Y0kel said:

How appropriate that in the last seconds of the game the pitchside video signage had an ad for Tunnocks caramels. No better symbol of that nation.

Trumpton:

There are rumours Trump's son in law is going to charged very soon. If this is so, this is getting into very close to home territory. Trump has always made it clear family & the family finances are a red line.

Perhaps but the son-in-law's own father also had issues, iirc, with foreign funding, so it might depend on which angle it takes: father or father-in-law. And of course whether it spreads to Ivanka. The Manafort charges yesterday seemed peripheral.

England

Get it Right Up ye!

That is all...

Sandpit said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

RED ken is going to be let off the naughty step....obviously he wasn’t quite offensive enough.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/24/ken-livingstone-hitler-suspension-end-no-further-action

Wow. They really should have thrown him out for good.

Imagine the outcry if the Tories had let a racist back into their party.

At the IQ debate earlier this week, George Monbiot was very clear that Livingstone should be thrown out of the Labour party. And Stella Creasy said very clearly that Labour did have a problem with anti-semitism and needed to deal with it. Sadly, these are not the sort of people who are running Labour now.

Those who are have cynically calculated that there are no or few votes in dealing with anti- semitism, probably quite a lot of votes in being seen as critical of Jews and that they can always deflect the charge of anti-semitism, no matter how well-founded, by claiming that they are standing up for Palestinians, no matter how ludicrous such a claim may be.

To give one example, one of the candidates to be the Labour candidate at the next GE in Amber Rudd’s constituency, tweeted that Holocaust victims “ died with dignity” and furthermore that they would be turning in their graves at what Israel does. How anyone can claim that such a remark is not anti-Semitic or that it is helpful to Palestinians beats me. But it does not apparently bother the Labour party.

Labour’s cynicism on this is probably electorally well-conceived. But it is morally squalid. And gives the lie to its hyped up claims that it is morally better or nicer than the wicked Tories.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Oh no.

British actress Emma Chambers has died aged 53, her agent has confirmed.

Known for playing Alice Tinker in the BBC's The Vicar of Dibley, the Doncaster-born star also had roles in Notting Hill and the TV adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit.

Chambers, who died from natural causes on Wednesday evening, would be "greatly missed", her agent John Grant said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43183354

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ8PfLIc8MI

Cyclefree said:

Sandpit said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

RED ken is going to be let off the naughty step....obviously he wasn’t quite offensive enough.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/24/ken-livingstone-hitler-suspension-end-no-further-action

Wow. They really should have thrown him out for good.

Imagine the outcry if the Tories had let a racist back into their party.

It’s the Oxfam-Trans Principle: we have identified ourselves as a “good” organisation so everything we do must therefore also be good or beyond criticism.

They are a bad organisation and therefore nothing they do can ever be good or have good outcomes.

It pretty much describes politics these days......sadly.

And we all know what happens when people hold certain institutions sacred or beyond criticism.

Well done to Stella Creasy, Wes Streeting and others in Labour for having the guts to speak out about antisemitism. It’s always more difficult to see the bad things about one’s own institution.

Ishmael_Z said:

Cyclefree said:

Sandpit said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

RED ken is going to be let off the naughty step....obviously he wasn’t quite offensive enough.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/24/ken-livingstone-hitler-suspension-end-no-further-action

Wow. They really should have thrown him out for good.

Imagine the outcry if the Tories had let a racist back into their party.

It’s the Oxfam-Trans Principle: we have identified ourselves as a “good” organisation so everything we do must therefore also be good or beyond criticism.

They are a bad organisation and therefore nothing they do can ever be good or have good outcomes.

It pretty much describes politics these days......sadly.

It has only just occurred to me that we have been deprived of a good laugh by the Presidents' Club choice of the blameless GOSH as recipient of its offerings. If it had been Oxfam the PC could have made a case for refusing to accept the return of donations from such a sleazy and corrupt source.

There were plenty of other organisations receiving money from the PC:

https://tinyurl.com/ya7nb8bh

I don't think any of them have been linked to any scandals. Perhaps the PC chose its charities well.

DavidL said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Well played Scotland, they made England look ordinary, something that hasn't happened too often in the last few years.

The last 20 minutes were a little hairy but where England went for the first half was a bit of a mystery. Don’t think Owen Jones will be getting many drinks in English pubs.

I'm enjoying the idea of Owen Jones taking to the rugby field.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Oh no.

British actress Emma Chambers has died aged 53, her agent has confirmed.

Known for playing Alice Tinker in the BBC's The Vicar of Dibley, the Doncaster-born star also had roles in Notting Hill and the TV adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit.

Chambers, who died from natural causes on Wednesday evening, would be "greatly missed", her agent John Grant said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43183354

Sad news, she was a great comic character

Theuniondivvie said:

DavidL said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Well played Scotland, they made England look ordinary, something that hasn't happened too often in the last few years.

The last 20 minutes were a little hairy but where England went for the first half was a bit of a mystery. Don’t think Owen Jones will be getting many drinks in English pubs.

I'm enjoying the idea of Owen Jones taking to the rugby field.

Left winger for sure.

Gardenwalker said:

I thought SeanT was a bit pissed last night, but he’s now on Twitter demanding that we bomb Brussels.

It would be hard not to get personal in this, but one might imagine a competition for the silliest tweet of, say, 2018.

How about this one:
"I’m on the way to Jermyn Street to eat GROUSE. Life has never seemed so simultaneously dulcet and futile. We need a war. Well, I do."

bigjohnowls said:

HYUFD said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Oh no.

British actress Emma Chambers has died aged 53, her agent has confirmed.

Known for playing Alice Tinker in the BBC's The Vicar of Dibley, the Doncaster-born star also had roles in Notting Hill and the TV adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit.

Chambers, who died from natural causes on Wednesday evening, would be "greatly missed", her agent John Grant said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43183354

Sad news, she was a great comic character

She wouldn't get your subtle jokes though

Very few people do, my jokes are just far too damn subtle.

Going forward my jokes are going to be less subtle and nuanced.

Not seen this Ed Vaizey interview posted yet. He doesn't hold back.

https://twitter.com/5WrightStuff/status/967324731207659520

DavidL said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Well played Scotland, they made England look ordinary, something that hasn't happened too often in the last few years.

The last 20 minutes were a little hairy but where England went for the first half was a bit of a mystery. Don’t think Owen Jones will be getting many drinks in English pubs.

England attack at 68 minutes that went no where settled my nerves, I knew only a set of Scotland mistakes at that point would cost us.

Defensively we had completely sussed the England attacking patterns, suicidally blitzing to shut them down every time and in attack we simply missed pass over their ludicrously narrow defense to expose their back 3 who are not that kop in defensive situations.

Distinct lack of plan B by England. They need to stack Hughes, Vunipola and Lawes deeper and get them running short balls off set pieces at higher pace. They took too much sideways balls.

Cyclefree said:

Charles said:

Cyclefree said:

Sandpit said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

RED ken is going to be let off the naughty step....obviously he wasn’t quite offensive enough.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/24/ken-livingstone-hitler-suspension-end-no-further-action

Wow. They really should have thrown him out for good.

Imagine the outcry if the Tories had let a racist back into their party.

To give one example, one of the candidates to be the Labour candidate at the next GE in Amber Rudd’s constituency, tweeted that Holocaust victims “ died with dignity” and furthermore that they would be turning in their graves at what Israel does. How anyone can claim that such a remark is not anti-Semitic or that it is helpful to Palestinians beats me. But it does not apparently bother the Labour party.

Not sure it is really anti-Semetic.

The first (died with dignity) is idiotic and ahistorical, but not Holocaust denial.

The second is just victim claiming (like claiming something about the Chartists or the Tolpuddle martyrs). Silly but, again, not anti-Semitic.

(I entirely agree with your cynical thesis though)

It was a Jewish friend who described it thus and being on the soft left was utterly appalled at the party her family had supported all their lives tolerating such behaviour.

The whole statement is not just idiotic and ahistorical but grossly offensive and intended to be so. It is not a one-off. A senior Labour figure said last autumn that he had seen lots of tweets saying stuff reminiscent of the 1930’s. The leadership just doesn’t care. Or not enough to do anything effective about it. They are quite willing to turn a blind eye to it if it will not lose them votes and get them votes elsewhere. Cynical and squalid.

Your Jewish friend is wrong. Happy to go with grossly offensive as well for the first (after all it is making light of a terrible and shameful event in history) but that doesn’t make it anti-Semitic.

Powerful terms like that should be overused.

Off-topic:

A stop-motion animator displays 100 different styles of walking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEoUhlesN9E

Mesmerising and brilliant.

(The chair one is also good)

Just a fire alarm, apparently.

https://twitter.com/AllieHBNews/status/967508474774081537

https://twitter.com/Eluned92/status/967475277373861889

Cyclefree said:

The whole statement is not just idiotic and ahistorical but grossly offensive and intended to be so. It is not a one-off. A senior Labour figure said last autumn that he had seen lots of tweets saying stuff reminiscent of the 1930’s. The leadership just doesn’t care. Or not enough to do anything effective about it. They are quite willing to turn a blind eye to it if it will not lose them votes and get them votes elsewhere. Cynical and squalid.

I agree, but you have stated in the past that the fact that a statement is offensive is not sufficient for it to be stopped, and that the ability to make offensive speech is a corollary of a free society.

Toms said:

JJ, fascinating.
As walking involves a lot of one's anatomy, I think it's also very nearly unique to each of us. Certainly I can pretty well guarantee to identify from afar each approaching friend by his/her gait.

I can believe that, but it can change. When my ankle was really bad, I had weekly physio on it. Part of that was to get me to walk without overly supinating. I'd leave each session walking better, but by the next I'd be back to walking on the outside of my feet, because it hurt less.

The problem got fixed, but for many years my walking boots would wear out massively on the outside edge, and hardly at all on the inner; again, a symptom of supination. However since I've taken up running I've been to a couple of gait specialists, who both described my gait as now being near-perfect when walking and running. And my latest pair of walking boots are not wearing in the same way.

Odd.

At first I thought the guy in the video must be an actor; however, him being a stop-motion animator makes sense as well. He has to know intimately how to convey emotions from bodily movements.