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The latest Ipsos-MORI phone poll where I was part of the sample – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited August 2021 in General
imageThe latest Ipsos-MORI phone poll where I was part of the sample – politicalbetting.com

These days when virtually all polling is carried out online the regular Ipsos-MORI political monitor stands out as the only regular major poll that was carried out by random phone calls to the public.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    Test
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    Proper test - not the sneaky Smithson type!
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    Omnium said:

    Proper test - not the sneaky Smithson type!

    The only reason I post the first comment is to check that the commenting system is working.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    "This poll, however, is very much against the trend of other pollsters which have seen the CON-LAB gap narrowing."

    Eh?

    There have been two others in the last 24 hours that have seen the CON-LAB gap widening; You Gov +3 to 8, & Savanta Com Res +2 to 8
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    Test

    225-2 after being put in.

    Disaster.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%
  • pingping Posts: 3,724
    edited August 2021
    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Well, it sounds as though a lot of air is exchanged there, so all you were doing was taking the practical route.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    Well..

    BREAKING: Team GB 100m relay silver medallist CJ Ujah has been suspended for suspected doping violation.

    Feel for his team mates as surely they’ll be stripped of silver
  • Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.

    None.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.

    The Biden decision was some of the worse American foreign policy… I can only imagine the outcry if that were Trumps decision

    (Though the fact we followed as usual says it all)
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    Wonderful use of sub samples.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.

    The Biden decision was some of the worse American foreign policy… I can only imagine the outcry if that were Trumps decision

    (Though the fact we followed as usual says it all)
    It was.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    There's a lot of 'Scottish' in that. Tricky as we, the English, plan on keeping you all prisoners of the process forever and ever and ever.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874
    ydoethur said:

    Test

    225-2 after being put in.

    Disaster.
    Not entirely gone to plan...
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    "the chances of that must be about one in several hundred thousand"

    Sample was 1,113 British adults. There are ~51 million British adults. Naive probability estimate is 1-in-46,000.

    However, the probability is likely a bit higher than that, since you're in a demographic more likely to find itself in the sample, because of your age and willingness to take part in an opinion poll.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Evening all :)

    I'm struck by a combined LD-Green vote of 21% on IPSOS-Mori which seems very different to the 15% on other polls. The "difference" is largely but not wholly an increased Labour share on the other polls.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,820

    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.

    The Biden decision was some of the worse American foreign policy… I can only imagine the outcry if that were Trumps decision

    (Though the fact we followed as usual says it all)
    We didn't have any choice but to follow. We don't have the military power to remain there without the US.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,441
    Yet another anti-Keir pro Johnson thread!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    FPT for Theuniondivvie

    ‘There was a programme on R4 a couple of years ago on the phenomenon of down at heel, impoverished urban areas (Brooklyn, Kreuzberg, various London neighbourhoods) becoming artistic hot spots; squats, cheap property, cheap to live etc, with the concomitant gentrification following. They suggested Athens was set to become the next big thing, any sign of that?’

    Not really. Maybe some tiny hints here and there. Part of the problem is the moribund Greek economy. Brooklyn is situated in the biggest economy on earth. Shoreditch Hoxton etc are in a world city with many rich people. Kreuzberg was ripe for investment, as part of the new reunified German capital of Berlin

    Athens is a crumbling city in a crumbling country. And the language is a barrier, even tho many of the young now speak good English

    But my, Athens still has the power to wow. I haven’t seen the Acropolis since I was a very young man. It is just fucking AWESOME. This mighty THING, surmounted by gleaming temples.

    I climb it tomorrow.. I might drink in every taverna on the way down. The weather continues sublime
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    Umpteenth.

    FPT Heat Pumps:

    rcs1000 said:

    Talking of green policies, we've just had a preliminary estimate for installing a heat pump system for Chez Nabavi.

    Gulp!!!

    All Swedish detached houses have them. We replaced ours a couple of years ago. It was only 12 years old. 15 years seems to be typical lifespan.

    A fiddle to maintain and Top Tip: look out for decibels! The cheap ones are significantly noisier than the pricey ones.

    I think ours (Nibe) was about 55.000 SEK, including labour and removal old pump (IVT).
    If everyone in a densely populated area is using an air-source heat pump, it must end up lowering the ambient temperature outside?
    Surely it would increase it: it's bringing heat from deep earth to the surface.
    Not the ones that use outside air as a heat source. Apparently they can operate even when the air temperature is as low as -15.
    They still put heat into the atmosphere overall, just as a fridge or a supermarket refrigerated counter does. The overall effect is the electrical power coming in, the rest is just moving heat from one place to another. It eventually escapes from the house, to balance the heat being taken from the air immediately around the heat pump.
    The key word is eventually. I'm thinking of the scenario of a cold night where everyone turns their heating on fully.
    Bearing in mind that it's a looong time since I thought about this properly, I think @Richard_Nabavi has picked one of the key points. If you compare "all the heat pumps running" with "no heat pumps running", the difference is the electricity powering the pumps, so eventually you end up with that energy dissipating in the surroundings as heat.

    But whilst the effect of the heat pump will be to remove heat from the outside to take to the inside (a bit like the way that the back of old fridges and freezers is noticeably warm), I doubt you'd get a measurable effect on outside temperatures. There's a lot of air outside and, even on a still night, it's very mobile.
    Yes. Compared to the environment, any amounts of heat involved are small.

    But a heat pump will put in far less heat than the previous system by definition. Typically it will actually use only 1/3 as much energy to run it (with a COP of 3:1) compared to any direct system (whether say Electrical Resistance or a Gas Boiler) so the energy input is reduced by 2/3 everything else being equal. That is the whole point of a pump.

    And any heat drawn inside will have leaked back out in a day or two. Which is a net zero.

    A gas boiler by comparison will draw no heat in from outside, but will add 3 times as much energy as a heat pump.

    So a heat pump won't on the overall scheme heat up the atmosphere more.

    (Ignoring energy lost in eg generation and transmission).
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.


    It’s worse than humiliation. You can overcome humiliation. I do it daily. It is desolation. We have squandered trillions - as you say - and many many lives - to achieve something worse than a royal fuck all.

    We should have gone in, nuked the Taliban, killed Bin Laden ASAP, and left immediately

    Instead, we have made a disaster, and called it retreat
  • FPT

    kinabalu said:

    OK @kinabalu I have looked into and done a statistical analysis of English nationalist sentiment and the far right.

    I have taken the UK's best political blog as a point of reference. There are unabashed English nationalists on this website that post here.

    You have in your own judgement determined that there are not any English nationalist far right posters on here.

    Therefore by a rigorous statistical analysis, there is an r^2 value of 0 correlating English nationalism with the far right, as per this website and your own opinion.

    Case closed.

    That's a reasaonable first tack - to look at here. And it's not zero, not at all. There's a couple on 'Watch' as I said - loose use of couple as in 3 or 4 - and plus there's some unsavouries who've been banned in recent weeks. So I'd say this is enough to continue our investigation rather than any sort of excuse to shut it down. YOUR investigation, I mean, since I've already done it.
    On a more general note there do seem to be people extremely concerned about far right extremists in the UK. Of course these extremists may have absolutely nothing to do with English Nationalism, but just enjoy prancing about in jackboots and being down on brown people.

    'Fastest-growing UK terror threat 'from far-right''

    'Violent right-wing extremism is a ‘major threat’ in the UK, MI5 boss says'

    'Future Trends: Far-Right Terrorism in the UK – A Major Threat?'

    'Racism fuelling far-right threat in UK - MI5's Ken McCallum warns'
    What has any of that whatsoever got to do with English nationalism?

    There is an issue with far right extremism but that's got nothing to do with the belief that England should be a self-governing nation.
    Q. Are the English Defence League English nationalists?
    No.
    Bit shocking that you're deciding that people who at various times have described themselves as English nationalists are wrong about this. More than a whiff of the metropolitan elite talking down to the fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists.
    English nationalism is the belief that England should be a self-governing, independent nation. That's what the word means.

    I see nothing from the EDL to say they have that belief. All I see from them is racism. I don't care what they self-identify as, or what flag they try to misappropriate, if they're not advocating for that then they're not English nationalists.
    The EDL do believe that England should be a self-governing, independent nation.

    They just don't believe it should include 'foreigners', particularly those from one particular religious background. Not very far to the right of Farage, his fellow travellers and those who have ever voted for him.

    They are definitely English nationalists.
    Can you give me a citation please on the EDL believing that England should be independent and apart from Scotland? I've never heard anything about that from them.

    They're racist scumbags. No more and no less, don't enlighten them as to being anything other that racist bigots.
    No I can't, but the clue's in the name, I suspect - what's the E stand for? No mention of Scotland (or Wales for that matter). I suspect they'd be happy to allow the sectarian Unionists of NI to belong, though.
    So you can't, good, and no the clue is not in the name. The name England does not make you an England nationalist. Is the England football team full of England nationalists? The England Cricket Team? The ECB?

    They're racist shithead scum. I've never seen anything from them on English independence and neither have you, so that doesn't make them nationalists.
    I should have known better than to engage with you. Bonkers and pointless comparisons.
    I’m afraid Philip is correct. Simply having the name English in the name of an organisation does not automatically make it nationalist.

    Eg. the Scottish National Trust is a deeply Unionist and conservative organisation
    The African National Congress does not seek a United Africa (AFAIAA)
    The British Library is not a British nationalist organisation
    The English National Opera is not English nationalist

    I can't believe that I got embroiled in this discussion. The idea that the English Defence League isn't an English nationalist party that doesn't want to Defend, er, England specifically (rather than Scotland, Wales or Britain) is ludicrous. I believe you can be both nationalist and fascist.
    You can be, but it's almost inevitably not the case that people are both, since there's absolutely nothing linking nationalism to fascism (any more than there is linking socialism to it).

    As it happens, from Googling them and reading Wikipedia it seems you have it backwards. The EDL and their sister organisations the WDL and SDL are not nationalists. They are unionists.

    Take this picture of an EDL protest at a Scottish independence rally. Look at the flags chosen. What does that scream to you: English Nationalists wanting Scottish Independence? Unionists? Rangers fans?

    https://www.alamy.com/tommy-robinson-speaking-at-the-auob-scottish-independence-march-in-george-square-glasgow-scotland-uk-on-4th-may-2019-image245525832.html
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Omnium said:

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    There's a lot of 'Scottish' in that. Tricky as we, the English, plan on keeping you all prisoners of the process forever and ever and ever.
    That’s what the parties call themselves: it’s what electors see on the Ballot Paper when they go into the polling station. An awful lot of “Scottish”. It’s a very, very popular brand. Not a heck of a lot of “British” on those ballot papers. Bit of a dud that brand.

    Of course most of those “Scottish” organisations are nothing of the sort, proving Philip’s point on the previous thread.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592
    Leon said:

    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.


    It’s worse than humiliation. You can overcome humiliation. I do it daily. It is desolation. We have squandered trillions - as you say - and many many lives - to achieve something worse than a royal fuck all.

    We should have gone in, nuked the Taliban, killed Bin Laden ASAP, and left immediately

    Instead, we have made a disaster, and called it retreat
    Butcher and Bolt.

    Along with - you can't buy an Afghan Warlord. But you can rent them at low, low rates....
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,441
    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.

    How much would it have cost the western community to offer jobs to any Afghans who wanted employment at about $5k per year? That would have won enough of the population over and created a tax base that could see off the Taliban. Would even have been profitable with the right investment and companies.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112

    Omnium said:

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    There's a lot of 'Scottish' in that. Tricky as we, the English, plan on keeping you all prisoners of the process forever and ever and ever.
    That’s what the parties call themselves: it’s what electors see on the Ballot Paper when they go into the polling station. An awful lot of “Scottish”. It’s a very, very popular brand. Not a heck of a lot of “British” on those ballot papers. Bit of a dud that brand.

    Of course most of those “Scottish” organisations are nothing of the sort, proving Philip’s point on the previous thread.
    And Labour aren't Scottish at all, but the same lot as down south - not even the figleaf of a separate accounting centre (which is why Kezia Dugdale's chain got yanked by the organist when she tried to spend too much money omn her law case). There is a deliberate clause in the electoral legislation which allows SLAB to breach what would otherwise be the law at every Scottish general, by and local election.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,670

    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.

    The Biden decision was some of the worse American foreign policy… I can only imagine the outcry if that were Trumps decision

    (Though the fact we followed as usual says it all)
    If they cannot look after themselves for a few weeks after twenty years of pouring in money , WTF point is there spending another 20 years doing the same. It was a big mistake from the get go and someone finally had the cojones to pull the plug.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592
    edited August 2021

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...

    EDIT: In the UK, the various sporting associations work pretty closely with the testing people, and indeed have been castigated as "unfair" for penalising athletes who have missed tests etc.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    Leon said:

    FPT for Theuniondivvie

    ‘There was a programme on R4 a couple of years ago on the phenomenon of down at heel, impoverished urban areas (Brooklyn, Kreuzberg, various London neighbourhoods) becoming artistic hot spots; squats, cheap property, cheap to live etc, with the concomitant gentrification following. They suggested Athens was set to become the next big thing, any sign of that?’

    Not really. Maybe some tiny hints here and there. Part of the problem is the moribund Greek economy. Brooklyn is situated in the biggest economy on earth. Shoreditch Hoxton etc are in a world city with many rich people. Kreuzberg was ripe for investment, as part of the new reunified German capital of Berlin

    Athens is a crumbling city in a crumbling country. And the language is a barrier, even tho many of the young now speak good English

    But my, Athens still has the power to wow. I haven’t seen the Acropolis since I was a very young man. It is just fucking AWESOME. This mighty THING, surmounted by gleaming temples.

    I climb it tomorrow.. I might drink in every taverna on the way down. The weather continues sublime

    Do tell us about it - I might even seek your recommendations and plan a trip when the covid shite is over, or at least rather less intrusive. I want to pay respect to the original Boule and the Agora and the Stoa Poikile and the Grove of Academe and the Kerameikon.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    malcolmg said:

    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.

    The Biden decision was some of the worse American foreign policy… I can only imagine the outcry if that were Trumps decision

    (Though the fact we followed as usual says hi it all)
    If they cannot look after themselves for a few weeks after twenty years of pouring in money , WTF point is there spending another 20 years doing the same. It was a big mistake from the get go and someone finally had the cojones to pull the plug.
    Just because it was clearly a mistake from the get go doesn’t mean we can just up and go, considering the number of deaths/ resources invested.

    Running away from the issue isn’t going to end well, as is being demonstrated
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688

    Omnium said:

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    There's a lot of 'Scottish' in that. Tricky as we, the English, plan on keeping you all prisoners of the process forever and ever and ever.
    That’s what the parties call themselves: it’s what electors see on the Ballot Paper when they go into the polling station. An awful lot of “Scottish”. It’s a very, very popular brand. Not a heck of a lot of “British” on those ballot papers. Bit of a dud that brand.

    Of course most of those “Scottish” organisations are nothing of the sort, proving Philip’s point on the previous thread.
    British is probably the best brand ever. The notion of Scottish is fantastic.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    Wonderful use of sub samples.
    Mike Smithson frequently posts headers based on sub-samples. Why not we lesser mortals?

    I can assure you that if the sub-sample had been this then it would be first item on the BBC evening news:

    SLab 54%
    SCon 16%
    SNP 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    Alba 3%
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,670
    edited August 2021
    Omnium said:

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    There's a lot of 'Scottish' in that. Tricky as we, the English, plan on keeping you all prisoners of the process forever and ever and ever.
    3 of thesupposed "Scottish" are pretendy English sub regional branches. Only 2 real Scottish registered parties there ( excl others).
    PS: they avoid British as they would get even less support than the current meagre pickings.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592

    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.

    How much would it have cost the western community to offer jobs to any Afghans who wanted employment at about $5k per year? That would have won enough of the population over and created a tax base that could see off the Taliban. Would even have been profitable with the right investment and companies.
    No, no, no

    1 - You turn up.
    2 - Kill anyone in Al Queada,
    3 - Offer 100K a year, each, to the local warlords.
    4 - Payable monthly
    5 - if they don't take the money, kill them
    6 - Explain to the survivors that the money will stop if they do anything on a short, short list of things.
    7 - Leave
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,838

    FPT

    kinabalu said:

    OK @kinabalu I have looked into and done a statistical analysis of English nationalist sentiment and the far right.

    I have taken the UK's best political blog as a point of reference. There are unabashed English nationalists on this website that post here.

    You have in your own judgement determined that there are not any English nationalist far right posters on here.

    Therefore by a rigorous statistical analysis, there is an r^2 value of 0 correlating English nationalism with the far right, as per this website and your own opinion.

    Case closed.

    That's a reasaonable first tack - to look at here. And it's not zero, not at all. There's a couple on 'Watch' as I said - loose use of couple as in 3 or 4 - and plus there's some unsavouries who've been banned in recent weeks. So I'd say this is enough to continue our investigation rather than any sort of excuse to shut it down. YOUR investigation, I mean, since I've already done it.
    On a more general note there do seem to be people extremely concerned about far right extremists in the UK. Of course these extremists may have absolutely nothing to do with English Nationalism, but just enjoy prancing about in jackboots and being down on brown people.

    'Fastest-growing UK terror threat 'from far-right''

    'Violent right-wing extremism is a ‘major threat’ in the UK, MI5 boss says'

    'Future Trends: Far-Right Terrorism in the UK – A Major Threat?'

    'Racism fuelling far-right threat in UK - MI5's Ken McCallum warns'
    What has any of that whatsoever got to do with English nationalism?

    There is an issue with far right extremism but that's got nothing to do with the belief that England should be a self-governing nation.
    Q. Are the English Defence League English nationalists?
    No.
    Bit shocking that you're deciding that people who at various times have described themselves as English nationalists are wrong about this. More than a whiff of the metropolitan elite talking down to the fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists.
    English nationalism is the belief that England should be a self-governing, independent nation. That's what the word means.

    I see nothing from the EDL to say they have that belief. All I see from them is racism. I don't care what they self-identify as, or what flag they try to misappropriate, if they're not advocating for that then they're not English nationalists.
    The EDL do believe that England should be a self-governing, independent nation.

    They just don't believe it should include 'foreigners', particularly those from one particular religious background. Not very far to the right of Farage, his fellow travellers and those who have ever voted for him.

    They are definitely English nationalists.
    Can you give me a citation please on the EDL believing that England should be independent and apart from Scotland? I've never heard anything about that from them.

    They're racist scumbags. No more and no less, don't enlighten them as to being anything other that racist bigots.
    No I can't, but the clue's in the name, I suspect - what's the E stand for? No mention of Scotland (or Wales for that matter). I suspect they'd be happy to allow the sectarian Unionists of NI to belong, though.
    So you can't, good, and no the clue is not in the name. The name England does not make you an England nationalist. Is the England football team full of England nationalists? The England Cricket Team? The ECB?

    They're racist shithead scum. I've never seen anything from them on English independence and neither have you, so that doesn't make them nationalists.
    I should have known better than to engage with you. Bonkers and pointless comparisons.
    I’m afraid Philip is correct. Simply having the name English in the name of an organisation does not automatically make it nationalist.

    Eg. the Scottish National Trust is a deeply Unionist and conservative organisation
    The African National Congress does not seek a United Africa (AFAIAA)
    The British Library is not a British nationalist organisation
    The English National Opera is not English nationalist

    I can't believe that I got embroiled in this discussion. The idea that the English Defence League isn't an English nationalist party that doesn't want to Defend, er, England specifically (rather than Scotland, Wales or Britain) is ludicrous. I believe you can be both nationalist and fascist.
    You can be, but it's almost inevitably not the case that people are both, since there's absolutely nothing linking nationalism to fascism (any more than there is linking socialism to it).

    As it happens, from Googling them and reading Wikipedia it seems you have it backwards. The EDL and their sister organisations the WDL and SDL are not nationalists. They are unionists.

    Take this picture of an EDL protest at a Scottish independence rally. Look at the flags chosen. What does that scream to you: English Nationalists wanting Scottish Independence? Unionists? Rangers fans?

    https://www.alamy.com/tommy-robinson-speaking-at-the-auob-scottish-independence-march-in-george-square-glasgow-scotland-uk-on-4th-may-2019-image245525832.html
    Ah so now you ARE looking into it. I could take umbrage since when it was me suggesting it you refused, but I won't. A result is a result.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    malcolmg said:

    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.

    The Biden decision was some of the worse American foreign policy… I can only imagine the outcry if that were Trumps decision

    (Though the fact we followed as usual says it all)
    If they cannot look after themselves for a few weeks after twenty years of pouring in money , WTF point is there spending another 20 years doing the same. It was a big mistake from the get go and someone finally had the cojones to pull the plug.

    I think the same would apply to the kindly English looking after the Scotch if the Scotch ever made the error to vote for Indy.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    ping said:

    So. We spent twenty years and all the blood sweat and treasure building up the Afghan state and armed forces and it just crumbles in a few weeks.

    What was the fking point?

    Humiliation.

    How much would it have cost the western community to offer jobs to any Afghans who wanted employment at about $5k per year? That would have won enough of the population over and created a tax base that could see off the Taliban. Would even have been profitable with the right investment and companies.
    I’ve said this before on PB, it is exactly the same as Vietnam (except arguably worse for western decline). As Bob McNamara said after the Vietnam disaster “we should have bombed them with fridges, not Agent Orange” - American generosity would have been cheaper than American aggression, and almost certainly more successful and productive long term

    Same here, except now there is a rival hegemon ready, able and willing to exploit an American calamity
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The Persians did know how to build a mean water distribution system though.
  • state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,415
    ydoethur said:

    Test

    225-2 after being put in.

    Disaster.
    utter shambles
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    "the chances of that must be about one in several hundred thousand"

    Sample was 1,113 British adults. There are ~51 million British adults. Naive probability estimate is 1-in-46,000.

    However, the probability is likely a bit higher than that, since you're in a demographic more likely to find itself in the sample, because of your age and willingness to take part in an opinion poll.

    But that's just the probability of being in the sample for this specific opinion poll, this month.

    This blog has been operating for ~17 years, during which time there will have been 204 monthly Ipsos-MORI opinion polls. At the start of that period there would have been other phone polls, but let's just consider Mori for now (though we can appeal to these other polls when someone points out that Mori skipped the odd month here and there).

    The probability of being part of any of those 204 opinion polls is:
    1 - (45999 / 46000) ^ 204 = 1-in-226

    It's not that unlikely.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...
    Linford Christie is one of 55 listed on this page, which is far from comprehensive:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_sportspeople_in_doping_cases
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    ydoethur said:

    Test

    225-2 after being put in.

    Disaster.
    utter shambles
    Never mind, when’s The Hundred on ?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    Taz said:

    ydoethur said:

    Test

    225-2 after being put in.

    Disaster.
    utter shambles
    Never mind, when’s The Hundred on ?
    At the time the ECB think it will maximise the damage to the RLODC.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    malcolmg said:

    Omnium said:

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    There's a lot of 'Scottish' in that. Tricky as we, the English, plan on keeping you all prisoners of the process forever and ever and ever.
    3 of thesupposed "Scottish" are pretendy English sub regional branches. Only 2 real Scottish registered parties there ( excl others).
    PS: they avoid British as they would get even less support than the current meagre pickings.
    I'm smiling in your general direction.
  • kinabalu said:

    FPT

    kinabalu said:

    OK @kinabalu I have looked into and done a statistical analysis of English nationalist sentiment and the far right.

    I have taken the UK's best political blog as a point of reference. There are unabashed English nationalists on this website that post here.

    You have in your own judgement determined that there are not any English nationalist far right posters on here.

    Therefore by a rigorous statistical analysis, there is an r^2 value of 0 correlating English nationalism with the far right, as per this website and your own opinion.

    Case closed.

    That's a reasaonable first tack - to look at here. And it's not zero, not at all. There's a couple on 'Watch' as I said - loose use of couple as in 3 or 4 - and plus there's some unsavouries who've been banned in recent weeks. So I'd say this is enough to continue our investigation rather than any sort of excuse to shut it down. YOUR investigation, I mean, since I've already done it.
    On a more general note there do seem to be people extremely concerned about far right extremists in the UK. Of course these extremists may have absolutely nothing to do with English Nationalism, but just enjoy prancing about in jackboots and being down on brown people.

    'Fastest-growing UK terror threat 'from far-right''

    'Violent right-wing extremism is a ‘major threat’ in the UK, MI5 boss says'

    'Future Trends: Far-Right Terrorism in the UK – A Major Threat?'

    'Racism fuelling far-right threat in UK - MI5's Ken McCallum warns'
    What has any of that whatsoever got to do with English nationalism?

    There is an issue with far right extremism but that's got nothing to do with the belief that England should be a self-governing nation.
    Q. Are the English Defence League English nationalists?
    No.
    Bit shocking that you're deciding that people who at various times have described themselves as English nationalists are wrong about this. More than a whiff of the metropolitan elite talking down to the fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists.
    English nationalism is the belief that England should be a self-governing, independent nation. That's what the word means.

    I see nothing from the EDL to say they have that belief. All I see from them is racism. I don't care what they self-identify as, or what flag they try to misappropriate, if they're not advocating for that then they're not English nationalists.
    The EDL do believe that England should be a self-governing, independent nation.

    They just don't believe it should include 'foreigners', particularly those from one particular religious background. Not very far to the right of Farage, his fellow travellers and those who have ever voted for him.

    They are definitely English nationalists.
    Can you give me a citation please on the EDL believing that England should be independent and apart from Scotland? I've never heard anything about that from them.

    They're racist scumbags. No more and no less, don't enlighten them as to being anything other that racist bigots.
    No I can't, but the clue's in the name, I suspect - what's the E stand for? No mention of Scotland (or Wales for that matter). I suspect they'd be happy to allow the sectarian Unionists of NI to belong, though.
    So you can't, good, and no the clue is not in the name. The name England does not make you an England nationalist. Is the England football team full of England nationalists? The England Cricket Team? The ECB?

    They're racist shithead scum. I've never seen anything from them on English independence and neither have you, so that doesn't make them nationalists.
    I should have known better than to engage with you. Bonkers and pointless comparisons.
    I’m afraid Philip is correct. Simply having the name English in the name of an organisation does not automatically make it nationalist.

    Eg. the Scottish National Trust is a deeply Unionist and conservative organisation
    The African National Congress does not seek a United Africa (AFAIAA)
    The British Library is not a British nationalist organisation
    The English National Opera is not English nationalist

    I can't believe that I got embroiled in this discussion. The idea that the English Defence League isn't an English nationalist party that doesn't want to Defend, er, England specifically (rather than Scotland, Wales or Britain) is ludicrous. I believe you can be both nationalist and fascist.
    You can be, but it's almost inevitably not the case that people are both, since there's absolutely nothing linking nationalism to fascism (any more than there is linking socialism to it).

    As it happens, from Googling them and reading Wikipedia it seems you have it backwards. The EDL and their sister organisations the WDL and SDL are not nationalists. They are unionists.

    Take this picture of an EDL protest at a Scottish independence rally. Look at the flags chosen. What does that scream to you: English Nationalists wanting Scottish Independence? Unionists? Rangers fans?

    https://www.alamy.com/tommy-robinson-speaking-at-the-auob-scottish-independence-march-in-george-square-glasgow-scotland-uk-on-4th-may-2019-image245525832.html
    Ah so now you ARE looking into it. I could take umbrage since when it was me suggesting it you refused, but I won't. A result is a result.
    Not because of you. I asked you to name something to look into and you failed to do so, since you had nothing to name. Because you had no point.

    @Theuniondivvie asked if the EDL were English Nationalists and the answer looking into it is a categorical NO they are British unionists instead.

    Now I won't be so petty as to suggest you investigate the link between unionism and racism.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The Persians did know how to build a mean water distribution system though.
    The qanats? Quite so. But they didn't invent the trieres/trireme. Arguably one of the most extreme examples of nautical architecture, beside the Mississippi steamboat (and both, coincidentally, relying on tension tructures - hogchains/hypozomata).

    The real problem is whether to go for the Athenians or the Spartans. The former definitely ate better. I do like the book 'Courtesand and fishcakes'.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...
    Linford Christie is one of 55 listed on this page, which is far from comprehensive:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_sportspeople_in_doping_cases
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scottish_sportspeople_in_doping_cases

    lists 8

    :-)
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
    κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

    Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
    That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited August 2021
    FTP: Heat Pumps

    The other surprising item for some on ASHPs is the huge volume of air involved.

    Off out now.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    malcolmg said:

    Omnium said:

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    There's a lot of 'Scottish' in that. Tricky as we, the English, plan on keeping you all prisoners of the process forever and ever and ever.
    3 of thesupposed "Scottish" are pretendy English sub regional branches. Only 2 real Scottish registered parties there ( excl others).
    PS: they avoid British as they would get even less support than the current meagre pickings.
    Absolutely!

    A long time ago a Scottish nationalist troll (yes, they exist!) went round the Wikipedia articles of every single Unionist politician (Robin Cook, Gordon Brown, Jim Wallace etc etc etc) changing every “is a Scottish politician” to “is a British politician”. Absolutely hilarious. And the funny thing is that about fifteen years later nobody has bothered removing the vandalism. One of many reasons to be wary of Wikipedia.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,262
    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
  • malcolmg said:

    Omnium said:

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    There's a lot of 'Scottish' in that. Tricky as we, the English, plan on keeping you all prisoners of the process forever and ever and ever.
    3 of thesupposed "Scottish" are pretendy English sub regional branches. Only 2 real Scottish registered parties there ( excl others).
    PS: they avoid British as they would get even less support than the current meagre pickings.
    Absolutely!

    A long time ago a Scottish nationalist troll (yes, they exist!) went round the Wikipedia articles of every single Unionist politician (Robin Cook, Gordon Brown, Jim Wallace etc etc etc) changing every “is a Scottish politician” to “is a British politician”. Absolutely hilarious. And the funny thing is that about fifteen years later nobody has bothered removing the vandalism. One of many reasons to be wary of Wikipedia.
    A turd by any other name will still smell of shite.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    edited August 2021

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,262
    edited August 2021
    MattW said:

    FTP: Heat Pumps

    The other surprising item for some on ASHPs is the huge volume of air involved.

    Off out now.

    Our ASHP is next to the path from the house to our garage. In the winter you have to brace yourself as you walk past - it puts out a distinctly arctic blast
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The Persians did know how to build a mean water distribution system though.
    The qanats? Quite so. But they didn't invent the trieres/trireme. Arguably one of the most extreme examples of nautical architecture, beside the Mississippi steamboat (and both, coincidentally, relying on tension tructures - hogchains/hypozomata).

    The real problem is whether to go for the Athenians or the Spartans. The former definitely ate better. I do like the book 'Courtesand and fishcakes'.
    I’m reading that very book right now! Highly entertaining
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...
    Linford Christie is one of 55 listed on this page, which is far from comprehensive:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_sportspeople_in_doping_cases
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scottish_sportspeople_in_doping_cases

    lists 8

    :-)
    Alain Baxter really shouldn’t be there. He used a brand of nose spray for his cold that in Europe is absolutely fine, but in the USA (? was it the USA?) has a different set of ingredients.

    Naive, but hardly a cheat.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742
    edited August 2021
    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Byronic!
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    malcolmg said:

    Omnium said:

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    There's a lot of 'Scottish' in that. Tricky as we, the English, plan on keeping you all prisoners of the process forever and ever and ever.
    3 of thesupposed "Scottish" are pretendy English sub regional branches. Only 2 real Scottish registered parties there ( excl others).
    PS: they avoid British as they would get even less support than the current meagre pickings.
    Absolutely!

    A long time ago a Scottish nationalist troll (yes, they exist!) went round the Wikipedia articles of every single Unionist politician (Robin Cook, Gordon Brown, Jim Wallace etc etc etc) changing every “is a Scottish politician” to “is a British politician”. Absolutely hilarious. And the funny thing is that about fifteen years later nobody has bothered removing the vandalism. One of many reasons to be wary of Wikipedia.
    https://tenor.com/view/alan-partridge-partridge-what-a-funny-story-funny-story-lol-no-gif-18897591
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742

    kinabalu said:

    FPT

    kinabalu said:

    OK @kinabalu I have looked into and done a statistical analysis of English nationalist sentiment and the far right.

    I have taken the UK's best political blog as a point of reference. There are unabashed English nationalists on this website that post here.

    You have in your own judgement determined that there are not any English nationalist far right posters on here.

    Therefore by a rigorous statistical analysis, there is an r^2 value of 0 correlating English nationalism with the far right, as per this website and your own opinion.

    Case closed.

    That's a reasaonable first tack - to look at here. And it's not zero, not at all. There's a couple on 'Watch' as I said - loose use of couple as in 3 or 4 - and plus there's some unsavouries who've been banned in recent weeks. So I'd say this is enough to continue our investigation rather than any sort of excuse to shut it down. YOUR investigation, I mean, since I've already done it.
    On a more general note there do seem to be people extremely concerned about far right extremists in the UK. Of course these extremists may have absolutely nothing to do with English Nationalism, but just enjoy prancing about in jackboots and being down on brown people.

    'Fastest-growing UK terror threat 'from far-right''

    'Violent right-wing extremism is a ‘major threat’ in the UK, MI5 boss says'

    'Future Trends: Far-Right Terrorism in the UK – A Major Threat?'

    'Racism fuelling far-right threat in UK - MI5's Ken McCallum warns'
    What has any of that whatsoever got to do with English nationalism?

    There is an issue with far right extremism but that's got nothing to do with the belief that England should be a self-governing nation.
    Q. Are the English Defence League English nationalists?
    No.
    Bit shocking that you're deciding that people who at various times have described themselves as English nationalists are wrong about this. More than a whiff of the metropolitan elite talking down to the fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists.
    English nationalism is the belief that England should be a self-governing, independent nation. That's what the word means.

    I see nothing from the EDL to say they have that belief. All I see from them is racism. I don't care what they self-identify as, or what flag they try to misappropriate, if they're not advocating for that then they're not English nationalists.
    The EDL do believe that England should be a self-governing, independent nation.

    They just don't believe it should include 'foreigners', particularly those from one particular religious background. Not very far to the right of Farage, his fellow travellers and those who have ever voted for him.

    They are definitely English nationalists.
    Can you give me a citation please on the EDL believing that England should be independent and apart from Scotland? I've never heard anything about that from them.

    They're racist scumbags. No more and no less, don't enlighten them as to being anything other that racist bigots.
    No I can't, but the clue's in the name, I suspect - what's the E stand for? No mention of Scotland (or Wales for that matter). I suspect they'd be happy to allow the sectarian Unionists of NI to belong, though.
    So you can't, good, and no the clue is not in the name. The name England does not make you an England nationalist. Is the England football team full of England nationalists? The England Cricket Team? The ECB?

    They're racist shithead scum. I've never seen anything from them on English independence and neither have you, so that doesn't make them nationalists.
    I should have known better than to engage with you. Bonkers and pointless comparisons.
    I’m afraid Philip is correct. Simply having the name English in the name of an organisation does not automatically make it nationalist.

    Eg. the Scottish National Trust is a deeply Unionist and conservative organisation
    The African National Congress does not seek a United Africa (AFAIAA)
    The British Library is not a British nationalist organisation
    The English National Opera is not English nationalist

    I can't believe that I got embroiled in this discussion. The idea that the English Defence League isn't an English nationalist party that doesn't want to Defend, er, England specifically (rather than Scotland, Wales or Britain) is ludicrous. I believe you can be both nationalist and fascist.
    You can be, but it's almost inevitably not the case that people are both, since there's absolutely nothing linking nationalism to fascism (any more than there is linking socialism to it).

    As it happens, from Googling them and reading Wikipedia it seems you have it backwards. The EDL and their sister organisations the WDL and SDL are not nationalists. They are unionists.

    Take this picture of an EDL protest at a Scottish independence rally. Look at the flags chosen. What does that scream to you: English Nationalists wanting Scottish Independence? Unionists? Rangers fans?

    https://www.alamy.com/tommy-robinson-speaking-at-the-auob-scottish-independence-march-in-george-square-glasgow-scotland-uk-on-4th-may-2019-image245525832.html
    Ah so now you ARE looking into it. I could take umbrage since when it was me suggesting it you refused, but I won't. A result is a result.
    Not because of you. I asked you to name something to look into and you failed to do so, since you had nothing to name. Because you had no point.

    @Theuniondivvie asked if the EDL were English Nationalists and the answer looking into it is a categorical NO they are British unionists instead.

    Now I won't be so petty as to suggest you investigate the link between unionism and racism.
    Q2. As a sometime British nationalist, are you a Unionist?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Byronic!
    Nah, he transitioned into LadyG.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112

    malcolmg said:

    Omnium said:

    Scottish split Ipsos Mori
    SNP 54%
    SCon 16%
    SLab 13%
    SLD 8%
    SGP 6%
    oth 3%

    There's a lot of 'Scottish' in that. Tricky as we, the English, plan on keeping you all prisoners of the process forever and ever and ever.
    3 of thesupposed "Scottish" are pretendy English sub regional branches. Only 2 real Scottish registered parties there ( excl others).
    PS: they avoid British as they would get even less support than the current meagre pickings.
    Absolutely!

    A long time ago a Scottish nationalist troll (yes, they exist!) went round the Wikipedia articles of every single Unionist politician (Robin Cook, Gordon Brown, Jim Wallace etc etc etc) changing every “is a Scottish politician” to “is a British politician”. Absolutely hilarious. And the funny thing is that about fifteen years later nobody has bothered removing the vandalism. One of many reasons to be wary of Wikipedia.
    There is/was something called Conservapedia. The world through blue-tinted glasses. I dipped into it once and found the piece on East Lothian. Someone had done an edit to set out his view of human diversity there - as I recall miners and Romani/Shelta featured considerably in the genesis of your average East Lothian gadgie. I can't recall its remarks on the local Tories but they can be imagined. It wasn't corrected for the decade and more that I occasionally dipped in to check.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112

    kinabalu said:

    FPT

    kinabalu said:

    OK @kinabalu I have looked into and done a statistical analysis of English nationalist sentiment and the far right.

    I have taken the UK's best political blog as a point of reference. There are unabashed English nationalists on this website that post here.

    You have in your own judgement determined that there are not any English nationalist far right posters on here.

    Therefore by a rigorous statistical analysis, there is an r^2 value of 0 correlating English nationalism with the far right, as per this website and your own opinion.

    Case closed.

    That's a reasaonable first tack - to look at here. And it's not zero, not at all. There's a couple on 'Watch' as I said - loose use of couple as in 3 or 4 - and plus there's some unsavouries who've been banned in recent weeks. So I'd say this is enough to continue our investigation rather than any sort of excuse to shut it down. YOUR investigation, I mean, since I've already done it.
    On a more general note there do seem to be people extremely concerned about far right extremists in the UK. Of course these extremists may have absolutely nothing to do with English Nationalism, but just enjoy prancing about in jackboots and being down on brown people.

    'Fastest-growing UK terror threat 'from far-right''

    'Violent right-wing extremism is a ‘major threat’ in the UK, MI5 boss says'

    'Future Trends: Far-Right Terrorism in the UK – A Major Threat?'

    'Racism fuelling far-right threat in UK - MI5's Ken McCallum warns'
    What has any of that whatsoever got to do with English nationalism?

    There is an issue with far right extremism but that's got nothing to do with the belief that England should be a self-governing nation.
    Q. Are the English Defence League English nationalists?
    No.
    Bit shocking that you're deciding that people who at various times have described themselves as English nationalists are wrong about this. More than a whiff of the metropolitan elite talking down to the fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists.
    English nationalism is the belief that England should be a self-governing, independent nation. That's what the word means.

    I see nothing from the EDL to say they have that belief. All I see from them is racism. I don't care what they self-identify as, or what flag they try to misappropriate, if they're not advocating for that then they're not English nationalists.
    The EDL do believe that England should be a self-governing, independent nation.

    They just don't believe it should include 'foreigners', particularly those from one particular religious background. Not very far to the right of Farage, his fellow travellers and those who have ever voted for him.

    They are definitely English nationalists.
    Can you give me a citation please on the EDL believing that England should be independent and apart from Scotland? I've never heard anything about that from them.

    They're racist scumbags. No more and no less, don't enlighten them as to being anything other that racist bigots.
    No I can't, but the clue's in the name, I suspect - what's the E stand for? No mention of Scotland (or Wales for that matter). I suspect they'd be happy to allow the sectarian Unionists of NI to belong, though.
    So you can't, good, and no the clue is not in the name. The name England does not make you an England nationalist. Is the England football team full of England nationalists? The England Cricket Team? The ECB?

    They're racist shithead scum. I've never seen anything from them on English independence and neither have you, so that doesn't make them nationalists.
    I should have known better than to engage with you. Bonkers and pointless comparisons.
    I’m afraid Philip is correct. Simply having the name English in the name of an organisation does not automatically make it nationalist.

    Eg. the Scottish National Trust is a deeply Unionist and conservative organisation
    The African National Congress does not seek a United Africa (AFAIAA)
    The British Library is not a British nationalist organisation
    The English National Opera is not English nationalist

    I can't believe that I got embroiled in this discussion. The idea that the English Defence League isn't an English nationalist party that doesn't want to Defend, er, England specifically (rather than Scotland, Wales or Britain) is ludicrous. I believe you can be both nationalist and fascist.
    You can be, but it's almost inevitably not the case that people are both, since there's absolutely nothing linking nationalism to fascism (any more than there is linking socialism to it).

    As it happens, from Googling them and reading Wikipedia it seems you have it backwards. The EDL and their sister organisations the WDL and SDL are not nationalists. They are unionists.

    Take this picture of an EDL protest at a Scottish independence rally. Look at the flags chosen. What does that scream to you: English Nationalists wanting Scottish Independence? Unionists? Rangers fans?

    https://www.alamy.com/tommy-robinson-speaking-at-the-auob-scottish-independence-march-in-george-square-glasgow-scotland-uk-on-4th-may-2019-image245525832.html
    Ah so now you ARE looking into it. I could take umbrage since when it was me suggesting it you refused, but I won't. A result is a result.
    Not because of you. I asked you to name something to look into and you failed to do so, since you had nothing to name. Because you had no point.

    @Theuniondivvie asked if the EDL were English Nationalists and the answer looking into it is a categorical NO they are British unionists instead.

    Now I won't be so petty as to suggest you investigate the link between unionism and racism.
    Q2. As a sometime British nationalist, are you a Unionist?
    Q3. Can you tell the difference between England and Britain and the UK?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    edited August 2021
    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,262

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...
    Linford Christie is one of 55 listed on this page, which is far from comprehensive:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_sportspeople_in_doping_cases
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scottish_sportspeople_in_doping_cases

    lists 8

    :-)
    Alain Baxter really shouldn’t be there. He used a brand of nose spray for his cold that in Europe is absolutely fine, but in the USA (? was it the USA?) has a different set of ingredients.

    Naive, but hardly a cheat.
    Rio Ferdinand missed a drugs test, then took it and passed but was told it was too late, banned for 8 months.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...

    EDIT: In the UK, the various sporting associations work pretty closely with the testing people, and indeed have been castigated as "unfair" for penalising athletes who have missed tests etc.
    Missing a test is an extremely serious incident. They are 100% compulsory and every single sportsperson knows that. So the sports governing bodies are absolutely correct to come down on folk missing tests like a ton of bricks. Remember that Greek sprinter on his motorcycle trip?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Interesting ruling by the CMA on Facebook/Giphy. I do wonder what enforcement measures the UK will have on an ostensibly US/US deal.

    One does wonder whether competition regulators will become a backdoor policy tool for European and Asian governments to stop US tech giants from expanding by buying up smaller rivals. The EU could wield a lot of power against the US big tech firms if it chose to do so I mean the CMA forced a non-US demerger between StubHub and Viagogo and that's just the UK.

    It's definitely a US vs UK take on businesses expansion with the US happy for its companies to become effective monopolies that then expand globally while the UK would rather not have local monopolies in the first place but it results in fewer national champions.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Much of my reading about the classical world was extramural and post-school; I didn't do Ancient Greek for very long (did get my O level). So MarqueeMark would know much better. Hope he is okay; haven't seen him on here of late.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...
    Linford Christie is one of 55 listed on this page, which is far from comprehensive:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_sportspeople_in_doping_cases
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scottish_sportspeople_in_doping_cases

    lists 8

    :-)
    Alain Baxter really shouldn’t be there. He used a brand of nose spray for his cold that in Europe is absolutely fine, but in the USA (? was it the USA?) has a different set of ingredients.

    Naive, but hardly a cheat.
    Rio Ferdinand missed a drugs test, then took it and passed but was told it was too late, banned for 8 months.
    Quite right too. Far worse than Baxter’s offence. Ferdinand’s body could easily clear itself of the offending substance in the time between the original test date and when he finally took it.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The Persians did know how to build a mean water distribution system though.
    The qanats? Quite so. But they didn't invent the trieres/trireme. Arguably one of the most extreme examples of nautical architecture, beside the Mississippi steamboat (and both, coincidentally, relying on tension tructures - hogchains/hypozomata).

    The real problem is whether to go for the Athenians or the Spartans. The former definitely ate better. I do like the book 'Courtesand and fishcakes'.
    I’m reading that very book right now! Highly entertaining
    PS I remember seeing the exhibtion from Athens about however many millennia of democracy it was in Edinburgh some years back now. My favourite bit was the voting slip (pottery sherd) wwith the candidate's name scratched on it. Wonder if you get to see that sort of thing on yoiur trip?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
    κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

    Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
    That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
    This has got me moist eyed, and researching easyjet bristol to athens flights. But fuck they squandered it: it starts like that, it ends with losing the Peloponnesian war and murdering Socrates.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
    The folk from the Atlantic to the Black Sea wave their hands.
  • Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
    Galician is the closest to Latin, I believe?
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 3,949

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...

    EDIT: In the UK, the various sporting associations work pretty closely with the testing people, and indeed have been castigated as "unfair" for penalising athletes who have missed tests etc.
    Missing a test is an extremely serious incident. They are 100% compulsory and every single sportsperson knows that. So the sports governing bodies are absolutely correct to come down on folk missing tests like a ton of bricks. Remember that Greek sprinter on his motorcycle trip?
    Was it in the middle of the 1500m final? Because if so that's certainly cheating.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
    Bollox. Leon is as gullible as Melvyn Bragg, who didn’t realise that his Cumbrian pal was pulling his leg when he told him that he could understand Icelandic when stationed there during the war.

    (The wartime story of Iceland is fascinating. They were invaded by the UK. Still smarts.)
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...
    Linford Christie is one of 55 listed on this page, which is far from comprehensive:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_sportspeople_in_doping_cases
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scottish_sportspeople_in_doping_cases

    lists 8

    :-)
    Alain Baxter really shouldn’t be there. He used a brand of nose spray for his cold that in Europe is absolutely fine, but in the USA (? was it the USA?) has a different set of ingredients.

    Naive, but hardly a cheat.
    Rio Ferdinand missed a drugs test, then took it and passed but was told it was too late, banned for 8 months.
    Quite right too. Far worse than Baxter’s offence. Ferdinand’s body could easily clear itself of the offending substance in the time between the original test date and when he finally took it.
    How many of those are "missed a test"?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
    But it didn't. I am currently trying to learn Spanish in 3 weeks so that I can speak to the Argentinian side at an Argie-Scots wedding, and I am pleased to report there is almost no learning involved. Spanish is easily as close to Latin as modern is to ancient Greek.
  • MattW said:

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...
    Linford Christie is one of 55 listed on this page, which is far from comprehensive:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_sportspeople_in_doping_cases
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scottish_sportspeople_in_doping_cases

    lists 8

    :-)
    Alain Baxter really shouldn’t be there. He used a brand of nose spray for his cold that in Europe is absolutely fine, but in the USA (? was it the USA?) has a different set of ingredients.

    Naive, but hardly a cheat.
    Rio Ferdinand missed a drugs test, then took it and passed but was told it was too late, banned for 8 months.
    Quite right too. Far worse than Baxter’s offence. Ferdinand’s body could easily clear itself of the offending substance in the time between the original test date and when he finally took it.
    How many of those are "missed a test"?
    My boy Jake's there for testing positive for cocaine. I'm not entirely sure a nose habit would enhance performance..
  • Hearing that Labour PADs (advisers) were told this morning their number is likely being cut by a third as part of brutal cost-cutting plans, meaning about 14 will be leaving their shadow ministers

    https://twitter.com/JackElsom/status/1425820178491789312?s=19

    Will anybody notice a difference in the quality output from the shadow ministers?
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
    Bollox. Leon is as gullible as Melvyn Bragg, who didn’t realise that his Cumbrian pal was pulling his leg when he told him that he could understand Icelandic when stationed there during the war.

    (The wartime story of Iceland is fascinating. They were invaded by the UK. Still smarts.)
    And what's your view of the Iceland occupation?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    IshmaelZ said:

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
    But it didn't. I am currently trying to learn Spanish in 3 weeks so that I can speak to the Argentinian side at an Argie-Scots wedding, and I am pleased to report there is almost no learning involved. Spanish is easily as close to Latin as modern is to ancient Greek.
    Perhaps the only difference is that multiple modern forms of Latin emerged, whereas there is only one modern Greek.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
    Bollox. Leon is as gullible as Melvyn Bragg, who didn’t realise that his Cumbrian pal was pulling his leg when he told him that he could understand Icelandic when stationed there during the war.

    (The wartime story of Iceland is fascinating. They were invaded by the UK. Still smarts.)
    I'm not so sure it was a porky. Danish/Icelandic has a fair bit in common with Scots, abd Cumbrians are just Scots who had the bad luck to be born after the border revisions. I went to a conference in Copnehagen and a Scots colleaguer and I went to have a look at the geological museum - we were able to get a sense of quite a few of the Danish labels eg. earthquake = jordskælv (cf Scots yird + skelp).

    A dear friend of mine from a Moray family was boarded out in the eastern Borders during the war years - Teviotdale or perhaps Kelso way. His academic career led him to South Africa and he discovered that if he relaxed and didn't try hard he could get a very good sense of the Boers in front of him discussing this rooinek in front of them. A tactically very useful accomplishment at times.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited August 2021

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Who says that? Nobody with half a brain thinks Team GB is 100% clean, however there is a world of difference between here and Russia or China or even the US.

    You get caught cheating and you are lottery funded, not only do you lose your funding forever, they chase you for all the money back and you will be a total outcast should you ever cone back from your ban.

    Remember with Dwayne Chambers they even fought legal action to have to select him, despite him getting qualifying times. And even when they lost the court case, it was very much you get no help, no assistant, we don't want anything to do with you.

    Comparison Tyson Gay, 3 times he has been busted for drugs, and the Americans don't appear to be bothered, as soon as he is off his ban, back to the forefront.

    The one big grey cloud in UK is the cycling.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    Hearing that Labour PADs (advisers) were told this morning their number is likely being cut by a third as part of brutal cost-cutting plans, meaning about 14 will be leaving their shadow ministers

    https://twitter.com/JackElsom/status/1425820178491789312?s=19

    Will anybody notice a difference in the quality output from the shadow ministers?

    They actually have SPADs?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
    Bollox. Leon is as gullible as Melvyn Bragg, who didn’t realise that his Cumbrian pal was pulling his leg when he told him that he could understand Icelandic when stationed there during the war.

    (The wartime story of Iceland is fascinating. They were invaded by the UK. Still smarts.)
    Did the Americans not take part as well?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
    Bollox. Leon is as gullible as Melvyn Bragg, who didn’t realise that his Cumbrian pal was pulling his leg when he told him that he could understand Icelandic when stationed there during the war.

    (The wartime story of Iceland is fascinating. They were invaded by the UK. Still smarts.)
    Did the Americans not take part as well?
    It was in 1940.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...

    EDIT: In the UK, the various sporting associations work pretty closely with the testing people, and indeed have been castigated as "unfair" for penalising athletes who have missed tests etc.
    Missing a test is an extremely serious incident. They are 100% compulsory and every single sportsperson knows that. So the sports governing bodies are absolutely correct to come down on folk missing tests like a ton of bricks. Remember that Greek sprinter on his motorcycle trip?
    Some sporting authorities are more lenient than others.

    I recall comments about being "cold hearted", "no compassion" etc being used about the UK athletics authorities. There was even an attempt, on one occasion, to suggest that it was all a bit racist....
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
    Bollox. Leon is as gullible as Melvyn Bragg, who didn’t realise that his Cumbrian pal was pulling his leg when he told him that he could understand Icelandic when stationed there during the war.

    (The wartime story of Iceland is fascinating. They were invaded by the UK. Still smarts.)

    ‘Calabrian Greek
    Greko
    Native to Italy
    Region Calabria
    Ethnicity Greeks
    Native speakers c. 2,000 (2010)[1]

    The Calabrian dialect of Greek, or Grecanico[2] is the variety of Italiot Greek used by the ethnic Griko people in Calabria, as opposed to the Italiot Greek dialect spoken in the Grecìa Salentina. Both are remnants of the Ancient and Byzantine Greek colonization of the region.’


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabrian_Greek

    Some dispute as to its ancientry. No doubts that it is Greek. I went to Griko
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    edited August 2021
    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Can’t believe I missed the whole PB August 2021 air-pump-versus-heat-pump Debate by stupidly visiting the Tower of the Four Winds in the Roman Agora of ancient Athens instead

    Ooh, jammy sod.

    I've seen the Oxford one (the old Radcliffe Observatory, in what is now Green College) but never been to Athens to see the original (and much else).
    I really really recommend it. It was my first time too. It is in amazingly good nick (very well restored)

    That part of Athens is so movingly historic it can make you feel a bit weepy. This gorgeous marble cradle

    I went to Aristotle’s Lyceum as well. The ruins are fairly humdrum but you can walk the very same path where Aristotle walked, under the plane trees, discussing Plato and Socrates, with his pupils. Goodness me

    I was one of about 6 people in the otherwise deserted and idyllic gardens
    Oh, I hadn't seen that before posting my last. Exactly so. Not to mention that "the human is a political animal".

    I know it is trendy to talk up the Persians but pah. I know exactly what side my heart is on.
    The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
    And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
    For standing on the Persians’ grave,
    I could not deem myself a slave.

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;—all were his!
    He counted them at break of day—
    And when the sun set, where were they?
    Sea-born salamis - did they come from Italy?
    A surprising proportion of Italy was Greek-settled, including the Naples area IIRC.

    PS Southern Italy, or a good chunk oif it, was called Magna Graecia by the chaps in Rome.
    There are some villages in Calabria (and perhaps also Puglia) that still speak Ancient Greek. I have been to one, and heard the Greek spoken “as Pythagoras would speak it”. My knowledge of the classics is not good enough to know if this is exactly true - yours sounds much better. Still very moving, even for a linguistic pleb like me

    I also visited the region of Sybaris. Home off the Sybarites. It is not very sybaritic now. An impoverished, earthquake ruined, mafia infested toilet. Great food nearby, however, in the Mafia owned resorts
    Is that true Leon? Proper Ancient Greek?

    What's always baffled me is that Latin totally died out. The idea that there's still a good holding of the Greek language baffles me on the former idea more.
    Bollox. Leon is as gullible as Melvyn Bragg, who didn’t realise that his Cumbrian pal was pulling his leg when he told him that he could understand Icelandic when stationed there during the war.

    (The wartime story of Iceland is fascinating. They were invaded by the UK. Still smarts.)
    Did the Americans not take part as well?
    It was in 1940.
    Have checked. The US did come in even while they were strictly neutral (ie before Pearl Harbor) but significantly later than the British and Canadians, so SD is quite correct. Edit: And you too, of course!
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited August 2021

    Breaking news

    BBC News - Chijindu Ujah: British Olympic silver medallist suspended after positive test for banned substance
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101

    Not the first. Won’t be the last. The pressure to win is immense, and some just cannot resist cheating.

    But rest assured, this is not an isolated individual. Cheating in the current environment requires organisation. For every cheat caught there are a significant number of cheats in the team behind them. If the government wanted to root them out it could.
    People have been trying to get rid of cheating in sports since before the original, Greek, Olympics.
    Absolutely. But I find it hilarious when numpties think that “they” cheat, but “we” don’t cheat. Cheating is a universal human trait. No nation is immune.
    Linford Christie come to mind...

    EDIT: In the UK, the various sporting associations work pretty closely with the testing people, and indeed have been castigated as "unfair" for penalising athletes who have missed tests etc.
    Missing a test is an extremely serious incident. They are 100% compulsory and every single sportsperson knows that. So the sports governing bodies are absolutely correct to come down on folk missing tests like a ton of bricks. Remember that Greek sprinter on his motorcycle trip?
    Some sporting authorities are more lenient than others.

    I recall comments about being "cold hearted", "no compassion" etc being used about the UK athletics authorities. There was even an attempt, on one occasion, to suggest that it was all a bit racist....
    Missed tests are a big red flag according to Conte (of Belco labs fame). Clean atheletes don't miss drugs tests according to him, certainly not more than one.
This discussion has been closed.