopefully she won’t echo Woods’ later career…
And the manner of her breakthrough. Seed 150, a qualifier, only 2nd major, no sets dropped, goes on to win. That is unprecedented in top world sport. The only comparison that occurs to me is one of those amateur Spanish matadors that used to jump out of the crowd and fight the bull with such style they went on to be huge pro stars.
Good spot. That was my first thought as a cf. She won't end up quite that mega - TW was Michael Jackson with clubs - but yes, definite similarities. Tiger WAS pretty charming with the media, btw, when he first hit the big time. One slight difference is he was a noted child prodigy in golf, and all fans of the sport knew about him as a junior.
She could easily out-Tiger the Tiger. Tennis is potentially bigger than golf (if it isn’t already). She’s also young, female and extremely telegenic and she has that backstory that everyone can get behind - in their different ways.
She could be THE biggest sports star in the world (excepting football, of course)
Can she handle the pressure, tho? She looks like she can, but wow. Wimbledon next year will be insane, for her
Hold your horses....she isn't martina navratilova, steffi graff or williams sisters just yet.....
Woods didn't just win, as soon as he turned pro, he changed the game of golf...
Fair. I may be getting carried away. Tho worth noting her arrival on the scene is much more sudden and spectacular than Woods’ in golf
And now I’m talking about golf. Time to have coffee and attend to my flints. Later
I think that was only US Open match I have ever watched.
As well as being the only match I can recall where the ball "boys and girls" looked older than the players, where are the line judges?
Likewise
And why did the ball always make that snicketty sound as the serve crossed the net, making me think every serve was a let?
I thought that final ace was a let.
Yes, me too. Lots of serves sounded like a let. Is there any explanation why several shots sound like a net cord when the ball manifestly didn’t touch the net?
I noticed that. It was weird. A relief that others did too. I was worried I was hearing things.
You could fcuk with the PB old pervs' heads and suggest that it was the post serve noise made by nubile flesh brushing against clothing?
Just back from the morning/very early afternoon constitutional. Mask wearing in East Ham 5% including in shops. The two groups still wearing are older asian men and women, who I suspect (though have no evidence) have not been vaccinated and some younger people (a few teenagers). Otherwise, I'll avoid the stentorian pronouncements.
Norway votes tomorrow - the Kantar poll late last evening told us nothing new. The centre-left bloc looks on course for a convincing win - the Kantar poll has roughly a 51-39 lead.
Congratulations to Emma Raducanu on winning the US Open. I confess tennis isn't really my sport - to me, events at The Curragh and Longchamp this afternoon are of much more interest - but it seems the women's game is currently in a period of transition and it may be she will become part of the new elite. I imagine she will be competitive in Australia but whether she will be as effective on clay for example I have no idea.
Nearer to home, it's clear the Government is now in all-out "charm offensive" mode plying us with good news by the bucket load. The modern mouthpiece of the Conservative Party, the Daily Express, seems not to let a day go by without leading with some press release promising utopia from either the Prime Minister or the Chancellor.
Psychologically and culturally, I'm finding the current "mood" fascinating. In some quarters, there an almost pathological desire to return to "normal", i.e.: pre-Covid life, mores et al. It's based on a desire to compartmentalise and forget the last 16 months almost to the point of denying they happened. If we party hard enough and long enough and loud enough we'll never have to think about lockdown again. That could be called the "Roaring Twenties" approach, Carpe Diem, life is for living, you're wasting life if you aren't living it etc.
And yet...
Covid has changed us, whether we acknowledge it or not. Obviously, those who have had it and especially those for whom it was a genuinely life-threatening experience (and indeed for those for whom it has become a life-changing experience), as well as for those close to them, the change may be fundamental.
For those who have not had it, life has also changed and how we process our experiences individually will vary. For some, hope has been replaced by fear, for others it's made little difference. A lot will, I think, depend on where you are in life, your personal circumstances and your psychological make-up. Some will have found strength they never knew they had, others will have seen a part of themselves they possibly didn't like.
I've never been a fan of Governments telling me what to do or how to live my life. The current messaging is about as subtle as being slapped in the face with a wet fish (thank you M.Python) but it ignores the undercurrents which will emerge with time.
Good post. Would add. For a great many long standing habits have been broken. And new ones adopted. Whether these will continue, or old ones resurface has yet to be seen. But the fundamental change is that when an individual ponders "Does my life really have to be this way?" The answer is far, far more likely to be "Of course not."
I also think many people are a bit ashamed of their reaction to this and just want to forget about it and not talk about it
Anyway good news this morning as vax passports scrapped. A ludicrous idea as shown by this tweet from peston
been double vaxxed (see attached). I was surprised by what looks like high prevalence among the double vaxxed. And according to leading scientists at least part of the explanation is that “vaccine efficacy is not as good as we would like for the Delta variant”. Now
Double vaxxed in middle aged categories being infected at much higher rate than unvaxxed. Case closed
And there we have proof of why Preston’s tweet was so dangerous.
What's he said this time? As for the differing rates, isn't that just because there are many many more vaccinated people these days?
It was quoted on a thread yesterday, but I think the gist of it was to note that most people now catching COVID have been double jabbed without taking into account the fact that a large majority of the adult population are in that category and so misleading people into thinking the vaccines don’t work.
Its rates per 100000 so it takes into account that
Either way the vaccine isn't as effective as we hoped in middle aged people particularly
Hold on. You were defending Preston but he’s wrong.
We need to understand we are effectively living through an extended, large scale, phase 3 trial. The vaccine is effective at reducing hospitalisation and deaths. The figures bear this out. The vaccine was also developed prior to the delta variant.
Amazon's sport coverage is crap though....all that money and so much terrible camera work, amateurish stuff like Tim Henman half out of shot when talking to him...
Normally when a new channel gets sports rights they want to take it to the next level. Ch4 with the cricket brought hawkeye, snicko, hotspot, bt sports i believe the first to offer 4k footy....
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Sudden triggering of a memory of seaside holidays then within a short walk of the ECML and being taken by my father and the dog to sit on a gatepost and watch the Deltics thunder past - must have been some steam locos but I was just too young to remember them.
I was never particularly a fan of the Deltics - they were (just) before my time. Had a fondness for Tulyar, though. I love the 45s and 37s. Can't stand the 47s for some reason, and the 40s leave me cold. Which is odd, because my choices seem rather random, looks-wise!
BTW, I was listening to a podcast this morning and it mentioned carnyxes (carnyii?). Obviously wondered why a PBer would be at an battle against a Roman legion ...
(I know none of this is anything to do with politics, but it seems better than dissecting and decoding a young woman's outfit...)
Sometimes went to London to see the relatives on the ECML, Deltic-hauled. Mum used to break the journey with lunch in the restaurant car. Deftly served off silver dishes. Happy memories.
Can't remember if I mentioned my late Dad managed to get us inside a Deltic at Waverley when they were very new - it was only when writing the address for his funeral that I put 2 plus 2 together and remembered he'd served on Ton class minesweepers when in the RNR, which of course had Deltic diesels as well. I found the manual in his attic.
Also a soft spot as a wee lad for the Class 15s and similar with the cab at one end or better still in the middle which ran on the small local goods/colliery lines in Scotland!
Ah, the last surviving Class 15 is being restored up at the East Lancs. They're also restoring the only Class 28, which I love and went all over when it was up at Matlock/Darley Dale. I can't wait to see that running! They're making slow but steady progress on it.
There's something about the oddities that appeal. I quite like the Fell, for instance, with its six engines. The Southern 'Leader' was also (ahem) interesting. Or the Midland Paget: a locomotive designed by the company's boss, not a designer, and which was so bad that only one photo exists of it...
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
It's a load of nostalgic hogwash by Hitchens. The 1960s were safer for children in one respect: there was much less traffic, and many roads were empty, so kids could wander more freely and unsupervised. But there was no culture of safeguarding, and children who were abused, physically and sexually, had no recourse, usually just keeping quiet. I'm very confident that a lot more children were beaten or abused in other ways by their parents, or through religious institutions, Boy Scouts etc. in the 60s than are now. But it was mainly hidden away, as is apparent from historic child abuse cases.
Aberfan a few years later too. A slagheap piled up on an unstable hillside behind a primary school, wilful negligence resulting in a tragedy that is still difficult to take in a half century or more later.
‘🏆 Congratulations to @EmmaRaducanu! 👏🏼 A peak audience of 9.2m watched her historic #USOpenFinal victory on @Channel4 - a 39.9% share of total audience & 48% of 16-34 year olds’
Add in the Amazon viewers and the catch-up viewers…. She’s turned an entire new generation of Brits into tennis fans. Her value to the sport is monumental
For indication of how revolutionary Tiger Woods was, he went 142 consecutive tournaments without missing a cut...7 full years..starting as an 18 year old.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Sudden triggering of a memory of seaside holidays then within a short walk of the ECML and being taken by my father and the dog to sit on a gatepost and watch the Deltics thunder past - must have been some steam locos but I was just too young to remember them.
They are incredible machines. My 15yo daughter now wears the DPS sweatshirt I had when I was a kid, it looks much cooler on her. She has no interest in Deltics but the top is now "vintage" apparently and gets much praise from the cool kids.
Such attire is more usual on middle aged blokes with big beer guts and who would benefit from a good bath.
I'm sure that they'll all be pleased to hear that they are now on-trend.
‘🏆 Congratulations to @EmmaRaducanu! 👏🏼 A peak audience of 9.2m watched her historic #USOpenFinal victory on @Channel4 - a 39.9% share of total audience & 48% of 16-34 year olds’
Add in the Amazon viewers and the catch-up viewers…. She’s turned an entire new generation of Brits into tennis fans. Her value to the sport is monumental
I'm not that bothered for Tennis and had only heard of her after the panic attack at Wimbledon. Lots of mentions on here as she went through the tournament, so watched last night on Prime and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Tennis still doesn't interest me that much, but the human story does because its immense. What she has achieved could stand for a long time, the question now is can she build on this and become a tennis immortal? The team around her seem to be doing a fab job - they need to step it up to protect her from the maelstrom.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Sudden triggering of a memory of seaside holidays then within a short walk of the ECML and being taken by my father and the dog to sit on a gatepost and watch the Deltics thunder past - must have been some steam locos but I was just too young to remember them.
I was never particularly a fan of the Deltics - they were (just) before my time. Had a fondness for Tulyar, though. I love the 45s and 37s. Can't stand the 47s for some reason, and the 40s leave me cold. Which is odd, because my choices seem rather random, looks-wise!
BTW, I was listening to a podcast this morning and it mentioned carnyxes (carnyii?). Obviously wondered why a PBer would be at an battle against a Roman legion ...
(I know none of this is anything to do with politics, but it seems better than dissecting and decoding a young woman's outfit...)
Sometimes went to London to see the relatives on the ECML, Deltic-hauled. Mum used to break the journey with lunch in the restaurant car. Deftly served off silver dishes. Happy memories.
Can't remember if I mentioned my late Dad managed to get us inside a Deltic at Waverley when they were very new - it was only when writing the address for his funeral that I put 2 plus 2 together and remembered he'd served on Ton class minesweepers when in the RNR, which of course had Deltic diesels as well. I found the manual in his attic.
Also a soft spot as a wee lad for the Class 15s and similar with the cab at one end or better still in the middle which ran on the small local goods/colliery lines in Scotland!
Ah, the last surviving Class 15 is being restored up at the East Lancs. They're also restoring the only Class 28, which I love and went all over when it was up at Matlock/Darley Dale. I can't wait to see that running! They're making slow but steady progress on it.
There's something about the oddities that appeal. I quite like the Fell, for instance, with its six engines. The Southern 'Leader' was also (ahem) interesting. Or the Midland Paget: a locomotive designed by the company's boss, not a designer, and which was so bad that only one photo exists of it...
I sense we're a baw hair away from comparing the Pantone shades of the Romanian flag with those of Raducanu's get up. It'll make the recent O2 stushie look Socratic.
the absolutely towering insecurity of british nationalism really is something
That did occur to me. Of course the genius of project UK historically was to appropriate and subsume the talented other from the constituent parts of the UK and the further empire/commonwealth but that seemed born of confidence, now it just seems awfully needy.
I for one will be deeply disappointed if they don't have that Spitfire PR XI* flying over Wimbledon emblazoned with WE U RADU next year.
*I note it's now commonly known as the NHS Spitfire which is pretty weird.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
No, I don't think he is saying that. Is someone who says 2021 is better saying the Taliban are a bunch of cuddly teddybears who would not harm a fly? Again, no.
Fwiw a decade later when I was 9 or 10, we'd spend summer holidays exploring London from the top deck of a bus with not a parent in sight, or get the train to Southend and play on the fruit machines and bumper cars. These days we'd be lucky to walk to school unescorted.
Well, he says 1962 was 'especially safe for children', yet in 1963 children were being abducted, tortured and murdered. So what changed in those twelve months? And why should 1963 be more like the year that was sixty years after it than the year that was just before it?
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Sudden triggering of a memory of seaside holidays then within a short walk of the ECML and being taken by my father and the dog to sit on a gatepost and watch the Deltics thunder past - must have been some steam locos but I was just too young to remember them.
They are incredible machines. My 15yo daughter now wears the DPS sweatshirt I had when I was a kid, it looks much cooler on her. She has no interest in Deltics but the top is now "vintage" apparently and gets much praise from the cool kids.
Such attire is more usual on middle aged blokes with big beer guts and who would benefit from a good bath.
I'm sure that they'll all be pleased to hear that they are now on-trend.
How long will it be before there are dieselpunk weekends at Whitby?
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
Well you highlighted it apropos nothing and your follow up sentence was about her parents immigrating to the UK
I assume you were trolling and feeling morally superior about being a better person than others rather than actually believing it though
That's a very morally superior post, Charles. Made on the playing field of Eton, I suspect. Just so I understand, are you saying I feel morally superior to others even though I do not believe that I am? If I was as clever as you I would not need that explaining, of course, but as I am not I do. Cheers!
No. I am saying that you posted something you didn’t believe because it reminded you that (in your estimation) others did believe it and therefore you were a better person.
Unfortunately, for you, no one bit
I did believe she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. Because she was. I also said I did not know if she was doing it deliberately. For some reason, seems to have triggered a few people on here and has led you to lie about what I said. All very strange.
So now you’re saying that she, as a girl of half Romanian descent, wore the colours of the Romanian flag ‘accidentally’
What are the chances of that? Gosh
No, I am saying I don't know whether she did it intentionally. Which is what I have said from the start.
No, you just saw a chance to make some pompous yet valueless observation that made you feel virtuous, and superior to Brexiteers and Farageists, but it went off half-cock and now you are embroiled in a tedious debate which makes you look like a bit of a dick
I’d change the subject if I were you. Good morning!
Just because you want something to be true does not mean it is true. Though, I do agree that people seeking to second guess me to fit in with their pre-conceived ideas of what motivates someone who does not agree with them on certain political points is rather tedious.
Is your sister’s pub reopening despite everything? Saw activity there. Good luck to her if so. And/Or good luck to anyone reopening stuff, esp in London. We need it
It is - and doing well. Lots of busy nights. However, it's all very fragile because of the shortage of staff. The vaccine passport news today is very welcome.
Amazon's sport coverage is crap though....all that money and so much terrible camera work, amateurish stuff like Tim Henman half out of shot when talking to him...
Normally when a new channel gets sports rights they want to take it to the next level. Ch4 with the cricket brought hawkeye, snicko, hotspot, bt sports i believe the first to offer 4k footy....
Was it the 1994 World Cup in America? Coverage was going to be great as stadia were ringed with cameras, not just the one at each end we'd been used to. But they couldn't track the ball. They were used to American football where they move 10 yards then stop. I exaggerate but you get the gist.
At the risk of making this worse. I can see her wearing red with blue trim. 2 of the colours of Romania, sure. But 2 of the UK too. To be implying Romania there'd need to be yellow. That's what I associate the Romanian football and rugby team with.
Yellow visor, DD.
Ah. OK. I really didn’t notice. But I am famously unobservant. Maybe this kind of thing is why Wimbledon insists on white.?
Part of it, I think, yes. I did notice her outfit, also her opponent's, and I was happy with both of them, but I didn't make a connection with the Romanian flag. Then again, although I'm no flags ignoramus, I don't have a good mental picture of theirs.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Sudden triggering of a memory of seaside holidays then within a short walk of the ECML and being taken by my father and the dog to sit on a gatepost and watch the Deltics thunder past - must have been some steam locos but I was just too young to remember them.
They are incredible machines. My 15yo daughter now wears the DPS sweatshirt I had when I was a kid, it looks much cooler on her. She has no interest in Deltics but the top is now "vintage" apparently and gets much praise from the cool kids.
Such attire is more usual on middle aged blokes with big beer guts and who would benefit from a good bath.
I'm sure that they'll all be pleased to hear that they are now on-trend.
How long will it be before there are dieselpunk weekends at Whitby?
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Sudden triggering of a memory of seaside holidays then within a short walk of the ECML and being taken by my father and the dog to sit on a gatepost and watch the Deltics thunder past - must have been some steam locos but I was just too young to remember them.
I was never particularly a fan of the Deltics - they were (just) before my time. Had a fondness for Tulyar, though. I love the 45s and 37s. Can't stand the 47s for some reason, and the 40s leave me cold. Which is odd, because my choices seem rather random, looks-wise!
BTW, I was listening to a podcast this morning and it mentioned carnyxes (carnyii?). Obviously wondered why a PBer would be at an battle against a Roman legion ...
(I know none of this is anything to do with politics, but it seems better than dissecting and decoding a young woman's outfit...)
Yes, Peaks and Syphons is an unusual combination. Most people either swing one way or the other in the great English Electric versus Sulzer divide.
I think that was only US Open match I have ever watched.
As well as being the only match I can recall where the ball "boys and girls" looked older than the players, where are the line judges?
Likewise
And why did the ball always make that snicketty sound as the serve crossed the net, making me think every serve was a let?
I thought that final ace was a let.
Yes, me too. Lots of serves sounded like a let. Is there any explanation why several shots sound like a net cord when the ball manifestly didn’t touch the net?
I noticed that. It was weird. A relief that others did too. I was worried I was hearing things.
The question is whether it disrupted play by misleading the players. It did not seem to but I only watch tennis once a year. Assuming it did not then either the women are used to it or the sound is not present in the stadium and might be a broadcast artefact. Is the answer not on twitter? Everything else seems to be.
Or was the server grunting and you've got a lousy telly?
I honestly have no theories. I'd love to know. WTF was making that sound.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
No, I don't think he is saying that. Is someone who says 2021 is better saying the Taliban are a bunch of cuddly teddybears who would not harm a fly? Again, no.
Fwiw a decade later when I was 9 or 10, we'd spend summer holidays exploring London from the top deck of a bus with not a parent in sight, or get the train to Southend and play on the fruit machines and bumper cars. These days we'd be lucky to walk to school unescorted.
Isn't that confusing two different issues? In those days kids could do such things, but there was an unseen or unacknowledged danger in doing so. Nowadays we have much better reporting of any events that do occur, and the people want their kids to take less risks. Increased traffic levels will also have an effect.
The risks were there back then, and were perhaps greater. They just didn't get reported on.
I'm not worried about the little 'un getting Covid. He faces much more danger to life and limb from learning to ride a bike (is first 11-mile ride yesterday, and he feels proud - especially as he followed it up with his first Junior Park run this morning). But I like to think the risks I take with him are calculated and known. That might be a difference as well.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Sudden triggering of a memory of seaside holidays then within a short walk of the ECML and being taken by my father and the dog to sit on a gatepost and watch the Deltics thunder past - must have been some steam locos but I was just too young to remember them.
They are incredible machines. My 15yo daughter now wears the DPS sweatshirt I had when I was a kid, it looks much cooler on her. She has no interest in Deltics but the top is now "vintage" apparently and gets much praise from the cool kids.
Such attire is more usual on middle aged blokes with big beer guts and who would benefit from a good bath.
I'm sure that they'll all be pleased to hear that they are now on-trend.
How long will it be before there are dieselpunk weekends at Whitby?
Channel4 raises its money through commercial activities. I can’t see why it needs privatising. The current model works. People don’t like it’s news or shows the don’t watch. What does it gain from privatising ?
‘I'd like to congratulate Emma Raducanu for her amazing vindication of my politics. Some doubted that this brave young woman could affirm my beliefs but she rose above the sceptics and completely justified all of my ideological priors.’
Morning. I wondered if there has been any thinking on the 'reform party' rise, 5% in a recent poll. Looks like a continuation of the Brexit party. Thanks to the NI apocolypsef**k (as someone described it on here, accurately); they now have 2 unique policies of being low tax, against Covid Passports, and there is some low key anti woke stuff going on according to their website, a bit of a bonus. This does look, to me, like rather fertile political ground - maybe a new home for @Casino_Royale; and other disillusioned tories.
Not enough to win seats, but enough to cause the Conservatives significant difficulties.
Part of Johnson's genius was to absorb the party to his right. They were chumps to fall for it, but they did. Fighting on two fronts is always harder.
So the Green Party polling 10% is good for Labour cause they’ll all come back, but Reform on 5% is bad for Tories cause they’ll all stay away?
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
No, I don't think he is saying that. Is someone who says 2021 is better saying the Taliban are a bunch of cuddly teddybears who would not harm a fly? Again, no.
Fwiw a decade later when I was 9 or 10, we'd spend summer holidays exploring London from the top deck of a bus with not a parent in sight, or get the train to Southend and play on the fruit machines and bumper cars. These days we'd be lucky to walk to school unescorted.
Well, he says 1962 was 'especially safe for children', yet in 1963 children were being abducted, tortured and murdered. So what changed in those twelve months? And why should 1963 be more like the year that was sixty years after it than the year that was just before it?
It is pretty clear what he means when he says it was safer then. And also what Hitchens means when he says now we have better medicine. Oh, hold on, every day we are told how many patients are dying.
If you think Hitchens is a twat, I'd agree with you. If he claims that it was safer in the 60s for children to play in the street or have adventures outside of parental supervision, then perhaps he does have a point.
Just realised who Emma Raducanu reminds me of. Tiger Woods. Both of mixed European/Asian descent. Both have this completely calm self-confidence. And supreme skill. She could dominate female tennis the way Woods dominated golf
Obviously there are differences. She has is more charming (tho that could just be her youth). Hopefully she won’t echo Woods’ later career…
And the manner of her breakthrough. Seed 150, a qualifier, only 2nd major, no sets dropped, goes on to win. That is unprecedented in top world sport. The only comparison that occurs to me is one of those amateur Spanish matadors that used to jump out of the crowd and fight the bull with such style they went on to be huge pro stars.
Good spot. That was my first thought as a cf. She won't end up quite that mega - TW was Michael Jackson with clubs - but yes, definite similarities. Tiger WAS pretty charming with the media, btw, when he first hit the big time. One slight difference is he was a noted child prodigy in golf, and all fans of the sport knew about him as a junior.
She could easily out-Tiger the Tiger. Tennis is potentially bigger than golf (if it isn’t already). She’s also young, female and extremely telegenic and she has that backstory that everyone can get behind - in their different ways.
She could be THE biggest sports star in the world (excepting football, of course)
Can she handle the pressure, tho? She looks like she can, but wow. Wimbledon next year will be insane, for her
No argument on how big she could be. She's big now and could be huge huge HUGE. There's almost no limit on how enormous this girl could become. But not as big a global icon as Tiger. That's not possible. It just isn't.
I think that was only US Open match I have ever watched.
As well as being the only match I can recall where the ball "boys and girls" looked older than the players, where are the line judges?
Likewise
And why did the ball always make that snicketty sound as the serve crossed the net, making me think every serve was a let?
I thought that final ace was a let.
Yes, me too. Lots of serves sounded like a let. Is there any explanation why several shots sound like a net cord when the ball manifestly didn’t touch the net?
I noticed that. It was weird. A relief that others did too. I was worried I was hearing things.
You could fcuk with the PB old pervs' heads and suggest that it was the post serve noise made by nubile flesh brushing against clothing?
- "htg" derangement syndrome.
As I said earlier, it could ahve been the squeak noise of trainer on hard surface.
Anyway good news this morning as vax passports scrapped. A ludicrous idea as shown by this tweet from peston
been double vaxxed (see attached). I was surprised by what looks like high prevalence among the double vaxxed. And according to leading scientists at least part of the explanation is that “vaccine efficacy is not as good as we would like for the Delta variant”. Now
Double vaxxed in middle aged categories being infected at much higher rate than unvaxxed. Case closed
And there we have proof of why Preston’s tweet was so dangerous.
What's he said this time? As for the differing rates, isn't that just because there are many many more vaccinated people these days?
It was quoted on a thread yesterday, but I think the gist of it was to note that most people now catching COVID have been double jabbed without taking into account the fact that a large majority of the adult population are in that category and so misleading people into thinking the vaccines don’t work.
Its rates per 100000 so it takes into account that
Either way the vaccine isn't as effective as we hoped in middle aged people particularly
Hold on. You were defending Preston but he’s wrong.
We need to understand we are effectively living through an extended, large scale, phase 3 trial. The vaccine is effective at reducing hospitalisation and deaths. The figures bear this out. The vaccine was also developed prior to the delta variant.
No it depends on whether ons data effectively captures those not registered with a gp. You are letting your bias show gain
‘I'd like to congratulate Emma Raducanu for her amazing vindication of my politics. Some doubted that this brave young woman could affirm my beliefs but she rose above the sceptics and completely justified all of my ideological priors.’
Amazon's sport coverage is crap though....all that money and so much terrible camera work, amateurish stuff like Tim Henman half out of shot when talking to him...
Normally when a new channel gets sports rights they want to take it to the next level. Ch4 with the cricket brought hawkeye, snicko, hotspot, bt sports i believe the first to offer 4k footy....
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
Well you highlighted it apropos nothing and your follow up sentence was about her parents immigrating to the UK
I assume you were trolling and feeling morally superior about being a better person than others rather than actually believing it though
That's a very morally superior post, Charles. Made on the playing field of Eton, I suspect. Just so I understand, are you saying I feel morally superior to others even though I do not believe that I am? If I was as clever as you I would not need that explaining, of course, but as I am not I do. Cheers!
No. I am saying that you posted something you didn’t believe because it reminded you that (in your estimation) others did believe it and therefore you were a better person.
Unfortunately, for you, no one bit
I did believe she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. Because she was. I also said I did not know if she was doing it deliberately. For some reason, seems to have triggered a few people on here and has led you to lie about what I said. All very strange.
So now you’re saying that she, as a girl of half Romanian descent, wore the colours of the Romanian flag ‘accidentally’
What are the chances of that? Gosh
No, I am saying I don't know whether she did it intentionally. Which is what I have said from the start.
No, you just saw a chance to make some pompous yet valueless observation that made you feel virtuous, and superior to Brexiteers and Farageists, but it went off half-cock and now you are embroiled in a tedious debate which makes you look like a bit of a dick
I’d change the subject if I were you. Good morning!
Just because you want something to be true does not mean it is true. Though, I do agree that people seeking to second guess me to fit in with their pre-conceived ideas of what motivates someone who does not agree with them on certain political points is rather tedious.
Is your sister’s pub reopening despite everything? Saw activity there. Good luck to her if so. And/Or good luck to anyone reopening stuff, esp in London. We need it
It is - and doing well. Lots of busy nights. However, it's all very fragile because of the shortage of staff. The vaccine passport news today is very welcome.
Morning. I wondered if there has been any thinking on the 'reform party' rise, 5% in a recent poll. Looks like a continuation of the Brexit party. Thanks to the NI apocolypsef**k (as someone described it on here, accurately); they now have 2 unique policies of being low tax, against Covid Passports, and there is some low key anti woke stuff going on according to their website, a bit of a bonus. This does look, to me, like rather fertile political ground - maybe a new home for @Casino_Royale; and other disillusioned tories.
Not enough to win seats, but enough to cause the Conservatives significant difficulties.
Part of Johnson's genius was to absorb the party to his right. They were chumps to fall for it, but they did. Fighting on two fronts is always harder.
So the Green Party polling 10% is good for Labour cause they’ll all come back, but Reform on 5% is bad for Tories cause they’ll all stay away?
That’s about it, and it is clearly the case that all of the 10% supporting the greens are just labour voters on a break.
No argument on how big she could be. She's big now and could be huge huge HUGE. There's almost no limit on how enormous this girl could become. But not as big a global icon as Tiger. That's not possible. It just isn't.
Sharapova is/was a global icon.
Not quite sure how you measure them comparatively?
I think that was only US Open match I have ever watched.
As well as being the only match I can recall where the ball "boys and girls" looked older than the players, where are the line judges?
Likewise
And why did the ball always make that snicketty sound as the serve crossed the net, making me think every serve was a let?
I thought that final ace was a let.
Yes, me too. Lots of serves sounded like a let. Is there any explanation why several shots sound like a net cord when the ball manifestly didn’t touch the net?
I noticed that. It was weird. A relief that others did too. I was worried I was hearing things.
The question is whether it disrupted play by misleading the players. It did not seem to but I only watch tennis once a year. Assuming it did not then either the women are used to it or the sound is not present in the stadium and might be a broadcast artefact. Is the answer not on twitter? Everything else seems to be.
Or was the server grunting and you've got a lousy telly?
I honestly have no theories. I'd love to know. WTF was making that sound.
Is it the microphones picking up the sound of the player's foot hitting the court after they serve?
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
FWIW Labour is requiring all delegates to the conference to show evidence of double vaccination or have an immediate test. Seems sensible to me. Labour conferences to me are like night-clubs to MaxPB - I love them. However, I would prefer not to get Covid, and if someone with Covid wants to attend they can piss right off. Surely most crowded venues will feel the same?
Illogical.
If you are not double vaxxed then you are mainly putting yourself at risk.
Yes your viral load might be higher. Or it might not be if you are symptom free.
And as someone who is double vaxxed it would be reasonable to say that Covid for you would be similar to getting the flu.
"mainly" is not good enough if there is the tiniest chance it might make the difference lockdown/no lockdown. The unvaxxed should be hunted down like rogue replicants after a Voight-Kampff test fail.
One thing I never quite got about Bladerunner (probably my fave film, top 5 anyway) was if the replicants were all going to shrivel up and die anyway, why the desperate efforts to 'retire' them? The four on earth being hunted down seemed to be content to potter around in scabby apartments with a bit of exotic dancing thrown in. Ok, there was the occasional burst of psychopathic mayhem, but nobody's perfect.
I have never seen that film. On a list of "shouda, havna" it has to be towards the top.
I found it a bit underwhelming to be honest, possibly because it codified a lot of sci-fi tropes, so by the time I saw it it felt a bit bland as so many had copied bits of it. I preferred 2049.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Sudden triggering of a memory of seaside holidays then within a short walk of the ECML and being taken by my father and the dog to sit on a gatepost and watch the Deltics thunder past - must have been some steam locos but I was just too young to remember them.
I was never particularly a fan of the Deltics - they were (just) before my time. Had a fondness for Tulyar, though. I love the 45s and 37s. Can't stand the 47s for some reason, and the 40s leave me cold. Which is odd, because my choices seem rather random, looks-wise!
BTW, I was listening to a podcast this morning and it mentioned carnyxes (carnyii?). Obviously wondered why a PBer would be at an battle against a Roman legion ...
(I know none of this is anything to do with politics, but it seems better than dissecting and decoding a young woman's outfit...)
Tulyar is still with us (55015, owned by the DPS, I believe undergoing some serious refurbishment). The Deltics have now been in preservation about twice as long as they were in service. I have a soft spot for the 47s, a real workhorse and some still in service I think, sixty years on.
I can just about cope with sharing PB with Conservatives, but with Class 47 fans? That takes things to a whole new level!
If we all liked the same things, it would be very boring.
I think that was only US Open match I have ever watched.
As well as being the only match I can recall where the ball "boys and girls" looked older than the players, where are the line judges?
Likewise
And why did the ball always make that snicketty sound as the serve crossed the net, making me think every serve was a let?
I thought that final ace was a let.
Yes, me too. Lots of serves sounded like a let. Is there any explanation why several shots sound like a net cord when the ball manifestly didn’t touch the net?
I noticed that. It was weird. A relief that others did too. I was worried I was hearing things.
Same here. Glad to know if I was going mad then the denizens of PB are also mad (It's not a total shock).
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
No, I don't think he is saying that. Is someone who says 2021 is better saying the Taliban are a bunch of cuddly teddybears who would not harm a fly? Again, no.
Fwiw a decade later when I was 9 or 10, we'd spend summer holidays exploring London from the top deck of a bus with not a parent in sight, or get the train to Southend and play on the fruit machines and bumper cars. These days we'd be lucky to walk to school unescorted.
Isn't that confusing two different issues? In those days kids could do such things, but there was an unseen or unacknowledged danger in doing so. Nowadays we have much better reporting of any events that do occur, and the people want their kids to take less risks. Increased traffic levels will also have an effect.
The risks were there back then, and were perhaps greater. They just didn't get reported on.
I'm not worried about the little 'un getting Covid. He faces much more danger to life and limb from learning to ride a bike (is first 11-mile ride yesterday, and he feels proud - especially as he followed it up with his first Junior Park run this morning). But I like to think the risks I take with him are calculated and known. That might be a difference as well.
I'd imagine there was less child abduction 60 years ago for the simple reason there weren't as many cars about. Hard to kidnap a child by bus.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
Well you highlighted it apropos nothing and your follow up sentence was about her parents immigrating to the UK
I assume you were trolling and feeling morally superior about being a better person than others rather than actually believing it though
That's a very morally superior post, Charles. Made on the playing field of Eton, I suspect. Just so I understand, are you saying I feel morally superior to others even though I do not believe that I am? If I was as clever as you I would not need that explaining, of course, but as I am not I do. Cheers!
No. I am saying that you posted something you didn’t believe because it reminded you that (in your estimation) others did believe it and therefore you were a better person.
Unfortunately, for you, no one bit
I did believe she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. Because she was. I also said I did not know if she was doing it deliberately. For some reason, seems to have triggered a few people on here and has led you to lie about what I said. All very strange.
So now you’re saying that she, as a girl of half Romanian descent, wore the colours of the Romanian flag ‘accidentally’
What are the chances of that? Gosh
No, I am saying I don't know whether she did it intentionally. Which is what I have said from the start.
No, you just saw a chance to make some pompous yet valueless observation that made you feel virtuous, and superior to Brexiteers and Farageists, but it went off half-cock and now you are embroiled in a tedious debate which makes you look like a bit of a dick
I’d change the subject if I were you. Good morning!
Just because you want something to be true does not mean it is true. Though, I do agree that people seeking to second guess me to fit in with their pre-conceived ideas of what motivates someone who does not agree with them on certain political points is rather tedious.
Is your sister’s pub reopening despite everything? Saw activity there. Good luck to her if so. And/Or good luck to anyone reopening stuff, esp in London. We need it
It is - and doing well. Lots of busy nights. However, it's all very fragile because of the shortage of staff. The vaccine passport news today is very welcome.
Good to hear! Long may it continue
Absolutely. They have performed miracles to keep the dream alive. Hopefully, they'll reap the rewards now.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
It's a load of nostalgic hogwash by Hitchens. The 1960s were safer for children in one respect: there was much less traffic, and many roads were empty, so kids could wander more freely and unsupervised. But there was no culture of safeguarding, and children who were abused, physically and sexually, had no recourse, usually just keeping quiet. I'm very confident that a lot more children were beaten or abused in other ways by their parents, or through religious institutions, Boy Scouts etc. in the 60s than are now. But it was mainly hidden away, as is apparent from historic child abuse cases.
Aberfan a few years later too. A slagheap piled up on an unstable hillside behind a primary school, wilful negligence resulting in a tragedy that is still difficult to take in a half century or more later.
We had an artist living close by and he painted a huge mural of each child's face being received into Christ's care
It was so moving
And our first son was born 8 days later and the disaster was so raw we just hugged and cuddled him at every opportunity and thought of those lost children and their bereaved parents and families
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
Well you highlighted it apropos nothing and your follow up sentence was about her parents immigrating to the UK
I assume you were trolling and feeling morally superior about being a better person than others rather than actually believing it though
That's a very morally superior post, Charles. Made on the playing field of Eton, I suspect. Just so I understand, are you saying I feel morally superior to others even though I do not believe that I am? If I was as clever as you I would not need that explaining, of course, but as I am not I do. Cheers!
No. I am saying that you posted something you didn’t believe because it reminded you that (in your estimation) others did believe it and therefore you were a better person.
Unfortunately, for you, no one bit
I now can't work out why I noticed she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. Am I morally superior or a racist?
Neither. You noticed it. You didn’t make an immigration linked post about it
Morning. I wondered if there has been any thinking on the 'reform party' rise, 5% in a recent poll. Looks like a continuation of the Brexit party. Thanks to the NI apocolypsef**k (as someone described it on here, accurately); they now have 2 unique policies of being low tax, against Covid Passports, and there is some low key anti woke stuff going on according to their website, a bit of a bonus. This does look, to me, like rather fertile political ground - maybe a new home for @Casino_Royale; and other disillusioned tories.
Not enough to win seats, but enough to cause the Conservatives significant difficulties.
Part of Johnson's genius was to absorb the party to his right. They were chumps to fall for it, but they did. Fighting on two fronts is always harder.
So the Green Party polling 10% is good for Labour cause they’ll all come back, but Reform on 5% is bad for Tories cause they’ll all stay away?
This where swing-back is likely to come from next time - RUK back to Tory and Green back to Labour or LibDem, depending on constituency. Always best to look at the Tory + RUK vote share together IMO. I'd halve the current Green vote for a GE view, but would not give it all back to Labour.
Just realised who Emma Raducanu reminds me of. Tiger Woods. Both of mixed European/Asian descent. Both have this completely calm self-confidence. And supreme skill. She could dominate female tennis the way Woods dominated golf
Obviously there are differences. She has is more charming (tho that could just be her youth). Hopefully she won’t echo Woods’ later career…
And the manner of her breakthrough. Seed 150, a qualifier, only 2nd major, no sets dropped, goes on to win. That is unprecedented in top world sport. The only comparison that occurs to me is one of those amateur Spanish matadors that used to jump out of the crowd and fight the bull with such style they went on to be huge pro stars.
Good spot. That was my first thought as a cf. She won't end up quite that mega - TW was Michael Jackson with clubs - but yes, definite similarities. Tiger WAS pretty charming with the media, btw, when he first hit the big time. One slight difference is he was a noted child prodigy in golf, and all fans of the sport knew about him as a junior.
She could easily out-Tiger the Tiger. Tennis is potentially bigger than golf (if it isn’t already). She’s also young, female and extremely telegenic and she has that backstory that everyone can get behind - in their different ways.
She could be THE biggest sports star in the world (excepting football, of course)
Can she handle the pressure, tho? She looks like she can, but wow. Wimbledon next year will be insane, for her
No argument on how big she could be. She's big now and could be huge huge HUGE. There's almost no limit on how enormous this girl could become. But not as big a global icon as Tiger. That's not possible. It just isn't.
No, it's not possible. Golf is massive (in the US in particular) and I suspect is the most participated-in sport on the planet. Tennis is rather niche in comparison.
At the risk of making this worse. I can see her wearing red with blue trim. 2 of the colours of Romania, sure. But 2 of the UK too. To be implying Romania there'd need to be yellow. That's what I associate the Romanian football and rugby team with.
Yellow visor, DD.
Ah. OK. I really didn’t notice. But I am famously unobservant. Maybe this kind of thing is why Wimbledon insists on white.?
Part of it, I think, yes. I did notice her outfit, also her opponent's, and I was happy with both of them, but I didn't make a connection with the Romanian flag. Then again, although I'm no flags ignoramus, I don't have a good mental picture of theirs.
I certainly noticed that her outfit matched the colours of the Romanian flag, but I didn't really think anything of it beyond that. I've never understood the need that some people have to force everyone into some kind of bland monocultual straight-jacket, identity wise. Where we live, and where Raducanu lives, it's quite normal for kids to have a range of identities reflecting the heritage of their parents. It doesn't stop them being British. I think the Tebbit test types just feel threatened by these more cosmopolitan people in their midst, maybe a bit jealous? It is nice to see the public embracing people like Raducanu but if they accept her as British why are we still deporting "foreign" people who have lived here since they were babies? So much of the debate on these issues is so totally divorced from the reality I see around me every time I drop my kids at school. Maybe London is just another country. I'm sick of living under rules made by people who don't seem to understand or even like the country we are now.
I don't know if it was intentional, but if it was I like the idea of someone who is comfortable with multiple identities. I think it's healthy on many levels that she might feel she can do this while clearly also being very proud of being British. If that is bonkers, so be it!
Her twitter bio is just the city names London, Toronto, Shenyang, Bucharest, I'd say she was pretty comfortable.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
Well you highlighted it apropos nothing and your follow up sentence was about her parents immigrating to the UK
I assume you were trolling and feeling morally superior about being a better person than others rather than actually believing it though
That's a very morally superior post, Charles. Made on the playing field of Eton, I suspect. Just so I understand, are you saying I feel morally superior to others even though I do not believe that I am? If I was as clever as you I would not need that explaining, of course, but as I am not I do. Cheers!
No. I am saying that you posted something you didn’t believe because it reminded you that (in your estimation) others did believe it and therefore you were a better person.
Unfortunately, for you, no one bit
I did believe she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. Because she was. I also said I did not know if she was doing it deliberately. For some reason, that seems to have triggered a few people on here and has led you to lie about what I said. All very strange.
Perhaps because your very next sentence was about her parents’ immigration to the UK
Personally I think you were trolling and making a snide jab at people you perceive as disliking immigration.
Maybe we all misunderstood and your two points were in no way connected.
Channel4 raises its money through commercial activities. I can’t see why it needs privatising. The current model works. People don’t like it’s news or shows the don’t watch. What does it gain from privatising ?
Why should tax payers money be invested in commercial TV? Should we buy ITV too?
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
It's a load of nostalgic hogwash by Hitchens. The 1960s were safer for children in one respect: there was much less traffic, and many roads were empty, so kids could wander more freely and unsupervised. But there was no culture of safeguarding, and children who were abused, physically and sexually, had no recourse, usually just keeping quiet. I'm very confident that a lot more children were beaten or abused in other ways by their parents, or through religious institutions, Boy Scouts etc. in the 60s than are now. But it was mainly hidden away, as is apparent from historic child abuse cases.
Aberfan a few years later too. A slagheap piled up on an unstable hillside behind a primary school, wilful negligence resulting in a tragedy that is still difficult to take in a half century or more later.
We had an artist living close by and he painted a huge mural of each child's face being received into Christ's care
It was so moving
And our first son was born 8 days later and the disaster was so raw we just hugged and cuddled him at every opportunity and thought of those lost children and their bereaved parents and families
It happened before I was born, I can't imagine the impact it had at the time. The sadness and horror of it all is beyond belief. And all utterly preventable too. Were you in Wales then?
I think that was only US Open match I have ever watched.
As well as being the only match I can recall where the ball "boys and girls" looked older than the players, where are the line judges?
Likewise
And why did the ball always make that snicketty sound as the serve crossed the net, making me think every serve was a let?
I thought that final ace was a let.
Yes, me too. Lots of serves sounded like a let. Is there any explanation why several shots sound like a net cord when the ball manifestly didn’t touch the net?
I noticed that. It was weird. A relief that others did too. I was worried I was hearing things.
You could fcuk with the PB old pervs' heads and suggest that it was the post serve noise made by nubile flesh brushing against clothing?
- "htg" derangement syndrome.
As I said earlier, it could ahve been the squeak noise of trainer on hard surface.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
Well you highlighted it apropos nothing and your follow up sentence was about her parents immigrating to the UK
I assume you were trolling and feeling morally superior about being a better person than others rather than actually believing it though
That's a very morally superior post, Charles. Made on the playing field of Eton, I suspect. Just so I understand, are you saying I feel morally superior to others even though I do not believe that I am? If I was as clever as you I would not need that explaining, of course, but as I am not I do. Cheers!
No. I am saying that you posted something you didn’t believe because it reminded you that (in your estimation) others did believe it and therefore you were a better person.
Unfortunately, for you, no one bit
I did believe she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. Because she was. I also said I did not know if she was doing it deliberately. For some reason, that seems to have triggered a few people on here and has led you to lie about what I said. All very strange.
Perhaps because your very next sentence was about her parents’ immigration to the UK
Personally I think you were trolling and making a snide jab at people you perceive as disliking immigration.
Maybe we all misunderstood and your two points were in no way connected.
I think your assumption is correct too. I rarely agree with Leon but he was right on that. It’s a bit rich once called out to play the injured party. There have been many, equally mean spirited, posts in that vein today. What was a wonderful sporting triumph Has become a tawdry debate by joy sponges here seeking to make points. It’s sad.
Just realised who Emma Raducanu reminds me of. Tiger Woods. Both of mixed European/Asian descent. Both have this completely calm self-confidence. And supreme skill. She could dominate female tennis the way Woods dominated golf
Obviously there are differences. She has is more charming (tho that could just be her youth). Hopefully she won’t echo Woods’ later career…
And the manner of her breakthrough. Seed 150, a qualifier, only 2nd major, no sets dropped, goes on to win. That is unprecedented in top world sport. The only comparison that occurs to me is one of those amateur Spanish matadors that used to jump out of the crowd and fight the bull with such style they went on to be huge pro stars.
Good spot. That was my first thought as a cf. She won't end up quite that mega - TW was Michael Jackson with clubs - but yes, definite similarities. Tiger WAS pretty charming with the media, btw, when he first hit the big time. One slight difference is he was a noted child prodigy in golf, and all fans of the sport knew about him as a junior.
She could easily out-Tiger the Tiger. Tennis is potentially bigger than golf (if it isn’t already). She’s also young, female and extremely telegenic and she has that backstory that everyone can get behind - in their different ways.
She could be THE biggest sports star in the world (excepting football, of course)
Can she handle the pressure, tho? She looks like she can, but wow. Wimbledon next year will be insane, for her
No argument on how big she could be. She's big now and could be huge huge HUGE. There's almost no limit on how enormous this girl could become. But not as big a global icon as Tiger. That's not possible. It just isn't.
No, it's not possible. Golf is massive (in the US in particular) and I suspect is the most participated-in sport on the planet. Tennis is rather niche in comparison.
That is absolute bollocks. There are many of these tables, in nearly all of them tennis is far ahead of golf
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
Well you highlighted it apropos nothing and your follow up sentence was about her parents immigrating to the UK
I assume you were trolling and feeling morally superior about being a better person than others rather than actually believing it though
That's a very morally superior post, Charles. Made on the playing field of Eton, I suspect. Just so I understand, are you saying I feel morally superior to others even though I do not believe that I am? If I was as clever as you I would not need that explaining, of course, but as I am not I do. Cheers!
No. I am saying that you posted something you didn’t believe because it reminded you that (in your estimation) others did believe it and therefore you were a better person.
Unfortunately, for you, no one bit
I did believe she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. Because she was. I also said I did not know if she was doing it deliberately. For some reason, that seems to have triggered a few people on here and has led you to lie about what I said. All very strange.
Perhaps because your very next sentence was about her parents’ immigration to the UK
Personally I think you were trolling and making a snide jab at people you perceive as disliking immigration.
Maybe we all misunderstood and your two points were in no way connected.
They weren't.
My second paragraph was related to the debate on this thread about the visas (or not) her parents would have needed to get into the UK when they arrived back in the early 2000s. It was a dig at those who regularly claimed that Labour had an open doors immigration policy. If you want to accuse me of trolling that was the paragraph to do it over!
Channel4 raises its money through commercial activities. I can’t see why it needs privatising. The current model works. People don’t like it’s news or shows the don’t watch. What does it gain from privatising ?
Why should tax payers money be invested in commercial TV? Should we buy ITV too?
Why privatise Channel 4? Should we sell off the roads and hospitals too? Why does everything from tennis players to broadcasters to children's lives in 1961 need to be presented as a series of false, forced, binary choices?
Channel4 raises its money through commercial activities. I can’t see why it needs privatising. The current model works. People don’t like it’s news or shows the don’t watch. What does it gain from privatising ?
Why should tax payers money be invested in commercial TV? Should we buy ITV too?
How is taxpayers money invested in C4. It raises all its revenues from its commercial activity.
What does C4 or the taxpayer gain from privatising it.
I don't know if it was intentional, but if it was I like the idea of someone who is comfortable with multiple identities. I think it's healthy on many levels that she might feel she can do this while clearly also being very proud of being British. If that is bonkers, so be it!
Her twitter bio is just the city names London, Toronto, Shenyang, Bucharest, I'd say she was pretty comfortable.
Yep. And I like that she feels entirely relaxed about doing it - that it probably doesn't even cross her mind she can't. That's the kind of thing that makes me proud of this country.
Just realised who Emma Raducanu reminds me of. Tiger Woods. Both of mixed European/Asian descent. Both have this completely calm self-confidence. And supreme skill. She could dominate female tennis the way Woods dominated golf
Obviously there are differences. She has is more charming (tho that could just be her youth). Hopefully she won’t echo Woods’ later career…
And the manner of her breakthrough. Seed 150, a qualifier, only 2nd major, no sets dropped, goes on to win. That is unprecedented in top world sport. The only comparison that occurs to me is one of those amateur Spanish matadors that used to jump out of the crowd and fight the bull with such style they went on to be huge pro stars.
Good spot. That was my first thought as a cf. She won't end up quite that mega - TW was Michael Jackson with clubs - but yes, definite similarities. Tiger WAS pretty charming with the media, btw, when he first hit the big time. One slight difference is he was a noted child prodigy in golf, and all fans of the sport knew about him as a junior.
She could easily out-Tiger the Tiger. Tennis is potentially bigger than golf (if it isn’t already). She’s also young, female and extremely telegenic and she has that backstory that everyone can get behind - in their different ways.
She could be THE biggest sports star in the world (excepting football, of course)
Can she handle the pressure, tho? She looks like she can, but wow. Wimbledon next year will be insane, for her
No argument on how big she could be. She's big now and could be huge huge HUGE. There's almost no limit on how enormous this girl could become. But not as big a global icon as Tiger. That's not possible. It just isn't.
No, it's not possible. Golf is massive (in the US in particular) and I suspect is the most participated-in sport on the planet. Tennis is rather niche in comparison.
That is absolute bollocks. There are many of these tables, in nearly all of them tennis is far ahead of golf
I think that was only US Open match I have ever watched.
As well as being the only match I can recall where the ball "boys and girls" looked older than the players, where are the line judges?
Likewise
And why did the ball always make that snicketty sound as the serve crossed the net, making me think every serve was a let?
I thought that final ace was a let.
Yes, me too. Lots of serves sounded like a let. Is there any explanation why several shots sound like a net cord when the ball manifestly didn’t touch the net?
I noticed that. It was weird. A relief that others did too. I was worried I was hearing things.
You could fcuk with the PB old pervs' heads and suggest that it was the post serve noise made by nubile flesh brushing against clothing?
- "htg" derangement syndrome.
As I said earlier, it could ahve been the squeak noise of trainer on hard surface.
But it was specifically and only on the serve.
The server grunting and cheap speakers in your telly? A broadcast artefact of some digital notification system? I'll have to watch the highlights to see what you mean.
Mid week the Guardian had an article on her Quarter Final win, and the number 1 comment (by a distance) was 'what a win for diversity'.
Pretty tawrdy politicisation of everything. The underlying instinct is not that far removed from the knuckle draggers reacting to England's missed penalties.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
I thought the same as you when I saw the colours. I've read she's spent a lot of time in Romania and has a real connection with the place - apparently Simona Halep was/is her favourite player. I'd be surprised if she wasn't aware of the colours matching the Romanian flag, and hadn't thought of her grandmother when she picked the outfit.
Most of her dress is red and blue. The only yellow is in her quite separate cap, so it's fairly marginal anyway. It's not in your face at all.
You're forgetting to mix the Romanian flag with the Chinese flag. If you then add in Canada and subtract the butcher's apron, I'm pretty sure you get left with exactly her outfit.
Heaven forfend! PRC = red and yellow Romania = r, y and blue Canada = white and r MINUS UK = r, w, b ========== yellow alone
Nah
PRC+ROM+CAN - UK
(r+y) + (r+y+b) + (w+r) - (r+w+b)
= 2r + 2y
Just a different logic system. But neither make sense of the lady's kit.
She wore it because it was available and she liked it.
Just realised who Emma Raducanu reminds me of. Tiger Woods. Both of mixed European/Asian descent. Both have this completely calm self-confidence. And supreme skill. She could dominate female tennis the way Woods dominated golf
Obviously there are differences. She has is more charming (tho that could just be her youth). Hopefully she won’t echo Woods’ later career…
And the manner of her breakthrough. Seed 150, a qualifier, only 2nd major, no sets dropped, goes on to win. That is unprecedented in top world sport. The only comparison that occurs to me is one of those amateur Spanish matadors that used to jump out of the crowd and fight the bull with such style they went on to be huge pro stars.
Good spot. That was my first thought as a cf. She won't end up quite that mega - TW was Michael Jackson with clubs - but yes, definite similarities. Tiger WAS pretty charming with the media, btw, when he first hit the big time. One slight difference is he was a noted child prodigy in golf, and all fans of the sport knew about him as a junior.
She could easily out-Tiger the Tiger. Tennis is potentially bigger than golf (if it isn’t already). She’s also young, female and extremely telegenic and she has that backstory that everyone can get behind - in their different ways.
She could be THE biggest sports star in the world (excepting football, of course)
Can she handle the pressure, tho? She looks like she can, but wow. Wimbledon next year will be insane, for her
No argument on how big she could be. She's big now and could be huge huge HUGE. There's almost no limit on how enormous this girl could become. But not as big a global icon as Tiger. That's not possible. It just isn't.
No, it's not possible. Golf is massive (in the US in particular) and I suspect is the most participated-in sport on the planet. Tennis is rather niche in comparison.
That is absolute bollocks. There are many of these tables, in nearly all of them tennis is far ahead of golf
Channel4 raises its money through commercial activities. I can’t see why it needs privatising. The current model works. People don’t like it’s news or shows the don’t watch. What does it gain from privatising ?
Why should tax payers money be invested in commercial TV? Should we buy ITV too?
How is taxpayers money invested in C4. It raises all its revenues from its commercial activity.
What does C4 or the taxpayer gain from privatising it.
I’d like to see the BBC adopt a similar model.
If you can sell it to someone else, you have money invested in it. Working Capital isn't free.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
No, I don't think he is saying that. Is someone who says 2021 is better saying the Taliban are a bunch of cuddly teddybears who would not harm a fly? Again, no.
Fwiw a decade later when I was 9 or 10, we'd spend summer holidays exploring London from the top deck of a bus with not a parent in sight, or get the train to Southend and play on the fruit machines and bumper cars. These days we'd be lucky to walk to school unescorted.
Isn't that confusing two different issues? In those days kids could do such things, but there was an unseen or unacknowledged danger in doing so. Nowadays we have much better reporting of any events that do occur, and the people want their kids to take less risks. Increased traffic levels will also have an effect.
The risks were there back then, and were perhaps greater. They just didn't get reported on.
I'm not worried about the little 'un getting Covid. He faces much more danger to life and limb from learning to ride a bike (is first 11-mile ride yesterday, and he feels proud - especially as he followed it up with his first Junior Park run this morning). But I like to think the risks I take with him are calculated and known. That might be a difference as well.
I'd imagine there was less child abduction 60 years ago for the simple reason there weren't as many cars about. Hard to kidnap a child by bus.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
It's a load of nostalgic hogwash by Hitchens. The 1960s were safer for children in one respect: there was much less traffic, and many roads were empty, so kids could wander more freely and unsupervised. But there was no culture of safeguarding, and children who were abused, physically and sexually, had no recourse, usually just keeping quiet. I'm very confident that a lot more children were beaten or abused in other ways by their parents, or through religious institutions, Boy Scouts etc. in the 60s than are now. But it was mainly hidden away, as is apparent from historic child abuse cases.
Aberfan a few years later too. A slagheap piled up on an unstable hillside behind a primary school, wilful negligence resulting in a tragedy that is still difficult to take in a half century or more later.
We had an artist living close by and he painted a huge mural of each child's face being received into Christ's care
It was so moving
And our first son was born 8 days later and the disaster was so raw we just hugged and cuddled him at every opportunity and thought of those lost children and their bereaved parents and families
It happened before I was born, I can't imagine the impact it had at the time. The sadness and horror of it all is beyond belief. And all utterly preventable too. Were you in Wales then?
Yes we were and I should say that as well as hugging and cuddling him we shed a lot of tears and almost felt guilty in a strange way
It was a very difficult and emotional period here in Wales as the Welsh news carried coverage for months as you would expect when such a disaster hits a Nation
Just realised who Emma Raducanu reminds me of. Tiger Woods. Both of mixed European/Asian descent. Both have this completely calm self-confidence. And supreme skill. She could dominate female tennis the way Woods dominated golf
Obviously there are differences. She has is more charming (tho that could just be her youth). Hopefully she won’t echo Woods’ later career…
And the manner of her breakthrough. Seed 150, a qualifier, only 2nd major, no sets dropped, goes on to win. That is unprecedented in top world sport. The only comparison that occurs to me is one of those amateur Spanish matadors that used to jump out of the crowd and fight the bull with such style they went on to be huge pro stars.
Good spot. That was my first thought as a cf. She won't end up quite that mega - TW was Michael Jackson with clubs - but yes, definite similarities. Tiger WAS pretty charming with the media, btw, when he first hit the big time. One slight difference is he was a noted child prodigy in golf, and all fans of the sport knew about him as a junior.
She could easily out-Tiger the Tiger. Tennis is potentially bigger than golf (if it isn’t already). She’s also young, female and extremely telegenic and she has that backstory that everyone can get behind - in their different ways.
She could be THE biggest sports star in the world (excepting football, of course)
Can she handle the pressure, tho? She looks like she can, but wow. Wimbledon next year will be insane, for her
Hold your horses....she isn't martina navratilova, steffi graff or williams sisters just yet.....
Woods didn't just win, as soon as he turned pro, he changed the game of golf...
Fair. I may be getting carried away. Tho worth noting her arrival on the scene is much more sudden and spectacular than Woods’ in golf
And now I’m talking about golf. Time to have coffee and attend to my flints. Later
Golf is perhaps the only "sport" more tedious than test cricket.
I don't know if it was intentional, but if it was I like the idea of someone who is comfortable with multiple identities. I think it's healthy on many levels that she might feel she can do this while clearly also being very proud of being British. If that is bonkers, so be it!
Her twitter bio is just the city names London, Toronto, Shenyang, Bucharest, I'd say she was pretty comfortable.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
Well you highlighted it apropos nothing and your follow up sentence was about her parents immigrating to the UK
I assume you were trolling and feeling morally superior about being a better person than others rather than actually believing it though
That's a very morally superior post, Charles. Made on the playing field of Eton, I suspect. Just so I understand, are you saying I feel morally superior to others even though I do not believe that I am? If I was as clever as you I would not need that explaining, of course, but as I am not I do. Cheers!
No. I am saying that you posted something you didn’t believe because it reminded you that (in your estimation) others did believe it and therefore you were a better person.
Unfortunately, for you, no one bit
I did believe she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. Because she was. I also said I did not know if she was doing it deliberately. For some reason, that seems to have triggered a few people on here and has led you to lie about what I said. All very strange.
Perhaps because your very next sentence was about her parents’ immigration to the UK
Personally I think you were trolling and making a snide jab at people you perceive as disliking immigration.
Maybe we all misunderstood and your two points were in no way connected.
I think your assumption is correct too. I rarely agree with Leon but he was right on that. It’s a bit rich once called out to play the injured party. There have been many, equally mean spirited, posts in that vein today. What was a wonderful sporting triumph Has become a tawdry debate by joy sponges here seeking to make points. It’s sad.
Just ignore it. Raducanu did an amazing thing which has brought pleasure to millions. Not least because the sport itself was so good. Intense, skilful, compelling
As for the lady herself, if you have to view it politically, lefties can enjoy it because she’s ‘proof that migration is good’ blah blah, right wingers can enjoy it because she’s a patriotic Brit (see her tweet), heterosexual men can en…
Channel4 raises its money through commercial activities. I can’t see why it needs privatising. The current model works. People don’t like it’s news or shows the don’t watch. What does it gain from privatising ?
Why should tax payers money be invested in commercial TV? Should we buy ITV too?
Why privatise Channel 4? Should we sell off the roads and hospitals too? Why does everything from tennis players to broadcasters to children's lives in 1961 need to be presented as a series of false, forced, binary choices?
Physician, heal thyself. You can't complain about false binaries when you make utter nonsense comparisons. The valid comparison is the one I made - if we own channel 4, why shouldn't we own ITV. Neither is a public good unlike roads or hospitals.
Just realised who Emma Raducanu reminds me of. Tiger Woods. Both of mixed European/Asian descent. Both have this completely calm self-confidence. And supreme skill. She could dominate female tennis the way Woods dominated golf
Obviously there are differences. She has is more charming (tho that could just be her youth). Hopefully she won’t echo Woods’ later career…
And the manner of her breakthrough. Seed 150, a qualifier, only 2nd major, no sets dropped, goes on to win. That is unprecedented in top world sport. The only comparison that occurs to me is one of those amateur Spanish matadors that used to jump out of the crowd and fight the bull with such style they went on to be huge pro stars.
Good spot. That was my first thought as a cf. She won't end up quite that mega - TW was Michael Jackson with clubs - but yes, definite similarities. Tiger WAS pretty charming with the media, btw, when he first hit the big time. One slight difference is he was a noted child prodigy in golf, and all fans of the sport knew about him as a junior.
She could easily out-Tiger the Tiger. Tennis is potentially bigger than golf (if it isn’t already). She’s also young, female and extremely telegenic and she has that backstory that everyone can get behind - in their different ways.
She could be THE biggest sports star in the world (excepting football, of course)
Can she handle the pressure, tho? She looks like she can, but wow. Wimbledon next year will be insane, for her
No argument on how big she could be. She's big now and could be huge huge HUGE. There's almost no limit on how enormous this girl could become. But not as big a global icon as Tiger. That's not possible. It just isn't.
No, it's not possible. Golf is massive (in the US in particular) and I suspect is the most participated-in sport on the planet. Tennis is rather niche in comparison.
That is absolute bollocks. There are many of these tables, in nearly all of them tennis is far ahead of golf
Just realised who Emma Raducanu reminds me of. Tiger Woods. Both of mixed European/Asian descent. Both have this completely calm self-confidence. And supreme skill. She could dominate female tennis the way Woods dominated golf
Obviously there are differences. She has is more charming (tho that could just be her youth). Hopefully she won’t echo Woods’ later career…
And the manner of her breakthrough. Seed 150, a qualifier, only 2nd major, no sets dropped, goes on to win. That is unprecedented in top world sport. The only comparison that occurs to me is one of those amateur Spanish matadors that used to jump out of the crowd and fight the bull with such style they went on to be huge pro stars.
Good spot. That was my first thought as a cf. She won't end up quite that mega - TW was Michael Jackson with clubs - but yes, definite similarities. Tiger WAS pretty charming with the media, btw, when he first hit the big time. One slight difference is he was a noted child prodigy in golf, and all fans of the sport knew about him as a junior.
She could easily out-Tiger the Tiger. Tennis is potentially bigger than golf (if it isn’t already). She’s also young, female and extremely telegenic and she has that backstory that everyone can get behind - in their different ways.
She could be THE biggest sports star in the world (excepting football, of course)
Can she handle the pressure, tho? She looks like she can, but wow. Wimbledon next year will be insane, for her
No argument on how big she could be. She's big now and could be huge huge HUGE. There's almost no limit on how enormous this girl could become. But not as big a global icon as Tiger. That's not possible. It just isn't.
No, it's not possible. Golf is massive (in the US in particular) and I suspect is the most participated-in sport on the planet. Tennis is rather niche in comparison.
Yes and no. Golf huge in UK, N America, Asia. Tennis in Europe. Every small town has reams of courts. Rarely a golf course. S America too.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
Well you highlighted it apropos nothing and your follow up sentence was about her parents immigrating to the UK
I assume you were trolling and feeling morally superior about being a better person than others rather than actually believing it though
That's a very morally superior post, Charles. Made on the playing field of Eton, I suspect. Just so I understand, are you saying I feel morally superior to others even though I do not believe that I am? If I was as clever as you I would not need that explaining, of course, but as I am not I do. Cheers!
No. I am saying that you posted something you didn’t believe because it reminded you that (in your estimation) others did believe it and therefore you were a better person.
Unfortunately, for you, no one bit
I did believe she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. Because she was. I also said I did not know if she was doing it deliberately. For some reason, that seems to have triggered a few people on here and has led you to lie about what I said. All very strange.
Perhaps because your very next sentence was about her parents’ immigration to the UK
Personally I think you were trolling and making a snide jab at people you perceive as disliking immigration.
Maybe we all misunderstood and your two points were in no way connected.
I think your assumption is correct too. I rarely agree with Leon but he was right on that. It’s a bit rich once called out to play the injured party. There have been many, equally mean spirited, posts in that vein today. What was a wonderful sporting triumph Has become a tawdry debate by joy sponges here seeking to make points. It’s sad.
Just ignore it. Raducanu did an amazing thing which has brought pleasure to millions. Not least because the sport itself was so good. Intense, skilful, compelling
As for the lady herself, if you have to view it politically, lefties can enjoy it because she’s ‘proof that migration is good’ blah blah, right wingers can enjoy it because she’s a patriotic Brit (see her tweet), heterosexual men can en…
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Sudden triggering of a memory of seaside holidays then within a short walk of the ECML and being taken by my father and the dog to sit on a gatepost and watch the Deltics thunder past - must have been some steam locos but I was just too young to remember them.
I was never particularly a fan of the Deltics - they were (just) before my time. Had a fondness for Tulyar, though. I love the 45s and 37s. Can't stand the 47s for some reason, and the 40s leave me cold. Which is odd, because my choices seem rather random, looks-wise!
BTW, I was listening to a podcast this morning and it mentioned carnyxes (carnyii?). Obviously wondered why a PBer would be at an battle against a Roman legion ...
(I know none of this is anything to do with politics, but it seems better than dissecting and decoding a young woman's outfit...)
Tulyar is still with us (55015, owned by the DPS, I believe undergoing some serious refurbishment). The Deltics have now been in preservation about twice as long as they were in service. I have a soft spot for the 47s, a real workhorse and some still in service I think, sixty years on.
I can just about cope with sharing PB with Conservatives, but with Class 47 fans? That takes things to a whole new level!
If we all liked the same things, it would be very boring.
Now I know how (some of you) at least felt when RCS was making that joke about password hashing...
This is something to do with trains, I think? Only because my dad used to take us to play cricket on a recreation ground next to a railway line and he'd sometimes stop mid-delivery to shout "class 47!" as a train went past. I've never heard of deltics or tulyar, nor DPS. ECML I can hazard a guess at East Coast Main Line?
Just realised who Emma Raducanu reminds me of. Tiger Woods. Both of mixed European/Asian descent. Both have this completely calm self-confidence. And supreme skill. She could dominate female tennis the way Woods dominated golf
Obviously there are differences. She has is more charming (tho that could just be her youth). Hopefully she won’t echo Woods’ later career…
And the manner of her breakthrough. Seed 150, a qualifier, only 2nd major, no sets dropped, goes on to win. That is unprecedented in top world sport. The only comparison that occurs to me is one of those amateur Spanish matadors that used to jump out of the crowd and fight the bull with such style they went on to be huge pro stars.
Good spot. That was my first thought as a cf. She won't end up quite that mega - TW was Michael Jackson with clubs - but yes, definite similarities. Tiger WAS pretty charming with the media, btw, when he first hit the big time. One slight difference is he was a noted child prodigy in golf, and all fans of the sport knew about him as a junior.
She could easily out-Tiger the Tiger. Tennis is potentially bigger than golf (if it isn’t already). She’s also young, female and extremely telegenic and she has that backstory that everyone can get behind - in their different ways.
She could be THE biggest sports star in the world (excepting football, of course)
Can she handle the pressure, tho? She looks like she can, but wow. Wimbledon next year will be insane, for her
No argument on how big she could be. She's big now and could be huge huge HUGE. There's almost no limit on how enormous this girl could become. But not as big a global icon as Tiger. That's not possible. It just isn't.
No, it's not possible. Golf is massive (in the US in particular) and I suspect is the most participated-in sport on the planet. Tennis is rather niche in comparison.
That is absolute bollocks. There are many of these tables, in nearly all of them tennis is far ahead of golf
LOL. That ranking has basketball as the world's second most popular sport! But seriously, I used the phrase 'participated-in'. I actually work for a company that manufactures nothing but golfing equipment. It's currently valued at a billion dollars. Can you name any billion-dollar companies that only manufacture tennis balls and rackets?
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
I thought the same as you when I saw the colours. I've read she's spent a lot of time in Romania and has a real connection with the place - apparently Simona Halep was/is her favourite player. I'd be surprised if she wasn't aware of the colours matching the Romanian flag, and hadn't thought of her grandmother when she picked the outfit.
Most of her dress is red and blue. The only yellow is in her quite separate cap, so it's fairly marginal anyway. It's not in your face at all.
You're forgetting to mix the Romanian flag with the Chinese flag. If you then add in Canada and subtract the butcher's apron, I'm pretty sure you get left with exactly her outfit.
Heaven forfend! PRC = red and yellow Romania = r, y and blue Canada = white and r MINUS UK = r, w, b ========== yellow alone
Nah
PRC+ROM+CAN - UK
(r+y) + (r+y+b) + (w+r) - (r+w+b)
= 2r + 2y
Just a different logic system. But neither make sense of the lady's kit.
She wore it because it was available and she liked it.
She probably wore it because she was paid to. Or, at very least it was free. ThIs is common amongst lower ranks, who often play at a loss. As a Grand Slam wInner she may get some discretion.
I wouldn't want to live there permanently but I'd love to visit. Spend a few nights in the Cavern Club and the Marquee Club for starters, watch some of the newly introduced Deltics on the ECML perhaps. Travel on some of the lovely branch lines before Beeching closed them.
Hmm.
It was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside, on foot and by bike, quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible. But it was so.
The most infamous child murders in British history - the Moors Murders - began a year later. Is Hitchens really saying that everything was all wonderful and safe for children until the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1962 - then all hell broke loose?
No, I don't think he is saying that. Is someone who says 2021 is better saying the Taliban are a bunch of cuddly teddybears who would not harm a fly? Again, no.
Fwiw a decade later when I was 9 or 10, we'd spend summer holidays exploring London from the top deck of a bus with not a parent in sight, or get the train to Southend and play on the fruit machines and bumper cars. These days we'd be lucky to walk to school unescorted.
Isn't that confusing two different issues? In those days kids could do such things, but there was an unseen or unacknowledged danger in doing so. Nowadays we have much better reporting of any events that do occur, and the people want their kids to take less risks. Increased traffic levels will also have an effect.
The risks were there back then, and were perhaps greater. They just didn't get reported on.
I'm not worried about the little 'un getting Covid. He faces much more danger to life and limb from learning to ride a bike (is first 11-mile ride yesterday, and he feels proud - especially as he followed it up with his first Junior Park run this morning). But I like to think the risks I take with him are calculated and known. That might be a difference as well.
I'd imagine there was less child abduction 60 years ago for the simple reason there weren't as many cars about. Hard to kidnap a child by bus.
Plenty of other molestation and abuse, though. And murders.
I bet its much,, much harder to get away with such things nowadays, for two reasons: surveillance is so much greater, and a perpetrator is much more likely to get caught on minor crimes, before progressing to greater ones.
You actually can do both. Some people would like to pretend the two are connected or mutually exclusive, but that's as wrong as saying no immigrant in the country could be against further immigration, when in fact some are.
Comments
Of course the numerator is biased by many different things, even behavioural. And it turns out the denominator may be wrong too.
But the fundamental change is that when an individual ponders "Does my life really have to be this way?" The answer is far, far more likely to be "Of course not."
Woods didn't just win, as soon as he turned pro, he changed the game of golf...no more tubby 30 year olds puffing on cigars between shots. Woods.came with a totally new style that ripped the world best courses apart, winning by country miles and they had to redesign them.
It’s the sort of thing tiny nervous islands in the pacific do, when offered the chance to be not-French, and instead proudly themselves. They say ‘uh, um. Non?’
Scotland, the rainy little Papeete of the North
Fwiw a decade later when I was 9 or 10, we'd spend summer holidays exploring London from the top deck of a bus with not a parent in sight, or get the train to Southend and play on the fruit machines and bumper cars. These days we'd be lucky to walk to school unescorted.
*A good friend of my father lived in Duns. I remember being told whenever we visited that Jim Clark learnt his skills on the curving and very up and down country roads of the Merse.
And now I’m talking about golf. Time to have coffee and attend to my flints. Later
We need to understand we are effectively living through an extended, large scale, phase 3 trial. The vaccine is effective at reducing hospitalisation and deaths. The figures bear this out. The vaccine was also developed prior to the delta variant.
Normally when a new channel gets sports rights they want to take it to the next level. Ch4 with the cricket brought hawkeye, snicko, hotspot, bt sports i believe the first to offer 4k footy....
There's something about the oddities that appeal. I quite like the Fell, for instance, with its six engines. The Southern 'Leader' was also (ahem) interesting. Or the Midland Paget: a locomotive designed by the company's boss, not a designer, and which was so bad that only one photo exists of it...
I'm sure that they'll all be pleased to hear that they are now on-trend.
Tennis still doesn't interest me that much, but the human story does because its immense. What she has achieved could stand for a long time, the question now is can she build on this and become a tennis immortal? The team around her seem to be doing a fab job - they need to step it up to protect her from the maelstrom.
I for one will be deeply disappointed if they don't have that Spitfire PR XI* flying over Wimbledon emblazoned with WE
*I note it's now commonly known as the NHS Spitfire which is pretty weird.
So why privatise it?
Or GB News?
The risks were there back then, and were perhaps greater. They just didn't get reported on.
I'm not worried about the little 'un getting Covid. He faces much more danger to life and limb from learning to ride a bike (is first 11-mile ride yesterday, and he feels proud - especially as he followed it up with his first Junior Park run this morning). But I like to think the risks I take with him are calculated and known. That might be a difference as well.
https://www.thewhitbyguide.co.uk/whitby-steampunk-weekend/
If you think Hitchens is a twat, I'd agree with you. If he claims that it was safer in the 60s for children to play in the street or have adventures outside of parental supervision, then perhaps he does have a point.
The director/vision mixer was rubbish
Not quite sure how you measure them comparatively?
If we all liked the same things, it would be very boring.
It was so moving
And our first son was born 8 days later and the disaster was so raw we just hugged and cuddled him at every opportunity and thought of those lost children and their bereaved parents and families
It is nice to see the public embracing people like Raducanu but if they accept her as British why are we still deporting "foreign" people who have lived here since they were babies? So much of the debate on these issues is so totally divorced from the reality I see around me every time I drop my kids at school. Maybe London is just another country. I'm sick of living under rules made by people who don't seem to understand or even like the country we are now.
Personally I think you were trolling and making a snide jab at people you perceive as disliking immigration.
Maybe we all misunderstood and your two points were in no way connected.
https://www.totalsportek.com/worlds-popular-sports-twelve/
My second paragraph was related to the debate on this thread about the visas (or not) her parents would have needed to get into the UK when they arrived back in the early 2000s. It was a dig at those who regularly claimed that Labour had an open doors immigration policy. If you want to accuse me of trolling that was the paragraph to do it over!
What does C4 or the taxpayer gain from privatising it.
I’d like to see the BBC adopt a similar model.
Pretty tawrdy politicisation of everything. The underlying instinct is not that far removed from the knuckle draggers reacting to England's missed penalties.
It was a very difficult and emotional period here in Wales as the Welsh news carried coverage for months as you would expect when such a disaster hits a Nation
As for the lady herself, if you have to view it politically, lefties can enjoy it because she’s ‘proof that migration is good’ blah blah, right wingers can enjoy it because she’s a patriotic Brit (see her tweet), heterosexual men can en…
Ok. Now I’m really getting down to work. Anon
Tennis Dress Watch and Tenuous Political Guesswork & Pointscoring, Part II
Leylah Annie Fernandez at Queens was wearing a dress of deep blue and white.
The colours are not Ecuadorian. Not Filipino. And certainly not Canadian maple leaf colours of red and white.
Clearly, it is the blue and white colours of her birth country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec#/media/File:Flag_of_Quebec.svg
She is making a political statement on the liberation of Quebec.
I've writen a poem about the US Open Tennis
It's called...
EMMA RADECANU and it goes..
Don't tell
Priti Patel
https://twitter.com/alexgallagher2/status/1436971567733518343
You can celebrate your Raducanus or you can push back boats. You can't do both.
https://twitter.com/DMinghella/status/1436974860694138892
Tennis in Europe. Every small town has reams of courts. Rarely a golf course. S America too.
This is something to do with trains, I think? Only because my dad used to take us to play cricket on a recreation ground next to a railway line and he'd sometimes stop mid-delivery to shout "class 47!" as a train went past. I've never heard of deltics or tulyar, nor DPS. ECML I can hazard a guess at East Coast Main Line?
https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/1436822780201295876
The following occurred when I was five, very near where I was living at the time (and near where many of my family now live):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/3087853.stm
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/killer-jailed-18-years-after-stabbing-girl-1307616.html
I bet its much,, much harder to get away with such things nowadays, for two reasons: surveillance is so much greater, and a perpetrator is much more likely to get caught on minor crimes, before progressing to greater ones.