Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Not seen that - I assume it's subscription, which providers?
The BBC doc 9/11: Inside the President's War Room was pretty good - avail on iPlayer. G W Bush came across quite well, presumably partly because he and his team had a lot of input into it. Good documantary, anyway.
I have really noticed over the last week how mask wearing in supermarkets is falling away big time.
Last visit was 20% masked 80% not
I was in Sainsbury today here in Godalming - literally only one person not wearing a mask, out of maybe 100 that I saw. But I'm sure the comments are right that it will fall away quickly if it starts to fall.
I was in Sainsbury’s at the Arnison in North Durham today, early morning mainly older people, and pretty much everyone was masked up there. I wonder if people still wear masks up here as in the last spike the north east went into it very quickly.
My impression is that it is locally very lumpy. So all anecdotes can be true at once.
Not disputing that at all. I did wonder if it was age or regional.
still compulsory up here and most people wearing them in shops.
Yeah, we were at a wedding in Scotland last week and observance was total.
Having just been to Scotland I can confirm that their attitude to mask wearing and distancing is much more anal and oppressive than England. Masks bloody everywhere, gaiters not good enough, shopkeepers only allowing 1 person in every 6 hours
I love the Scots and the people I met generally were super friendly. but there is still a Puritan and officious streak in the Scottish character, that likes bossing people around and saying No, ye'll naw be havin any o yer pleasures
Yes I was in Dumfries and Galloway last week and the Covid ambiance in the pubs and restaurants was completely different to England. But of course the rules are different there and Sturgeon knows best!
I was in Edinburgh and then near Gleneagles about a week ago. Mask wearing in shops was fairly standard. Didn't seem to be many limits on how many people came in places. One restaurant had a restricted numbers of tables - but that seemed to be more related to a staff shortage than COVID - everywhere else seemed to be back to as many tables as they could fit in.
Last week we were e in Wales where masks are required and everyone wore then.
Heading back we stopped in Liverpool where no one was wearing them
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Cheers for that
I work in the Aviation Insurance industry and we lost people that day
Will take a look
It is absolutely outstanding. At least, episode 1 was. Superbly done
I confess, I cried (in a manly way), a couple of times. It must have taken them years to piece together this footage, these witnesses, their stories, the whole damn thing. But so far it is a masterpiece
I was scheduled in be in the twin towers same day the following week at same time the first plane hit ....i was in North America at the time and got stuck there for 3 weeks as i was flying back out of NY and it was total chaos.
I remember later that week buying Time magazine, has an iconic front cover, as I was stuck in a hotel, trying to work out what to do.
I have really noticed over the last week how mask wearing in supermarkets is falling away big time.
Last visit was 20% masked 80% not
I was in Sainsbury today here in Godalming - literally only one person not wearing a mask, out of maybe 100 that I saw. But I'm sure the comments are right that it will fall away quickly if it starts to fall.
SW Surrey is one of the most middle-class seats in the country if I remember correctly.
Yes, it is. Archetypal Blue Wall, voted strongly Remain, few houses costing under £300K, and I see my rental of £1000/month as an amazing bargain. I was surprised the LibDems didn't come closer in 2019, but Jeremy Hunt is a good MP who projects a moderate image.
Weren’t they close years ago and thigh tho they had a chance of getting Virginia Bottomley out as part of their decapitation plan for top Tories.
Though the 'Decapitation Strategy' flopped abysmally. The only one they got in the end was Tim Collins (remember him?).
Westmorland and Lonsdale.
Interestingly, now the second-longest held Liberal Democrat seat and one of only two held continuously through the Coalition years until now - which tells you something about how bad the last three elections have been for them.
And abolished too. Which doesn’t get the next off to a flier.
Certainly Westmoreland and Eden looks a much harder fight for him.
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Cheers for that
I work in the Aviation Insurance industry and we lost people that day
Will take a look
It is absolutely outstanding. At least, episode 1 was. Superbly done
I confess, I cried (in a manly way), a couple of times. It must have taken them years to piece together this footage, these witnesses, their stories, the whole damn thing. But so far it is a masterpiece
Every time I hear the tapes of people calling to say good bye to their loved ones because they know they can't get out I end up crying.
We had a call to the office from a US colleague who had been out of (Twin tower) office at a client meeting and he couldn't get hold of any colleagues to see how they were.
A day I will never forget as long as I live - saying that I had been on a lunch with an underwriter and both our phones were off - I only found out when I got back to a rather shell shocked office
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Cheers for that
I work in the Aviation Insurance industry and we lost people that day
Will take a look
The reviews are in
9.5 on IMDB
Visceral, gut wrenching, tear-jerking
"I have to say, I've only watched 3 episodes so far, but this documentary is absolutely gut wrenching. I found myself having mini panic attacks while watching this. So if you are easily triggered, DO NOT WATCH. But, I also need to see this this through. I hope Hulu releases the remaining 3 episodes soon. But, this needs to be watched all over America. It needs to be watched to remind us of the hardships we overcame that day and the feeling of unity to protect our country."
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Not seen that - I assume it's subscription, which providers?
The BBC doc 9/11: Inside the President's War Room was pretty good - avail on iPlayer. G W Bush came across quite well, presumably partly because he and his team had a lot of input into it. Good documantary, anyway.
He did, really engaging documentary.
There was one moment in that show that made me laugh* was the Bush staff who took a whole week's worth of anti anthrax pills in one go and thought he was going to be dead soon.
I was scheduled in be in the twin towers same day the following week at same time the first plane hit ....i was in North America at the time and got stuck there for 3 weeks as i was flying back out of NY and it was total chaos.
I remember later that week buying Time magazine, has an iconic front cover, as I was stuck in a hotel, trying to work out what to do.
A friend from university was at the twin towers the Friday before and was due to fly back to the UK on 9/11.
It was an expensive few days for him, trying to find somewhere to stay. Even found a hotel where they charged by the hour.
Opinium - Con 40% Lab 35% LD 7% Grn 6% SNP 6%. The 5% Tory lead represents a swing to Labour of 3.35% since 2019 GE and implies - on a UNS basis - 32 Labour gains from the Tories and a majority of 16 before taking account of any Tory losses in Scotland. The SNP share of 6% is unchanged - though unrealistically high. I also suspect that at a GE the Green vote would be more like half the 6% credited to them here - to Labour's advantage in particular and to a lesser extent the LDs.
What i also remember was at the time few people had cellphones in US / Canada and certainly was limited internet access....at the time, i was in rural Canada and i only heard what happened on the radio as i was driving, and for several hours all i got was this Incredible haunting radio coverage, until i got to a campsite i was staying at.
I was immediately ushered inside by the owner, given a stiff drink and shown it on the tv. We then spent hours discussing how this would change the world.
Amazing to think how the world has changed in 20 years.
Opinium - Con 40% Lab 35% LD 7% Grn 6% SNP 6%. The 5% Tory lead represents a swing to Labour of 3.35% since 2019 GE and implies - on a UNS basis - 32 Labour gains from the Tories and a majority of 16 before taking account of any Tory losses in Scotland. The SNP share of 6% is unchanged - though unrealistically high. I also suspect that at a GE the Green vote would be more like half the 6% credited to them here - to Labour's advantage in particular and to a lesser extent the LDs.
In other words a small Maj for CON. Probably like the next GE as per my previous forecasts on this site 👍
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Not seen that - I assume it's subscription, which providers?
The BBC doc 9/11: Inside the President's War Room was pretty good - avail on iPlayer. G W Bush came across quite well, presumably partly because he and his team had a lot of input into it. Good documantary, anyway.
This is on a different level to anything I have seen. The Nat Geo producers were (I believe) given exclusive access to the archives of the 9/11 museum and library, hence the amazing found footage - and so much more
It is stomach-churning in good and bad ways. Stories of true heroism, but scenes of appalling horror. It really is like watching it all over again, the memories flood back. Tears doth flow
One of the most pivotal events in modern human history. I date America's true decline from this moment. So - for me - it really did change the world. Even if it didn't do that, it is one of the most strikingly horrific incidents in human experience - a massive, murderous attack on a huge city at peace with zero warning without any obvious motive, in the most dramatic, cinematic way
At the time the German composer Stockhausen called 9/11 "a work of conceptual art" and he was much vilified for it. But looking back, however distasteful his remark, he had a point. 9/11 affects the human brain like a genius work of art
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Not seen that - I assume it's subscription, which providers?
The BBC doc 9/11: Inside the President's War Room was pretty good - avail on iPlayer. G W Bush came across quite well, presumably partly because he and his team had a lot of input into it. Good documantary, anyway.
This is on a different level to anything I have seen. The Nat Geo producers were (I believe) given exclusive access to the archives of the 9/11 museum and library, hence the amazing found footage - and so much more
It is stomach-churning in good and bad ways. Stories of true heroism, but scenes of appalling horror. It really is like watching it all over again, the memories flood back. Tears doth flow
One of the most pivotal events in modern human history. I date America's true decline from this moment. So - for me - it really did change the world. Even if it didn't do that, it is one of the most strikingly horrific incidents in human experience - a massive, murderous attack on a huge city at peace with zero warning without any obvious motive, in the most dramatic, cinematic way
At the time the German composer Stockhausen called 9/11 "a work of conceptual art" and he was much vilified for it. But looking back, however distasteful his remark, he had a point. 9/11 affects the human brain like a genius work of art
I remember saying to my mother - I don't think you realise how badly the Americans are going to lose their shit and lash out
I have really noticed over the last week how mask wearing in supermarkets is falling away big time.
Last visit was 20% masked 80% not
I was in Sainsbury today here in Godalming - literally only one person not wearing a mask, out of maybe 100 that I saw. But I'm sure the comments are right that it will fall away quickly if it starts to fall.
I was in Sainsbury’s at the Arnison in North Durham today, early morning mainly older people, and pretty much everyone was masked up there. I wonder if people still wear masks up here as in the last spike the north east went into it very quickly.
My impression is that it is locally very lumpy. So all anecdotes can be true at once.
Not disputing that at all. I did wonder if it was age or regional.
still compulsory up here and most people wearing them in shops.
Yeah, we were at a wedding in Scotland last week and observance was total.
Having just been to Scotland I can confirm that their attitude to mask wearing and distancing is much more anal and oppressive than England. Masks bloody everywhere, gaiters not good enough, shopkeepers only allowing 1 person in every 6 hours
I love the Scots and the people I met generally were super friendly. but there is still a Puritan and officious streak in the Scottish character, that likes bossing people around and saying No, ye'll naw be havin any o yer pleasures
Yes I was in Dumfries and Galloway last week and the Covid ambiance in the pubs and restaurants was completely different to England. But of course the rules are different there and Sturgeon knows best!
I was in Edinburgh and then near Gleneagles about a week ago. Mask wearing in shops was fairly standard. Didn't seem to be many limits on how many people came in places. One restaurant had a restricted numbers of tables - but that seemed to be more related to a staff shortage than COVID - everywhere else seemed to be back to as many tables as they could fit in.
Last week we were e in Wales where masks are required and everyone wore then.
Heading back we stopped in Liverpool where no one was wearing them
For the first time today there were more people in Asda not wearing a mask than I have seen since the beginning of covid
I was scheduled in be in the twin towers same day the following week at same time the first plane hit ....i was in North America at the time and got stuck there for 3 weeks as i was flying back out of NY and it was total chaos.
I remember later that week buying Time magazine, has an iconic front cover, as I was stuck in a hotel, trying to work out what to do.
A friend from university was at the twin towers the Friday before and was due to fly back to the UK on 9/11.
It was an expensive few days for him, trying to find somewhere to stay. Even found a hotel where they charged by the hour.
I was so lucky, i went into a random travel agent and it was staffed by a British lady, who was a total superstar, and suggested where to go for a couple of weeks that didn't break the bank away from the chaos and in the meantime worked on getting me a reasonable cost flight back home.
I see NFT land has gone even more insane now, people are paying $1000s for short sequences of random words and numbers....
When the merry go round stops, there are going to be some people out of pocket massively....
It's Tulip Mania all over again.
Absolutely.....so just like the gold rush, people selling the shovels made the money....i went and bought a load of the tokens they need for this silly game...
There are quite a lot of people who understand the technology behind NFTs who are going to make a killing out of this. There was a case on the news last week a think about a young boy who, aided with a bit of knowhow from his computer programmer Dad, had made something like £300,000 selling pictures of cartoon whales.
All the "investors" who are still holding these strings of code when the music finally stops may not do quite so well out of it.
Is this a case of the govt frontloading the medicine so as to be able to give a spoonful of sugar at GE campaign time?
I think you misunderstand how fked the public finances are.
I think Tory mps do, too.
If they’re genuinely interested in balancing the books, we’ll need stronger medicine.
Boris doesn’t care about balancing the books though, so we get this token effort.
Hang on.
There are two key elements to the UK public finances:
(1) The amount of debt there is. This is actually fine, despite the Global Financial Crisis, Brexit and Covid. Once you eliminate debt owed to the Bank of of England, debt-to-GDP is probably around 65%. This is, in the general scheme of things, fine.
(2) The long term consequences of an ageing population and a birth rate below replacement. This, on the other hand, is not fine. Every year the number of people of non-working age - almost all of whom require expensive healthcare and pensions - grows, while the number of people of working age (absent immigration) does not.
This means that the proportion of the output of workers that is going to be diverted to pay for non-workers increases. Hopefully this can be offset by having more people working (as has happened in Japan), but this causes it's own problems - specifically that if both two people in a relationship are working, the chances of them having kids drops dramatically.
We do need to find a solution to (2) - in the longer term, having a taxation system that encourages people to have kids (see France) would be good; but in the short-term, we need to increase the age of retirement and avoid the state pension taking up too great a share of spending.
I just want to dwell on this last point for a second. There's been a lot of comment about wanting to to close the gap between the value of the state pension and average earnings.
So, let's say that there 1,000 pensioners, and 2,000 people of working age. If two thirds of people of working age work, and earn £30,000 on average. That means that you have £20,000,000 of wages out there to tax.
If your 1,000 pensioners all recieve one-third the average income (i.e. £10,000), that means you need to pay them £10,000,000 a year.
Before we talk about a single penny of other things that taxes need to be used for, we have to extract half the income of the workers to pay for pensions.
I suppose you did go to the same university as Diane Abbott…
2000 x £30,000 x 0.67 is not equal to £20,000,000
Oops. $40,000,000.
A quarter of the income of everybody needs to be extracted to pay pensions.
A problem with argued cases beginning "Let's say" is that they are really "Let's pull some figures out of thin air". Here the proposed numbers are quite a long way out.
(Not having a go at you in particular, @MaxPB - you tried to put some numbers on it).
Since these are all matters of fact and degree, balanced between different groups, sources of revenue, and requirements for expenditure, let's apply some real numbers to the same calculation.
In the UK there are 31.5 million people employed, receiving roughly 34k gross on average. There are 8.8 million people who get a State Pension, from age 66. However they are treated as couples by the pension, and some do not get the full amount or do not claim. The average payout is £158 per week (Source: Which?), or £8200 per year.
That is 24% of the average employed income. I think the full state pension is now 27% of the average employed income.
Max's corrected figure is 25% of workers (not everybody's) income needed to pay for pensions (ignoring all the other taxes, including that paid back by pensioners and working pensioners).
So the numbers are:
1 - 31.5/8.8 = 3.6 workers per pensioner. Not 2. Nearly double the suggestion. 2 - % of workers' income needed to pay pensioners is:
(£8200*8.8m)/(31.5m*£34000) = 6.7% .
Which is the fraction of workers' income needed currently in the UK to pay for the State Pension.
About 4 times lower than Max's "Let's Say" number.
If the State pension were to move to say 33% of Average Employed income, it would still only be 33/27*6.7 = 8.2% of working age population income. Which seems to me to be perfectly acceptable, especially as plenty of pensioners pay tax.
So I'd say that in fact it *is* sustainable, and a lot of people picking up on memes of the last 10 years, and drivelling on about 'generation theft', 'most selfish generation' and all the rest, need to get a little less hysterical and just do some f*cking maths.
I'd suggest that a reasonable expectation for a Full State Pension in the UK could perhaps be at the same level as the Minimum Wage.
And I agree that the current NI proposal for the payments for social care are stupid. They should go for the Dilnot Proposals.
The amount of revenue involved in funding social care properly is actually quite small - just about 1-1.5% of Government Expenditure. It certainly does not merit this level of hysteria.
We also need to understand the trends in increasing numbers of households receiving a pension.
I see NFT land has gone even more insane now, people are paying $1000s for short sequences of random words and numbers....
When the merry go round stops, there are going to be some people out of pocket massively....
It's Tulip Mania all over again.
Absolutely.....so just like the gold rush, people selling the shovels made the money....i went and bought a load of the tokens they need for this silly game...
There are quite a lot of people who understand the technology behind NFTs who are going to make a killing out of this. There was a case on the news last week a think about a young boy who, aided with a bit of knowhow from his computer programmer Dad, had made something like £300,000 selling pictures of cartoon whales.
All the "investors" who are still holding these strings of code when the music finally stops may not do quite so well out of it.
I wish I had the knowledge and confidence to get into it. Oh well.
You absolutely don't want to go anywhere near it. Its a game of high risk gambling mixed with market manipulation where those in the club hype particular NFTs to pump them, just like so many crypto currencies have been used to scam the sheeple.
Many of those gambling crazy money only paid cents original for their tokens, so even though its $1000s and $1000s in todays money, they own millions worth of them, and 10 Eth only cost them $1 back in the day (and now worth $40k).
On NI I expect it to be a package to include all workng pensioners to pay full NI and the triple lock suspended for 2022
Taken by itself it would be very brave and extremely unwise
And I have been saying for weeks that a Labour poll lead this year is very possible
Working pensioners are likely to be the poorer ones, with the wealthy sitting at home enjoying their pension and investment income.
I am not sure that is so. My experience of working pensioners is more mixed, even perhaps the opposite. A lot of professional people, including a number of my colleagues, take their pension then return on reduced hours. My solicitor and accountant have done the same. Working pensioners are a mix of those that have to work, and those that enjoy their work.
It was Ed Davey who abolished compulsory retirement, in one of his many astute policy decisions of what with time (and the notable exception over tuition fees) was in retrospect a golden period of good government under the Coalition.
The problem with abolishing compulsory retirement is that employers can no longer get rid of dead wood on high earnings.
I know that not all in their 60s are like that but some are.
This is also annoying for those of a younger generation who are doing the actual work but for less money.
Is age relevant for employment tribunals? Say you have a 90-year-old who used to be good but is well past it, but the employer hasn't had the heart to tell him his performance is declining. Suddenly a new boss takes over and sacks him for poor performance. He goes to a tribunal, pointing out that nobody mentioned this before. Can the employer use his age as supporting evidence? My understanding is no.
Which means that if someone digs in, you have to start telling them they're declining (if they are), instead of saying "we'd love to keep you but our retirement age is X".
What do you think about the issue NP?
It's sort of trivial for me in that employers should be able to divest themselves of employees with little notice.
No, I agree with the current law as I understand it. You need to either (a) show that the job is no longer required (=redundancy) or (b) that the incumbent is no longer good at it. If (b), you need to give reasonable warning that you're not satisfied, so they can attempt to improve. Isn't that the legal position?
Otherwise, you will get some temperamental employers routinely firing people (a la Alan Sugar) without any real justification, and all employees are in a constant state of fear. I was just curious whether great age changes anything in the legal position - but I don't think it does.
Although FWIW if an employer is really determined to get rid of someone, especially in a larger organisation, then they can often get around the problem with a round of restructuring. Deciding, for example, that you need three departmental managers, or two managers and two deputy managers, instead of the four managers you have in an existing structure. Opportunities to generate redundancy directly and/or to do so through re-interview for reduced numbers of roles. It would potentially be very difficult for the intended victim to prove that it was done to dispose of them, rather than being a consequence of a process of necessary reform.
I am sure a lot of pointless reorganisation is merely a charade in order to get rid of someone. In reality though they often get rid of the wrong person's.
Don't you just love being told how to do your job by a wet behind the ears twenty something management consultant who has never even run a school tuck shop?
I've certainly witnessed an example of reorganisation being used - or so we all suspected at the time - to resolve a personality clash in management, by the expedient of restructuring the lower-ranking individual out of a job.
Fortunately we've never been lumbered with any real nincompoops that I can recall. I am sure that it happens elsewhere in the private sector, especially in circumstances where a firm has been acquired by out-and-out asset-strippers and so the owners aren't that concerned about it being run into the ground. But generally speaking, there are only limited instances of failure, and fewer still of failing upwards, in successful businesses.
Not my father's experience working for a well known American private sector international business! Though he did manage in the end to br sent off in a highly paid sinicure in charge of pencil sharpening in the end, so it did work out for him...
I see NFT land has gone even more insane now, people are paying $1000s for short sequences of random words and numbers....
When the merry go round stops, there are going to be some people out of pocket massively....
It's Tulip Mania all over again.
Absolutely.....so just like the gold rush, people selling the shovels made the money....i went and bought a load of the tokens they need for this silly game...
There are quite a lot of people who understand the technology behind NFTs who are going to make a killing out of this. There was a case on the news last week a think about a young boy who, aided with a bit of knowhow from his computer programmer Dad, had made something like £300,000 selling pictures of cartoon whales.
All the "investors" who are still holding these strings of code when the music finally stops may not do quite so well out of it.
I have really noticed over the last week how mask wearing in supermarkets is falling away big time.
Last visit was 20% masked 80% not
I was in Sainsbury today here in Godalming - literally only one person not wearing a mask, out of maybe 100 that I saw. But I'm sure the comments are right that it will fall away quickly if it starts to fall.
I was in Sainsbury’s at the Arnison in North Durham today, early morning mainly older people, and pretty much everyone was masked up there. I wonder if people still wear masks up here as in the last spike the north east went into it very quickly.
My impression is that it is locally very lumpy. So all anecdotes can be true at once.
Not disputing that at all. I did wonder if it was age or regional.
still compulsory up here and most people wearing them in shops.
Yeah, we were at a wedding in Scotland last week and observance was total.
Having just been to Scotland I can confirm that their attitude to mask wearing and distancing is much more anal and oppressive than England. Masks bloody everywhere, gaiters not good enough, shopkeepers only allowing 1 person in every 6 hours
I love the Scots and the people I met generally were super friendly. but there is still a Puritan and officious streak in the Scottish character, that likes bossing people around and saying No, ye'll naw be havin any o yer pleasures
Yes I was in Dumfries and Galloway last week and the Covid ambiance in the pubs and restaurants was completely different to England. But of course the rules are different there and Sturgeon knows best!
I was in Edinburgh and then near Gleneagles about a week ago. Mask wearing in shops was fairly standard. Didn't seem to be many limits on how many people came in places. One restaurant had a restricted numbers of tables - but that seemed to be more related to a staff shortage than COVID - everywhere else seemed to be back to as many tables as they could fit in.
Last week we were e in Wales where masks are required and everyone wore then.
Heading back we stopped in Liverpool where no one was wearing them
Yes, wearing masks down this way doesn't seem to be causing much grief. Majority happily compliant.
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Cheers for that
I work in the Aviation Insurance industry and we lost people that day
Will take a look
It is absolutely outstanding. At least, episode 1 was. Superbly done
I confess, I cried (in a manly way), a couple of times. It must have taken them years to piece together this footage, these witnesses, their stories, the whole damn thing. But so far it is a masterpiece
Every time I hear the tapes of people calling to say good bye to their loved ones because they know they can't get out I end up crying.
We had a call to the office from a US colleague who had been out of (Twin tower) office at a client meeting and he couldn't get hold of any colleagues to see how they were.
A day I will never forget as long as I live - saying that I had been on a lunch with an underwriter and both our phones were off - I only found out when I got back to a rather shell shocked office
I was on a bulletin board whilst working, and someone mentioned the first plane crashing into a tower. I went into the Wow Room - a room filled with TVs and STBs - and put the news on in time to see the second crash.
The next day, I was asked to time the two minute silence, with all the employees outside the building. One of the oddest and saddest things I've ever had to do.
A while later, I met a man at a wedding reception who had been in one of the towers the day before. He claimed he had also been on the Marchioness on the night it sunk, and had been involved in one other London disaster - I think the Clapham crash. He was a mess.
As it happens, the reception also had casualties: one man tried sleeping in his car, but it caught fire, also setting fire to two adjacent cars. No-one was injured, but one car had been driven by a young woman who had 'borrowed' it from her company to impress a boyfriend. She got very drunk, knowing she wouldn't have a job on Monday morning...
I see NFT land has gone even more insane now, people are paying $1000s for short sequences of random words and numbers....
When the merry go round stops, there are going to be some people out of pocket massively....
It's Tulip Mania all over again.
Absolutely.....so just like the gold rush, people selling the shovels made the money....i went and bought a load of the tokens they need for this silly game...
There are quite a lot of people who understand the technology behind NFTs who are going to make a killing out of this. There was a case on the news last week a think about a young boy who, aided with a bit of knowhow from his computer programmer Dad, had made something like £300,000 selling pictures of cartoon whales.
All the "investors" who are still holding these strings of code when the music finally stops may not do quite so well out of it.
I wish I had the knowledge and confidence to get into it. Oh well.
You absolutely don't want to go anywhere near it.
Oh I get it's a massive bubble, but don't you get to make a lot of money if you sell before the bubble bursts?
The problem isn't just the bubble, it is getting your money out of the cryptocurrencies.
If/when you do into a traditional bank account then you risk getting hit with CIFAS markers/UWOs etc and you're utterly screwed.
With those two they don't have to prove your guilt/dodginess, it becomes a Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to prove your innocence of things you don't what you've been accused of.
Opinium - Con 40% Lab 35% LD 7% Grn 6% SNP 6%. The 5% Tory lead represents a swing to Labour of 3.35% since 2019 GE and implies - on a UNS basis - 32 Labour gains from the Tories and a majority of 16 before taking account of any Tory losses in Scotland. The SNP share of 6% is unchanged - though unrealistically high. I also suspect that at a GE the Green vote would be more like half the 6% credited to them here - to Labour's advantage in particular and to a lesser extent the LDs.
Yes, Tory vote solid enough, but slipped a little from it's high point. Labour vote again stable but no sign of any real break through. The next couple of months could be crucial, with likely tax rises and pension freezes coupled with a possible further rise this autumn for the virus. If those things dont change public opinion, nothing will.
I see NFT land has gone even more insane now, people are paying $1000s for short sequences of random words and numbers....
When the merry go round stops, there are going to be some people out of pocket massively....
It's Tulip Mania all over again.
Absolutely.....so just like the gold rush, people selling the shovels made the money....i went and bought a load of the tokens they need for this silly game...
There are quite a lot of people who understand the technology behind NFTs who are going to make a killing out of this. There was a case on the news last week a think about a young boy who, aided with a bit of knowhow from his computer programmer Dad, had made something like £300,000 selling pictures of cartoon whales.
All the "investors" who are still holding these strings of code when the music finally stops may not do quite so well out of it.
I wish I had the knowledge and confidence to get into it. Oh well.
You absolutely don't want to go anywhere near it.
Oh I get it's a massive bubble, but don't you get to make a lot of money if you sell before the bubble bursts?
Do you have $100k to gamble on this, because even the crappiest NFT will sell for 0.5-1 EFT i.e. $2-4k on the secondary market, plus gas, which can be another $500-1000....so that can be $5k for every lottery ticket. And you have to pay 20% more in fees for the marketplace.
And if you want to try and grab one as they are released, you have to play against bots and be willing to gamble gas to get one...and if you don't get one, you still pay the gas, which will be $1000...so you will have to fire multiple times to get anything.
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Not seen that - I assume it's subscription, which providers?
The BBC doc 9/11: Inside the President's War Room was pretty good - avail on iPlayer. G W Bush came across quite well, presumably partly because he and his team had a lot of input into it. Good documantary, anyway.
He did, really engaging documentary.
There was one moment in that show that made me laugh* was the Bush staff who took a whole week's worth of anti anthrax pills in one go and thought he was going to be dead soon.
*Not the right adjective.
Yes, if I had done hat I'd probably have talked myself into dying of imagined side-effects. But then I do have chronic hypocondria.
OK. I’m beginning to think there may be more to Emma Raducanu than just hype. She’s won ten games in a row now.
I looked at Betfair when she was 60 for the tournament and thought "nah..."
It would be astonishing if she actually won the tournament (she's likely to go out in the next round, given the draw) but she has played very well indeed in this match.
The opponent has finally won a game, but Raducanu is now serving for a 6-0, 6-1 win.
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Not seen that - I assume it's subscription, which providers?
The BBC doc 9/11: Inside the President's War Room was pretty good - avail on iPlayer. G W Bush came across quite well, presumably partly because he and his team had a lot of input into it. Good documantary, anyway.
He did, really engaging documentary.
There was one moment in that show that made me laugh* was the Bush staff who took a whole week's worth of anti anthrax pills in one go and thought he was going to be dead soon.
*Not the right adjective.
Yes, if I had done hat I'd probably have talked myself into dying of imagined side-effects. But then I do have chronic hypocondria.
Same, every pamphlet I read I convinced I have it.
I see NFT land has gone even more insane now, people are paying $1000s for short sequences of random words and numbers....
When the merry go round stops, there are going to be some people out of pocket massively....
It's Tulip Mania all over again.
Absolutely.....so just like the gold rush, people selling the shovels made the money....i went and bought a load of the tokens they need for this silly game...
There are quite a lot of people who understand the technology behind NFTs who are going to make a killing out of this. There was a case on the news last week a think about a young boy who, aided with a bit of knowhow from his computer programmer Dad, had made something like £300,000 selling pictures of cartoon whales.
All the "investors" who are still holding these strings of code when the music finally stops may not do quite so well out of it.
I wish I had the knowledge and confidence to get into it. Oh well.
You absolutely don't want to go anywhere near it. Its a game of high risk gambling mixed with market manipulation where those in the club hype particular NFTs to pump them, just like so many crypto currencies have been used to scam the sheeple.
Many of those gambling crazy money only paid cents original for their tokens, so even though its $1000s and $1000s in todays money, they own millions worth of them, and 10 Eth only cost them $1 back in the day (and now worth $40k).
Yes the thing that is often missed is that the NFT creators have to pay hundreds of dollars to get their NFTs listed for sale and then again to cash out their token "gains"
If i wanted to make money I would create an nft token. Create an nft demoninated in that token. Wash trade it at an absurd value then collect the commission from the suckers, sorry i mean artists, who list their nfts using my token.
I was scheduled in be in the twin towers same day the following week at same time the first plane hit ....i was in North America at the time and got stuck there for 3 weeks as i was flying back out of NY and it was total chaos.
I remember later that week buying Time magazine, has an iconic front cover, as I was stuck in a hotel, trying to work out what to do.
A friend from university was at the twin towers the Friday before and was due to fly back to the UK on 9/11.
It was an expensive few days for him, trying to find somewhere to stay. Even found a hotel where they charged by the hour.
My 9/11 is very low key, but may also be very unusual.
I was on a remote French campsite in the Albi area and did not see the news for another three days. I must be one of very, very few western people who did not watch live or almost live TV footage that day.
Me and the soon to be Mrs, had no idea. None. Completely unaware. The campsite was, as is the way in rural France in September, empty.
The first we heard about any of it was three days later when we moved from the campsite to a B&B as we got ready for the long drive home. The place was owned by two Brits and as we piled through the front door they said, 'what about new york? terrible, terrible news.' etc etc.
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Cheers for that
I work in the Aviation Insurance industry and we lost people that day
Will take a look
It is absolutely outstanding. At least, episode 1 was. Superbly done
I confess, I cried (in a manly way), a couple of times. It must have taken them years to piece together this footage, these witnesses, their stories, the whole damn thing. But so far it is a masterpiece
Every time I hear the tapes of people calling to say good bye to their loved ones because they know they can't get out I end up crying.
We had a call to the office from a US colleague who had been out of (Twin tower) office at a client meeting and he couldn't get hold of any colleagues to see how they were.
A day I will never forget as long as I live - saying that I had been on a lunch with an underwriter and both our phones were off - I only found out when I got back to a rather shell shocked office
I was on a bulletin board whilst working, and someone mentioned the first plane crashing into a tower. I went into the Wow Room - a room filled with TVs and STBs - and put the news on in time to see the second crash.
The next day, I was asked to time the two minute silence, with all the employees outside the building. One of the oddest and saddest things I've ever had to do.
A while later, I met a man at a wedding reception who had been in one of the towers the day before. He claimed he had also been on the Marchioness on the night it sunk, and had been involved in one other London disaster - I think the Clapham crash. He was a mess.
As it happens, the reception also had casualties: one man tried sleeping in his car, but it caught fire, also setting fire to two adjacent cars. No-one was injured, but one car had been driven by a young woman who had 'borrowed' it from her company to impress a boyfriend. She got very drunk, knowing she wouldn't have a job on Monday morning...
A friend of mine was on the Herald of Free Enterprise a couple of days before it sank. He was only six months old at the time so obviously has no memory of that.
I see NFT land has gone even more insane now, people are paying $1000s for short sequences of random words and numbers....
When the merry go round stops, there are going to be some people out of pocket massively....
It's Tulip Mania all over again.
Absolutely.....so just like the gold rush, people selling the shovels made the money....i went and bought a load of the tokens they need for this silly game...
There are quite a lot of people who understand the technology behind NFTs who are going to make a killing out of this. There was a case on the news last week a think about a young boy who, aided with a bit of knowhow from his computer programmer Dad, had made something like £300,000 selling pictures of cartoon whales.
All the "investors" who are still holding these strings of code when the music finally stops may not do quite so well out of it.
I wish I had the knowledge and confidence to get into it. Oh well.
You absolutely don't want to go anywhere near it.
Oh I get it's a massive bubble, but don't you get to make a lot of money if you sell before the bubble bursts?
The problem isn't just the bubble, it is getting your money out of the cryptocurrencies.
If/when you do into a traditional bank account then you risk getting hit with CIFAS markers/UWOs etc and you're utterly screwed.
With those two they don't have to prove your guilt/dodginess, it becomes a Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to prove your innocence of things you don't what you've been accused of.
How easy is it spend Bitcoin (on something legitimate?) Presumably if you could buy stuff with it first and then sell the stuff for conventional currency you could get around the problem in that fashion?
And there we go: Emma Raducanu has beaten Sara Sorribes Tormo, the world no.41, 6-0 6-1 in 69 minutes.
The likely fourth round opponent is Ashleigh Barty, the world no.1. In a curious coincidence, Barty was dumped out of the singles at the Olympics in the first round by... Sara Sorribes Tormo.
Opinium - Con 40% Lab 35% LD 7% Grn 6% SNP 6%. The 5% Tory lead represents a swing to Labour of 3.35% since 2019 GE and implies - on a UNS basis - 32 Labour gains from the Tories and a majority of 16 before taking account of any Tory losses in Scotland. The SNP share of 6% is unchanged - though unrealistically high. I also suspect that at a GE the Green vote would be more like half the 6% credited to them here - to Labour's advantage in particular and to a lesser extent the LDs.
Yes, Tory vote solid enough, but slipped a little from it's high point. Labour vote again stable but no sign of any real break through. The next couple of months could be crucial, with likely tax rises and pension freezes coupled with a possible further rise this autumn for the virus. If those things dont change public opinion, nothing will.
I still incline to the view that the persistence of the Pandemic is helpful to the incumbent - though not to the extent of 12 - 18 months ago. Normal party politics has been largely frozen out - though that now may be changing a bit and explains the narrower poll leads recently appearing. The Opposition is likely to have suffered on account of being pretty well invisible!
I see NFT land has gone even more insane now, people are paying $1000s for short sequences of random words and numbers....
When the merry go round stops, there are going to be some people out of pocket massively....
It's Tulip Mania all over again.
Absolutely.....so just like the gold rush, people selling the shovels made the money....i went and bought a load of the tokens they need for this silly game...
There are quite a lot of people who understand the technology behind NFTs who are going to make a killing out of this. There was a case on the news last week a think about a young boy who, aided with a bit of knowhow from his computer programmer Dad, had made something like £300,000 selling pictures of cartoon whales.
All the "investors" who are still holding these strings of code when the music finally stops may not do quite so well out of it.
I wish I had the knowledge and confidence to get into it. Oh well.
You absolutely don't want to go anywhere near it.
Oh I get it's a massive bubble, but don't you get to make a lot of money if you sell before the bubble bursts?
The problem isn't just the bubble, it is getting your money out of the cryptocurrencies.
If/when you do into a traditional bank account then you risk getting hit with CIFAS markers/UWOs etc and you're utterly screwed.
With those two they don't have to prove your guilt/dodginess, it becomes a Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to prove your innocence of things you don't what you've been accused of.
How easy is it spend Bitcoin (on something legitimate?) Presumably if you could buy stuff with it first and then sell the stuff for conventional currency you could get around the problem in that fashion?
Ah, i see you have discovered the concept of money laundering.
Watching the US Open has been horrific. The camera positions are so low on the minor courts that it is like watching a match on a corridor on my phone.
Non-fugible tokens.... basically they are being used to sell limited edition digital art, where you can prove who owns it via one of the various crypto blockchains (and its whole provenance)....but it has become tulip mania, where every day 10s of people release a collection and people are paying millions for stupid avatar pictures.
I see NFT land has gone even more insane now, people are paying $1000s for short sequences of random words and numbers....
When the merry go round stops, there are going to be some people out of pocket massively....
It's Tulip Mania all over again.
Absolutely.....so just like the gold rush, people selling the shovels made the money....i went and bought a load of the tokens they need for this silly game...
There are quite a lot of people who understand the technology behind NFTs who are going to make a killing out of this. There was a case on the news last week a think about a young boy who, aided with a bit of knowhow from his computer programmer Dad, had made something like £300,000 selling pictures of cartoon whales.
All the "investors" who are still holding these strings of code when the music finally stops may not do quite so well out of it.
I wish I had the knowledge and confidence to get into it. Oh well.
You absolutely don't want to go anywhere near it.
Oh I get it's a massive bubble, but don't you get to make a lot of money if you sell before the bubble bursts?
The problem isn't just the bubble, it is getting your money out of the cryptocurrencies.
If/when you do into a traditional bank account then you risk getting hit with CIFAS markers/UWOs etc and you're utterly screwed.
With those two they don't have to prove your guilt/dodginess, it becomes a Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to prove your innocence of things you don't what you've been accused of.
How easy is it spend Bitcoin (on something legitimate?) Presumably if you could buy stuff with it first and then sell the stuff for conventional currency you could get around the problem in that fashion?
I was scheduled in be in the twin towers same day the following week at same time the first plane hit ....i was in North America at the time and got stuck there for 3 weeks as i was flying back out of NY and it was total chaos.
I remember later that week buying Time magazine, has an iconic front cover, as I was stuck in a hotel, trying to work out what to do.
A friend from university was at the twin towers the Friday before and was due to fly back to the UK on 9/11.
It was an expensive few days for him, trying to find somewhere to stay. Even found a hotel where they charged by the hour.
My 9/11 is very low key, but may also be very unusual.
I was on a remote French campsite in the Albi area and did not see the news for another three days. I must be one of very, very few western people who did not watch live or almost live TV footage that day.
Me and the soon to be Mrs, had no idea. None. Completely unaware. The campsite was, as is the way in rural France in September, empty.
The first we heard about any of it was three days later when we moved from the campsite to a B&B as we got ready for the long drive home. The place was owned by two Brits and as we piled through the front door they said, 'what about new york? terrible, terrible news.' etc etc.
A friend of mine came into school the next day and didn’t know anything about it. That was a real head scratcher.
My mum says she fell asleep during Diagnosis Murder and woke up thinking “blimey, this is a bit extreme for Dick Van Dyke.”
I was scheduled in be in the twin towers same day the following week at same time the first plane hit ....i was in North America at the time and got stuck there for 3 weeks as i was flying back out of NY and it was total chaos.
I remember later that week buying Time magazine, has an iconic front cover, as I was stuck in a hotel, trying to work out what to do.
A friend from university was at the twin towers the Friday before and was due to fly back to the UK on 9/11.
It was an expensive few days for him, trying to find somewhere to stay. Even found a hotel where they charged by the hour.
My 9/11 is very low key, but may also be very unusual.
I was on a remote French campsite in the Albi area and did not see the news for another three days. I must be one of very, very few western people who did not watch live or almost live TV footage that day.
Me and the soon to be Mrs, had no idea. None. Completely unaware. The campsite was, as is the way in rural France in September, empty.
The first we heard about any of it was three days later when we moved from the campsite to a B&B as we got ready for the long drive home. The place was owned by two Brits and as we piled through the front door they said, 'what about new york? terrible, terrible news.' etc etc.
In it's own way that's quite a remarkable story, not "low key"
You must have been one of very few connected western people to be entirely unaware for three whole days. Amazing
I see NFT land has gone even more insane now, people are paying $1000s for short sequences of random words and numbers....
When the merry go round stops, there are going to be some people out of pocket massively....
It's Tulip Mania all over again.
Absolutely.....so just like the gold rush, people selling the shovels made the money....i went and bought a load of the tokens they need for this silly game...
There are quite a lot of people who understand the technology behind NFTs who are going to make a killing out of this. There was a case on the news last week a think about a young boy who, aided with a bit of knowhow from his computer programmer Dad, had made something like £300,000 selling pictures of cartoon whales.
All the "investors" who are still holding these strings of code when the music finally stops may not do quite so well out of it.
I wish I had the knowledge and confidence to get into it. Oh well.
You absolutely don't want to go anywhere near it.
Oh I get it's a massive bubble, but don't you get to make a lot of money if you sell before the bubble bursts?
The problem isn't just the bubble, it is getting your money out of the cryptocurrencies.
If/when you do into a traditional bank account then you risk getting hit with CIFAS markers/UWOs etc and you're utterly screwed.
With those two they don't have to prove your guilt/dodginess, it becomes a Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to prove your innocence of things you don't what you've been accused of.
How easy is it spend Bitcoin (on something legitimate?) Presumably if you could buy stuff with it first and then sell the stuff for conventional currency you could get around the problem in that fashion?
Nope, that's where the UWOs come in.
What's a UWO?
Oh, never mind, I don't know much about financey things and I don't really need to given my circumstances.
I see NFT land has gone even more insane now, people are paying $1000s for short sequences of random words and numbers....
When the merry go round stops, there are going to be some people out of pocket massively....
It's Tulip Mania all over again.
Absolutely.....so just like the gold rush, people selling the shovels made the money....i went and bought a load of the tokens they need for this silly game...
There are quite a lot of people who understand the technology behind NFTs who are going to make a killing out of this. There was a case on the news last week a think about a young boy who, aided with a bit of knowhow from his computer programmer Dad, had made something like £300,000 selling pictures of cartoon whales.
All the "investors" who are still holding these strings of code when the music finally stops may not do quite so well out of it.
I wish I had the knowledge and confidence to get into it. Oh well.
You absolutely don't want to go anywhere near it.
Oh I get it's a massive bubble, but don't you get to make a lot of money if you sell before the bubble bursts?
The problem isn't just the bubble, it is getting your money out of the cryptocurrencies.
If/when you do into a traditional bank account then you risk getting hit with CIFAS markers/UWOs etc and you're utterly screwed.
With those two they don't have to prove your guilt/dodginess, it becomes a Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to prove your innocence of things you don't what you've been accused of.
How easy is it spend Bitcoin (on something legitimate?) Presumably if you could buy stuff with it first and then sell the stuff for conventional currency you could get around the problem in that fashion?
Nope, that's where the UWOs come in.
What's a UWO?
Oh, never mind, I don't know much about financey things and I don't really need to given my circumstances.
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Cheers for that
I work in the Aviation Insurance industry and we lost people that day
Will take a look
It is absolutely outstanding. At least, episode 1 was. Superbly done
I confess, I cried (in a manly way), a couple of times. It must have taken them years to piece together this footage, these witnesses, their stories, the whole damn thing. But so far it is a masterpiece
Every time I hear the tapes of people calling to say good bye to their loved ones because they know they can't get out I end up crying.
We had a call to the office from a US colleague who had been out of (Twin tower) office at a client meeting and he couldn't get hold of any colleagues to see how they were.
A day I will never forget as long as I live - saying that I had been on a lunch with an underwriter and both our phones were off - I only found out when I got back to a rather shell shocked office
I was on a bulletin board whilst working, and someone mentioned the first plane crashing into a tower. I went into the Wow Room - a room filled with TVs and STBs - and put the news on in time to see the second crash.
The next day, I was asked to time the two minute silence, with all the employees outside the building. One of the oddest and saddest things I've ever had to do.
A while later, I met a man at a wedding reception who had been in one of the towers the day before. He claimed he had also been on the Marchioness on the night it sunk, and had been involved in one other London disaster - I think the Clapham crash. He was a mess.
As it happens, the reception also had casualties: one man tried sleeping in his car, but it caught fire, also setting fire to two adjacent cars. No-one was injured, but one car had been driven by a young woman who had 'borrowed' it from her company to impress a boyfriend. She got very drunk, knowing she wouldn't have a job on Monday morning...
A friend of mine was on the Herald of Free Enterprise a couple of days before it sank. He was only six months old at the time so obviously has no memory of that.
I went to a party on the Marchioness shortly before it sank. A rich Iranian was having a marriage of convenience so he didn't have to go back to be killed in human wave attacks. I knew his English fiancé.
Sky News @SkyNews JCVI member Professor Adam Finn said that the latest data from paediatric cardiologists in the US shows that there are concerns about the long-term side effects of COVID-19 vaccine for children.
Sky News @SkyNews JCVI member Professor Adam Finn said that the latest data from paediatric cardiologists in the US shows that there are concerns about the long-term side effects of COVID-19 vaccine for children.
Controversy at the Solheim Cup. A USA putt for a three came up just to the edge of the hole and the European girl picked up the ball within ten seconds. The American girls didn’t look annoyed, but the ref gave the Americans a three (i.e. assumed that the ball would drop in, which it wasn’t going to).
Is this a case of the govt frontloading the medicine so as to be able to give a spoonful of sugar at GE campaign time?
I think you misunderstand how fked the public finances are.
I think Tory mps do, too.
If they’re genuinely interested in balancing the books, we’ll need stronger medicine.
Boris doesn’t care about balancing the books though, so we get this token effort.
Hang on.
There are two key elements to the UK public finances:
(1) The amount of debt there is. This is actually fine, despite the Global Financial Crisis, Brexit and Covid. Once you eliminate debt owed to the Bank of of England, debt-to-GDP is probably around 65%. This is, in the general scheme of things, fine.
(2) The long term consequences of an ageing population and a birth rate below replacement. This, on the other hand, is not fine. Every year the number of people of non-working age - almost all of whom require expensive healthcare and pensions - grows, while the number of people of working age (absent immigration) does not.
This means that the proportion of the output of workers that is going to be diverted to pay for non-workers increases. Hopefully this can be offset by having more people working (as has happened in Japan), but this causes it's own problems - specifically that if both two people in a relationship are working, the chances of them having kids drops dramatically.
We do need to find a solution to (2) - in the longer term, having a taxation system that encourages people to have kids (see France) would be good; but in the short-term, we need to increase the age of retirement and avoid the state pension taking up too great a share of spending.
I just want to dwell on this last point for a second. There's been a lot of comment about wanting to to close the gap between the value of the state pension and average earnings.
So, let's say that there 1,000 pensioners, and 2,000 people of working age. If two thirds of people of working age work, and earn £30,000 on average. That means that you have £20,000,000 of wages out there to tax.
If your 1,000 pensioners all recieve one-third the average income (i.e. £10,000), that means you need to pay them £10,000,000 a year.
Before we talk about a single penny of other things that taxes need to be used for, we have to extract half the income of the workers to pay for pensions.
I suppose you did go to the same university as Diane Abbott…
2000 x £30,000 x 0.67 is not equal to £20,000,000
Oops. $40,000,000.
A quarter of the income of everybody needs to be extracted to pay pensions.
A problem with argued cases beginning "Let's say" is that they are really "Let's pull some figures out of thin air". Here the proposed numbers are quite a long way out.
(Not having a go at you in particular, @MaxPB - you tried to put some numbers on it).
Since these are all matters of fact and degree, balanced between different groups, sources of revenue, and requirements for expenditure, let's apply some real numbers to the same calculation.
In the UK there are 31.5 million people employed, receiving roughly 34k gross on average. There are 8.8 million people who get a State Pension, from age 66. However they are treated as couples by the pension, and some do not get the full amount or do not claim. The average payout is £158 per week (Source: Which?), or £8200 per year.
That is 24% of the average employed income. I think the full state pension is now 27% of the average employed income.
Max's corrected figure is 25% of workers (not everybody's) income needed to pay for pensions (ignoring all the other taxes, including that paid back by pensioners and working pensioners).
So the numbers are:
1 - 31.5/8.8 = 3.6 workers per pensioner. Not 2. Nearly double the suggestion. 2 - % of workers' income needed to pay pensioners is:
(£8200*8.8m)/(31.5m*£34000) = 6.7% .
Which is the fraction of workers' income needed currently in the UK to pay for the State Pension.
About 4 times lower than Max's "Let's Say" number.
If the State pension were to move to say 33% of Average Employed income, it would still only be 33/27*6.7 = 8.2% of working age population income. Which seems to me to be perfectly acceptable, especially as plenty of pensioners pay tax.
So I'd say that in fact it *is* sustainable, and a lot of people picking up on memes of the last 10 years, and drivelling on about 'generation theft', 'most selfish generation' and all the rest, need to get a little less hysterical and just do some f*cking maths.
I'd suggest that a reasonable expectation for a Full State Pension in the UK could perhaps be at the same level as the Minimum Wage.
And I agree that the current NI proposal for the payments for social care are stupid. They should go for the Dilnot Proposals.
The amount of revenue involved in funding social care properly is actually quite small - just about 1-1.5% of Government Expenditure. It certainly does not merit this level of hysteria.
We also need to understand the trends in increasing numbers of households receiving a pension.
(Open to corrections, obvs.)
One correction: I think it was @rcs1000 not @MaxPB who provided the "Let's say" numbers.
Would be a good move, will they have the balls to actually stick to it though?
It's not a surprise, I'm sure they were criticising the idea yesterday as well.
It would be more interesting to see what alternative idea they propose.
Seems like they'll propose a wealth tax instead
Hmmmm, the Devil's in the detail with that one. Is it going to be a broad-based charge or just another crack at peddling the "we could pay for absolutely everything totally painlessly, if only we held multi-millionaires upside down and shook them hard enough" trope?
EDIT: and will it, or will it not, be carefully structured so as to entirely exempt old people from paying it?
9/11. My missus was at the travel agent (remember them) early doors to book us a cheap package after schools were back. Needless to say she came away empty handed. Said it was madness in there. No one knew what the heck to do or say. Phones constantly ringing. No one wanting to answer. As they had nowt to say.
Sky News @SkyNews JCVI member Professor Adam Finn said that the latest data from paediatric cardiologists in the US shows that there are concerns about the long-term side effects of COVID-19 vaccine for children.
he is literally on the media every day.
Only in the few minutes when Pagel and Gurdasani have to take a break.
One of Prince Charles’s closest aides quit last night after claims that he had fixed an honour for a Saudi tycoon who donated more than £1.5 million to royal charities.
Michael Fawcett, the prince’s former valet, stepped down temporarily as chief executive of the Prince’s Foundation after The Sunday Times provided evidence of Charles’s dealings with the businessman.
Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz paid tens of thousands of pounds to fixers with links to the prince who had told him they could secure the honour.
Charles, 72, personally awarded Mahfouz, 51, his CBE at a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace in November 2016. The event was not announced in the Court Circular, the official list of royal engagements.
Aides close to the prince and senior staff in his charities had helped the paid fixers to secure the CBE after Mahfouz donated large sums to restoration projects of particular interest to Charles, including Dumfries House and the Castle of Mey.
Controversy at the Solheim Cup. A USA putt for a three came up just to the edge of the hole and the European girl picked up the ball within ten seconds. The American girls didn’t look annoyed, but the ref gave the Americans a three (i.e. assumed that the ball would drop in, which it wasn’t going to).
Bit early for them to start the legalised cheating. Bit irrating Sky are busy pushing an American agenda on the commentary. Ball had zero chance of going in and they should be ashamed of claiming it as a holed putt.
Would be a good move, will they have the balls to actually stick to it though?
It's not a surprise, I'm sure they were criticising the idea yesterday as well.
It would be more interesting to see what alternative idea they propose.
Seems like they'll propose a wealth tax instead
Hmmmm, the Devil's in the detail with that one. Is it going to be a broad-based charge or just another crack at peddling the "we could pay for absolutely everything totally painlessly, if only we held multi-millionaires upside down and shook them hard enough" trope?
... a 'trope' that has yet to be disproved.
Total UK wealth of private households is circa £17,000,000,000,000 (£17 trillion)
Would be a good move, will they have the balls to actually stick to it though?
It's not a surprise, I'm sure they were criticising the idea yesterday as well.
It would be more interesting to see what alternative idea they propose.
Seems like they'll propose a wealth tax instead
Hmmmm, the Devil's in the detail with that one. Is it going to be a broad-based charge or just another crack at peddling the "we could pay for absolutely everything totally painlessly, if only we held multi-millionaires upside down and shook them hard enough" trope?
EDIT: and will it, or will it not, be carefully structured so as to entirely exempt old people from paying it?
I think if Labour proposed a wealth tax that specifically covered social care and was ringfenced perhaps that would be a good move. I agree that "just tax everyone more" as a means to pay for everything is where Labour has previously gone wrong.
Controversy at the Solheim Cup. A USA putt for a three came up just to the edge of the hole and the European girl picked up the ball within ten seconds. The American girls didn’t look annoyed, but the ref gave the Americans a three (i.e. assumed that the ball would drop in, which it wasn’t going to).
Bit early for them to start the legalised cheating. Bit irrating Sky are busy pushing an American agenda on the commentary. Ball had zero chance of going in and they should be ashamed of claiming it as a holed putt.
Yeah, I don’t like the fact that the refs instigated that. It should be up to each side to make sure the others comply with the rules. The Americans didn’t complain so they obviously thought it wasn’t going in so that should be that.
Oh, and they’re on the clock apparently. Can be a dumb game sometimes.
I think if Labour proposed a wealth tax that specifically covered social care and was ringfenced perhaps that would be a good move. I agree that "just tax everyone more" as a means to pay for everything is where Labour has previously gone wrong.
They need to cut down the offer significantly.
Much derided these days, but Blair's short list of things they would do in first term back in 1997 seems relevant here.
Would be a good move, will they have the balls to actually stick to it though?
It's not a surprise, I'm sure they were criticising the idea yesterday as well.
It would be more interesting to see what alternative idea they propose.
Seems like they'll propose a wealth tax instead
Hmmmm, the Devil's in the detail with that one. Is it going to be a broad-based charge or just another crack at peddling the "we could pay for absolutely everything totally painlessly, if only we held multi-millionaires upside down and shook them hard enough" trope?
... a 'trope' that has yet to be disproved.
Total UK wealth of private households is circa £17,000,000,000,000 (£17 trillion)
If you shake the very rich hard enough they have the option to go elsewhere. To get the sums of money it needs, the state has to go after the middle classes.
Would be a good move, will they have the balls to actually stick to it though?
It's not a surprise, I'm sure they were criticising the idea yesterday as well.
It would be more interesting to see what alternative idea they propose.
Seems like they'll propose a wealth tax instead
Hmmmm, the Devil's in the detail with that one. Is it going to be a broad-based charge or just another crack at peddling the "we could pay for absolutely everything totally painlessly, if only we held multi-millionaires upside down and shook them hard enough" trope?
EDIT: and will it, or will it not, be carefully structured so as to entirely exempt old people from paying it?
8% pension increase and 8% wealth tax. Sorted.
Said tax being levied exclusively on the under-66s, one imagines.
I think if Labour proposed a wealth tax that specifically covered social care and was ringfenced perhaps that would be a good move. I agree that "just tax everyone more" as a means to pay for everything is where Labour has previously gone wrong.
They need to cut down the offer significantly.
Much derided these days, but Blair's short list of things they would do in first term back in 1997 seems relevant here.
I was going to allude to exactly this.
They need a package of I don't know, four or five things they will do and leave it at that.
Science and technology seem key, so I would do something involving FTTP if it were me but I admit that probably isn't very easy to sell
I was scheduled in be in the twin towers same day the following week at same time the first plane hit ....i was in North America at the time and got stuck there for 3 weeks as i was flying back out of NY and it was total chaos.
I remember later that week buying Time magazine, has an iconic front cover, as I was stuck in a hotel, trying to work out what to do.
A friend from university was at the twin towers the Friday before and was due to fly back to the UK on 9/11.
It was an expensive few days for him, trying to find somewhere to stay. Even found a hotel where they charged by the hour.
My 9/11 is very low key, but may also be very unusual.
I was on a remote French campsite in the Albi area and did not see the news for another three days. I must be one of very, very few western people who did not watch live or almost live TV footage that day.
Me and the soon to be Mrs, had no idea. None. Completely unaware. The campsite was, as is the way in rural France in September, empty.
The first we heard about any of it was three days later when we moved from the campsite to a B&B as we got ready for the long drive home. The place was owned by two Brits and as we piled through the front door they said, 'what about new york? terrible, terrible news.' etc etc.
Not days, but I didn't find out for about seven hours after it happened.
I was working at the time in McDonalds, and nobody discussed it at all when it happened remarkably so I simply never found out. At lunchtime the TV in the break room was off, I considered putting it on but thought there's never anything on TV in the daytime so decided against it. At the end of my shift took the bus home, stopped at a supermarket and browsed the electronics section - all the TVs were on a DVD none of them on live TV.
Only when I got home did I eventually find out. Got home and my brother said had I heard the Twin Towers were destroyed, and I thought he meant Wembley stadium until I saw the news.
PS one thing I do remember is that there was a story in The Times I'd read on the bus in the way in that morning about the Taliban and the destruction of ancient cultural artefacts that had just occurred at the time.
Is this a case of the govt frontloading the medicine so as to be able to give a spoonful of sugar at GE campaign time?
I think you misunderstand how fked the public finances are.
I think Tory mps do, too.
If they’re genuinely interested in balancing the books, we’ll need stronger medicine.
Boris doesn’t care about balancing the books though, so we get this token effort.
Hang on.
There are two key elements to the UK public finances:
(1) The amount of debt there is. This is actually fine, despite the Global Financial Crisis, Brexit and Covid. Once you eliminate debt owed to the Bank of of England, debt-to-GDP is probably around 65%. This is, in the general scheme of things, fine.
(2) The long term consequences of an ageing population and a birth rate below replacement. This, on the other hand, is not fine. Every year the number of people of non-working age - almost all of whom require expensive healthcare and pensions - grows, while the number of people of working age (absent immigration) does not.
This means that the proportion of the output of workers that is going to be diverted to pay for non-workers increases. Hopefully this can be offset by having more people working (as has happened in Japan), but this causes it's own problems - specifically that if both two people in a relationship are working, the chances of them having kids drops dramatically.
We do need to find a solution to (2) - in the longer term, having a taxation system that encourages people to have kids (see France) would be good; but in the short-term, we need to increase the age of retirement and avoid the state pension taking up too great a share of spending.
I just want to dwell on this last point for a second. There's been a lot of comment about wanting to to close the gap between the value of the state pension and average earnings.
So, let's say that there 1,000 pensioners, and 2,000 people of working age. If two thirds of people of working age work, and earn £30,000 on average. That means that you have £20,000,000 of wages out there to tax.
If your 1,000 pensioners all recieve one-third the average income (i.e. £10,000), that means you need to pay them £10,000,000 a year.
Before we talk about a single penny of other things that taxes need to be used for, we have to extract half the income of the workers to pay for pensions.
I suppose you did go to the same university as Diane Abbott…
2000 x £30,000 x 0.67 is not equal to £20,000,000
Oops. $40,000,000.
A quarter of the income of everybody needs to be extracted to pay pensions.
I see little evidence in polling so far that there will be a revolt but I think there is something to be said for seemingly a lot of Tories on here being anti these moves
Not sure if I Louise’d this last night, but has anyone been watching Nat Geo’s SUPERB docu series on 9/11?
They have found quite extraordinary footage - and stories to go with. Episode 1 was just a work of art
If it continues this good…..
Cheers for that
I work in the Aviation Insurance industry and we lost people that day
Will take a look
It is absolutely outstanding. At least, episode 1 was. Superbly done
I confess, I cried (in a manly way), a couple of times. It must have taken them years to piece together this footage, these witnesses, their stories, the whole damn thing. But so far it is a masterpiece
Every time I hear the tapes of people calling to say good bye to their loved ones because they know they can't get out I end up crying.
We had a call to the office from a US colleague who had been out of (Twin tower) office at a client meeting and he couldn't get hold of any colleagues to see how they were.
A day I will never forget as long as I live - saying that I had been on a lunch with an underwriter and both our phones were off - I only found out when I got back to a rather shell shocked office
I was on a bulletin board whilst working, and someone mentioned the first plane crashing into a tower. I went into the Wow Room - a room filled with TVs and STBs - and put the news on in time to see the second crash.
The next day, I was asked to time the two minute silence, with all the employees outside the building. One of the oddest and saddest things I've ever had to do.
A while later, I met a man at a wedding reception who had been in one of the towers the day before. He claimed he had also been on the Marchioness on the night it sunk, and had been involved in one other London disaster - I think the Clapham crash. He was a mess.
As it happens, the reception also had casualties: one man tried sleeping in his car, but it caught fire, also setting fire to two adjacent cars. No-one was injured, but one car had been driven by a young woman who had 'borrowed' it from her company to impress a boyfriend. She got very drunk, knowing she wouldn't have a job on Monday morning...
A friend of mine was on the Herald of Free Enterprise a couple of days before it sank. He was only six months old at the time so obviously has no memory of that.
We did a day trip to France (Dover-Calias) the same day as the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster.
We got back to my mum's in Hastings knowing nothing about the disaster, to find her frantic with worry because she'd (totally irrationally) convinced herself that we'd gone to Zeebrugge. Very weird.
When the news of 9/11 broke, my girlfriend, now wife, called me at work in tears. Her best friend from college worked a block from the towers at the time. Wasn’t until hours later we found out that she was running late that morning and her subway got stopped well before ground zero. She did have to walk home across Brooklyn Bridge with thousands of others.
Today, or at least pre-pandemic, I work in the new 4WTC. It is sad to see so many people treating the memorial as just another tourist thing to tick off from their visit to NYC.
I think if Labour proposed a wealth tax that specifically covered social care and was ringfenced perhaps that would be a good move. I agree that "just tax everyone more" as a means to pay for everything is where Labour has previously gone wrong.
They need to cut down the offer significantly.
Much derided these days, but Blair's short list of things they would do in first term back in 1997 seems relevant here.
Though Blair's first term led to a collapse of turnout at the 2001 GE when it fell to levels not seen since 1918. There was a particularly sharp fall in the traditional Labour areas - and was the first sign of support disappearing in Red Wall seats.
Comments
The BBC doc 9/11: Inside the President's War Room was pretty good - avail on iPlayer. G W Bush came across quite well, presumably partly because he and his team had a lot of input into it. Good documantary, anyway.
Heading back we stopped in Liverpool where no one was wearing them
I confess, I cried (in a manly way), a couple of times. It must have taken them years to piece together this footage, these witnesses, their stories, the whole damn thing. But so far it is a masterpiece
I remember later that week buying Time magazine, has an iconic front cover, as I was stuck in a hotel, trying to work out what to do.
We had a call to the office from a US colleague who had been out of (Twin tower) office at a client meeting and he couldn't get hold of any colleagues to see how they were.
A day I will never forget as long as I live - saying that I had been on a lunch with an underwriter and both our phones were off - I only found out when I got back to a rather shell shocked office
9.5 on IMDB
Visceral, gut wrenching, tear-jerking
"I have to say, I've only watched 3 episodes so far, but this documentary is absolutely gut wrenching. I found myself having mini panic attacks while watching this. So if you are easily triggered, DO NOT WATCH. But, I also need to see this this through. I hope Hulu releases the remaining 3 episodes soon. But, this needs to be watched all over America. It needs to be watched to remind us of the hardships we overcame that day and the feeling of unity to protect our country."
It is remarkable
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14734548/?ref_=tt_rvi_tt_i_1
There was one moment in that show that made me laugh* was the Bush staff who took a whole week's worth of anti anthrax pills in one go and thought he was going to be dead soon.
*Not the right adjective.
It was an expensive few days for him, trying to find somewhere to stay. Even found a hotel where they charged by the hour.
Fascinating stuff so far.
The 5% Tory lead represents a swing to Labour of 3.35% since 2019 GE and implies - on a UNS basis - 32 Labour gains from the Tories and a majority of 16 before taking account of any Tory losses in Scotland.
The SNP share of 6% is unchanged - though unrealistically high. I also suspect that at a GE the Green vote would be more like half the 6% credited to them here - to Labour's advantage in particular and to a lesser extent the LDs.
and for several hours all i got was this Incredible haunting radio coverage, until i got to a campsite i was staying at.
I was immediately ushered inside by the owner, given a stiff drink and shown it on the tv. We then spent hours discussing how this would change the world.
Amazing to think how the world has changed in 20 years.
It is stomach-churning in good and bad ways. Stories of true heroism, but scenes of appalling horror. It really is like watching it all over again, the memories flood back. Tears doth flow
One of the most pivotal events in modern human history. I date America's true decline from this moment. So - for me - it really did change the world. Even if it didn't do that, it is one of the most strikingly horrific incidents in human experience - a massive, murderous attack on a huge city at peace with zero warning without any obvious motive, in the most dramatic, cinematic way
At the time the German composer Stockhausen called 9/11 "a work of conceptual art" and he was much vilified for it. But looking back, however distasteful his remark, he had a point. 9/11 affects the human brain like a genius work of art
Wasn't wrong I think....
I wish I had the knowledge and confidence to get into it. Oh well.
(Not having a go at you in particular, @MaxPB - you tried to put some numbers on it).
Since these are all matters of fact and degree, balanced between different groups, sources of revenue, and requirements for expenditure, let's apply some real numbers to the same calculation.
In the UK there are 31.5 million people employed, receiving roughly 34k gross on average.
There are 8.8 million people who get a State Pension, from age 66. However they are treated as couples by the pension, and some do not get the full amount or do not claim. The average payout is £158 per week (Source: Which?), or £8200 per year.
That is 24% of the average employed income. I think the full state pension is now 27% of the average employed income.
Max's corrected figure is 25% of workers (not everybody's) income needed to pay for pensions (ignoring all the other taxes, including that paid back by pensioners and working pensioners).
So the numbers are:
1 - 31.5/8.8 = 3.6 workers per pensioner. Not 2. Nearly double the suggestion.
2 - % of workers' income needed to pay pensioners is:
(£8200*8.8m)/(31.5m*£34000) = 6.7% .
Which is the fraction of workers' income needed currently in the UK to pay for the State Pension.
About 4 times lower than Max's "Let's Say" number.
If the State pension were to move to say 33% of Average Employed income, it would still only be 33/27*6.7 = 8.2% of working age population income. Which seems to me to be perfectly acceptable, especially as plenty of pensioners pay tax.
So I'd say that in fact it *is* sustainable, and a lot of people picking up on memes of the last 10 years, and drivelling on about 'generation theft', 'most selfish generation' and all the rest, need to get a little less hysterical and just do some f*cking maths.
I'd suggest that a reasonable expectation for a Full State Pension in the UK could perhaps be at the same level as the Minimum Wage.
And I agree that the current NI proposal for the payments for social care are stupid. They should go for the Dilnot Proposals.
The amount of revenue involved in funding social care properly is actually quite small - just about 1-1.5% of Government Expenditure. It certainly does not merit this level of hysteria.
We also need to understand the trends in increasing numbers of households receiving a pension.
(Open to corrections, obvs.)
Many of those gambling crazy money only paid cents original for their tokens, so even though its $1000s and $1000s in todays money, they own millions worth of them, and 10 Eth only cost them $1 back in the day (and now worth $40k).
In my friend's instance Virgin Atlantic honoured the cancelled flight tickets without charge but the rest of the costs he had to foot himself.
The next day, I was asked to time the two minute silence, with all the employees outside the building. One of the oddest and saddest things I've ever had to do.
A while later, I met a man at a wedding reception who had been in one of the towers the day before. He claimed he had also been on the Marchioness on the night it sunk, and had been involved in one other London disaster - I think the Clapham crash. He was a mess.
As it happens, the reception also had casualties: one man tried sleeping in his car, but it caught fire, also setting fire to two adjacent cars. No-one was injured, but one car had been driven by a young woman who had 'borrowed' it from her company to impress a boyfriend. She got very drunk, knowing she wouldn't have a job on Monday morning...
If/when you do into a traditional bank account then you risk getting hit with CIFAS markers/UWOs etc and you're utterly screwed.
With those two they don't have to prove your guilt/dodginess, it becomes a Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to prove your innocence of things you don't what you've been accused of.
The next couple of months could be crucial, with likely tax rises and pension freezes coupled with a possible further rise this autumn for the virus. If those things dont change public opinion, nothing will.
And if you want to try and grab one as they are released, you have to play against bots and be willing to gamble gas to get one...and if you don't get one, you still pay the gas, which will be $1000...so you will have to fire multiple times to get anything.
The opponent has finally won a game, but Raducanu is now serving for a 6-0, 6-1 win.
Heck, one time I thought I was a Jew for Jesus.
If i wanted to make money I would create an nft token. Create an nft demoninated in that token. Wash trade it at an absurd value then collect the commission from the suckers, sorry i mean artists, who list their nfts using my token.
I was on a remote French campsite in the Albi area and did not see the news for another three days. I must be one of very, very few western people who did not watch live or almost live TV footage that day.
Me and the soon to be Mrs, had no idea. None. Completely unaware. The campsite was, as is the way in rural France in September, empty.
The first we heard about any of it was three days later when we moved from the campsite to a B&B as we got ready for the long drive home. The place was owned by two Brits and as we piled through the front door they said, 'what about new york? terrible, terrible news.' etc etc.
The likely fourth round opponent is Ashleigh Barty, the world no.1. In a curious coincidence, Barty was dumped out of the singles at the Olympics in the first round by... Sara Sorribes Tormo.
My avatar sold for $150k.
My mum says she fell asleep during Diagnosis Murder and woke up thinking “blimey, this is a bit extreme for Dick Van Dyke.”
You don't need any blockchain nonsense to purchase the commercial rights to a piece of art.
Also, i can see it develop where automatic royalties charged when used in say advertising by companies. That is potentially very useful.
You must have been one of very few connected western people to be entirely unaware for three whole days. Amazing
Oh, never mind, I don't know much about financey things and I don't really need to given my circumstances.
Would be a good move, will they have the balls to actually stick to it though?
https://www.jmw.co.uk/services-for-business/business-crime/articles/what-you-need-know-unexplained-wealth-orders
It would be more interesting to see what alternative idea they propose.
It was a great party, but what a death trap.
@SkyNews
JCVI member Professor Adam Finn said that the latest data from paediatric cardiologists in the US shows that there are concerns about the long-term side effects of COVID-19 vaccine for children.
EDIT: and will it, or will it not, be carefully structured so as to entirely exempt old people from paying it?
Total UK wealth of private households is circa £17,000,000,000,000 (£17 trillion)
They need to cut down the offer significantly.
Oh, and they’re on the clock apparently. Can be a dumb game sometimes.
http://aboutasfarasdelgados.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-optical-illusion-of-net-ratings.html
They need a package of I don't know, four or five things they will do and leave it at that.
Science and technology seem key, so I would do something involving FTTP if it were me but I admit that probably isn't very easy to sell
I was working at the time in McDonalds, and nobody discussed it at all when it happened remarkably so I simply never found out. At lunchtime the TV in the break room was off, I considered putting it on but thought there's never anything on TV in the daytime so decided against it. At the end of my shift took the bus home, stopped at a supermarket and browsed the electronics section - all the TVs were on a DVD none of them on live TV.
Only when I got home did I eventually find out. Got home and my brother said had I heard the Twin Towers were destroyed, and I thought he meant Wembley stadium until I saw the news.
PS one thing I do remember is that there was a story in The Times I'd read on the bus in the way in that morning about the Taliban and the destruction of ancient cultural artefacts that had just occurred at the time.
Neil Henderson
@hendopolis
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52s
SUNDAY EXPRESS: Tory MPs fear voter revolt #TomorrowsPapersToday
We got back to my mum's in Hastings knowing nothing about the disaster, to find her frantic with worry because she'd (totally irrationally) convinced herself that we'd gone to Zeebrugge. Very weird.
Today, or at least pre-pandemic, I work in the new 4WTC. It is sad to see so many people treating the memorial as just another tourist thing to tick off from their visit to NYC.
Down the Tory vote falls over time, I think we will see a tie in a poll very soon
They need to be careful how they phrase this one…