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Latest voting split GE2021 CON voters – politicalbetting.com

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  • boulayboulay Posts: 3,769
    rcs1000 said:

    In news that will surprise exactly no one, early reviews suggest that Peter Jackson's Get Back is far too long.

    He should have got Yoko Ono on board as an editor - she could have reduced it by a quarter.
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787

    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    Nationalise it FFS.
    I remember when utilities, the railways, car manufacturers et al were "nationalised". Also, more laughably known as "in public ownership". They were all totally and utterly shit. And sorry, for all their faults, much much shitter than they are today. The man in Whitehall really does not know best.
    In what way were gas, water and electric “shit” under public ownership? You turned on the light switch, the lights came on, similarly gas and water. The cost was reasonable: maybe some privatized suppliers have been cheaper since but you didn't have to keep searching out the best “deal” every year or two.

    British Leyland I grant you, but I don’t recall the products of GM/Vauxhall or Chrysler/Talbot (whatever it became) being any much better than Austin-Morris-Rover in the 70s and 80s.

    As to the trains, BR in its last years did seem to be getting it right: InterCity was profitable and cross-subsidized the other sectors, eithout the. Fleet renewal was underway too.

    Maybe telecoms was best privatized though. Having your phone hard-wired into the wall seems unbelievable today!
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited November 2021
    FPT:
    rcs1000 said:



    Yes the genuine refugees do that. That's kind of the point.

    It would be interesting, though difficult, to see an unbiased analysis of why a minority do press on to the UK. For the benefits? Hardly - benefits are much more generous elsewhere. Because they speak some English and reckon they've got a better chance here? Possibly, but pay a fortune and risk death for that? Because they know others here and feel that would make life better?

    The implication that taking risks to get here suggests they aren't genuine is a non-sequitur. Yes, step 1 is to get out of a hell-hole, and arrive in, say, Greece. But if you don't speak Greek or know any Greeks, and you do speak English and know someone in London, then step 2 may be to try to get here. That doesn't invalidate step 1.
    There is a big undocumented economy in the UK compared to most European countries.
    Are there international stats available on this?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279

    Andy_JS said:

    On topic, the most interesting thing is so few voters switching between the two main parties.

    To me that is to be expected. The voter who jumps between the two is a rare beast. Apparent red-blue swings are the superficial reading of a multitude of more complex movements in voting intention.
    True, although when it's clear there's going to be a change of government, such as 1979, 1997 and 2010, you probably get a much higher percentage. So it's a sign that if anything changes at the next election it's likely to be in the direction of a hung parliament, although we knew that already.
  • Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    boulay said:

    On the news just now they announced that a 5th person has been arrested in France Re the boat people who died.

    How is it that the French authorities can within 24 hours arrest 5 people, they must have enough evidence of their involvement, and not use that intelligence they must have had to arrest them before on people trafficking offences?

    It’s another key question I have is why does there not seem to be a big enough intelligence effort to infiltrate the gangs or process to stop these gangs in the same way they target drugs gangs?

    France is following a perfectly sane policy (and which is the same as the policy in both Switzerland and Norway) of encouraging asylum seekers to self deport.

    If an asylum seeker in Northern Ireland was walking towards the Irish border, should we tackle him to the ground to prevent him leaving the country?
    Yes, we should and would tackle him, if he was carrying a child and crossing potentially lethal water

    That's the difference. The French are callously allowing children to die, to rid themselves of a problem. There are videos of armed police standing by, in broad daylight, doing nothing, as the migrants climb into the boats - with kids

    The cops claim they are intimidated by "the numbers" but it is bollocks. They have guns, the migrants don't.

    Sure they can't stop every boat, but they aren't even trying

    Should is very different to would.

    The idea that, in the absence of any kind of treaty requirement, the UK government would spend significant amounts of money preventing people it did not want here from leaving is for the fairies.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...
  • Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    Nationalise it FFS.
    I remember when utilities, the railways, car manufacturers et al were "nationalised". Also, more laughably known as "in public ownership". They were all totally and utterly shit. And sorry, for all their faults, much much shitter than they are today. The man in Whitehall really does not know best.
    Who said go back to those days? Do like the rest of Europe does - state owned commercial enterprises. EDF is nationalised.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,758
    Cyclefree said:

    Anyway, today is Elimination of Violence Against Women Day, I am told.

    I am not, on the whole, a fan of all these "Days".

    But it is worth remembering that, as of today, in Britain so far this year 127 women have been killed.

    328 days of the year. 127 women killed.

    1 woman killed every two and a half days.

    Most do not even make the local let alone national news. If this number were killed in one go, we'd never hear the end of it. But one here and there all over the country every few days, most in domestic settings, most by people known to them, overwhelmingly by men - well they just become routine, part of the daily background, unknown, forgotten and not cared enough about for anyone to do anything effective to understand why this happens and what can be done to change it.

    And this rate of killing is broadly the same year after year.

    Let's compare it to the 20 years the British Army spent in Afghanistan - a largely pointless undertaking, mostly remembered for the sad convoys through Wootten Bassett and people paying their respects.

    457 soldiers killed, 405 through enemy action. Ca. 23 a year.

    I do not diminish their sacrifice or the loss their loved ones suffer.

    But these women too have a name and people who loved them and miss them and this weary acceptance of their deaths really will not do.

    Still, we have a "Day", I suppose. Must we be content just with that?

    Or, I suppose, we could compare it with the roughly double number of male homicides over the same time. Do they get a "day"?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,877
    Cyclefree said:

    Anyway, today is Elimination of Violence Against Women Day, I am told.

    I am not, on the whole, a fan of all these "Days".

    But it is worth remembering that, as of today, in Britain so far this year 127 women have been killed.

    328 days of the year. 127 women killed.

    1 woman killed every two and a half days.

    Most do not even make the local let alone national news. If this number were killed in one go, we'd never hear the end of it. But one here and there all over the country every few days, most in domestic settings, most by people known to them, overwhelmingly by men - well they just become routine, part of the daily background, unknown, forgotten and not cared enough about for anyone to do anything effective to understand why this happens and what can be done to change it.

    And this rate of killing is broadly the same year after year.

    Let's compare it to the 20 years the British Army spent in Afghanistan - a largely pointless undertaking, mostly remembered for the sad convoys through Wootten Bassett and people paying their respects.

    457 soldiers killed, 405 through enemy action. Ca. 23 a year.

    I do not diminish their sacrifice or the loss their loved ones suffer.

    But these women too have a name and people who loved them and miss them and this weary acceptance of their deaths really will not do.

    Still, we have a "Day", I suppose. Must we be content just with that?

    How many men have been killed in the same period? I am not trying to be crass. Every murder is horrific in its own way, whether it is a knife fight among gangs, or a murdered wife at home. How about an Elimination of Violence against people day instead?
  • pingping Posts: 3,724

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    With respect, I’m pretty much the opposite of a PB Tory and I think the cap is crap.

    Either have a free energy market, sans cap, or nationalise it all.

    We currently have the worst of all worlds.

    As I said upthread, if the government is to throw taxpayers cash at the problem, it should be in the form of a UC boost for the poorest.
  • NEW: The executive of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs has been in en masse to see Prime Minister Boris Johnson

    https://twitter.com/kitty_donaldson/status/1463846830454812674?s=20
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    rcs1000 said:

    In news that will surprise exactly no one, early reviews suggest that Peter Jackson's Get Back is far too long.

    Spencer was less than 2 hours long. One of the reasons I decided to go to see it the other day.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,877
    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    I had similar with Pfizer after AZ x 2. It will be very time limited though. You'll be fine tomorrow.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,844
    rcs1000 said:

    In news that will surprise exactly no one, early reviews suggest that Peter Jackson's Get Back is far too long.

    He should Get Back to the Editing Suite?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Cyclefree said:

    Anyway, today is Elimination of Violence Against Women Day, I am told.

    I am not, on the whole, a fan of all these "Days".

    But it is worth remembering that, as of today, in Britain so far this year 127 women have been killed.

    328 days of the year. 127 women killed.

    1 woman killed every two and a half days.

    Most do not even make the local let alone national news. If this number were killed in one go, we'd never hear the end of it. But one here and there all over the country every few days, most in domestic settings, most by people known to them, overwhelmingly by men - well they just become routine, part of the daily background, unknown, forgotten and not cared enough about for anyone to do anything effective to understand why this happens and what can be done to change it.

    And this rate of killing is broadly the same year after year.

    Let's compare it to the 20 years the British Army spent in Afghanistan - a largely pointless undertaking, mostly remembered for the sad convoys through Wootten Bassett and people paying their respects.

    457 soldiers killed, 405 through enemy action. Ca. 23 a year.

    I do not diminish their sacrifice or the loss their loved ones suffer.

    But these women too have a name and people who loved them and miss them and this weary acceptance of their deaths really will not do.

    Still, we have a "Day", I suppose. Must we be content just with that?

    This is something different that I've noticed about the news in Ireland. Because the population is lower more "ordinary" bits of news are notable enough to be reported. With about one-thirteenth the UK population an equivalent rate of murder of women sees one woman murdered every month. So they are reported.

    The same is true for fatal road collisions - these all seem to be reported nationally in Ireland, while in the UK it has to involve an unusual characteristic to be unusual enough to be reported.

    On one level it would be absurd to have 13 independent news organisations for different regions of the UK, each with their own Westminster, crime, economic, health, US, etc, correspondents, but I think it would improve reporting of many issues that happen so frequently on a UK-wide level that they end up overlooked.

    The local news teams that do exist just don't receive the funding, or have the attention, to fulfil that role.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited November 2021
    Charles said:

    So the head of school at my daughter’s old school has just been fired. The Education department is investigating accusations of “racial indoctrination” of pupils. Hit piece in the Times today (and the Mail yesterday)

    She does seem to be making quite the exit:

    Who’d have thought that teaching a bunch of rich kids, that themselves and their parents ae all racist, might generate negative feedback about the school?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/educating-snowflakes-public-schools-have-gone-woke/

    “To civil rights campaigners of the 1950s and 1960s, it might seem utterly baffling, if not a cause for despair and alarm. They fought for an end to segregation; battled to ensure that black children could attend the same schools as their white peers. Brave little girls and boys had to be escorted to their desks by the police, all in the cause of tearing down the barriers between races.”
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,603
    rpjs said:

    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    Nationalise it FFS.
    I remember when utilities, the railways, car manufacturers et al were "nationalised". Also, more laughably known as "in public ownership". They were all totally and utterly shit. And sorry, for all their faults, much much shitter than they are today. The man in Whitehall really does not know best.
    In what way were gas, water and electric “shit” under public ownership? You turned on the light switch, the lights came on, similarly gas and water. The cost was reasonable: maybe some privatized suppliers have been cheaper since but you didn't have to keep searching out the best “deal” every year or two.

    British Leyland I grant you, but I don’t recall the products of GM/Vauxhall or Chrysler/Talbot (whatever it became) being any much better than Austin-Morris-Rover in the 70s and 80s.

    As to the trains, BR in its last years did seem to be getting it right: InterCity was profitable and cross-subsidized the other sectors, eithout the. Fleet renewal was underway too.

    Maybe telecoms was best privatized though. Having your phone hard-wired into the wall seems unbelievable today!
    Water quality has increased massively since privatisation - pre-privatisation, investment in nationalised industries was seen as a cost by the Treasury. And politically, it wasn't a big vote winner.

    Post privatisation, the standards were simply increased. A friend of the family owned a small business that provided connectors and pipework for water stuff. Previously, ordered were steady but quiet. Pretty soon he was working three shifts. Same in the gas world.
  • maaarshmaaarsh Posts: 3,391
    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Anyway, today is Elimination of Violence Against Women Day, I am told.

    I am not, on the whole, a fan of all these "Days".

    But it is worth remembering that, as of today, in Britain so far this year 127 women have been killed.

    328 days of the year. 127 women killed.

    1 woman killed every two and a half days.

    Most do not even make the local let alone national news. If this number were killed in one go, we'd never hear the end of it. But one here and there all over the country every few days, most in domestic settings, most by people known to them, overwhelmingly by men - well they just become routine, part of the daily background, unknown, forgotten and not cared enough about for anyone to do anything effective to understand why this happens and what can be done to change it.

    And this rate of killing is broadly the same year after year.

    Let's compare it to the 20 years the British Army spent in Afghanistan - a largely pointless undertaking, mostly remembered for the sad convoys through Wootten Bassett and people paying their respects.

    457 soldiers killed, 405 through enemy action. Ca. 23 a year.

    I do not diminish their sacrifice or the loss their loved ones suffer.

    But these women too have a name and people who loved them and miss them and this weary acceptance of their deaths really will not do.

    Still, we have a "Day", I suppose. Must we be content just with that?

    Or, I suppose, we could compare it with the roughly double number of male homicides over the same time. Do they get a "day"?
    Of course most of the perpertrators are male, and so in the men vs women mind of some people that means male victims are somehow complicit and less deserving of sympathy.
  • Mr. Pulpstar, ages ago I used to watch the paper review on Sky News.

    There was a wonderful moment with an older present and guest, and a younger guest. The younger guest made some comment about evil Tories and Thatcher being a milk-snatcher, which made the two older guests reminisce about how much they hated the milk, being either freezing cold or warm and horrid, at which point the youth performed a swift u-turn and declared he was too young to remember it.

    Luckily, we have history to teach us how stupid some things (like socialism) are, without needing to undergo the atrocity of inflicting them on the human race ever again.
  • pingping Posts: 3,724
    edited November 2021

    Cyclefree said:

    Anyway, today is Elimination of Violence Against Women Day, I am told.

    I am not, on the whole, a fan of all these "Days".

    But it is worth remembering that, as of today, in Britain so far this year 127 women have been killed.

    328 days of the year. 127 women killed.

    1 woman killed every two and a half days.

    Most do not even make the local let alone national news. If this number were killed in one go, we'd never hear the end of it. But one here and there all over the country every few days, most in domestic settings, most by people known to them, overwhelmingly by men - well they just become routine, part of the daily background, unknown, forgotten and not cared enough about for anyone to do anything effective to understand why this happens and what can be done to change it.

    And this rate of killing is broadly the same year after year.

    Let's compare it to the 20 years the British Army spent in Afghanistan - a largely pointless undertaking, mostly remembered for the sad convoys through Wootten Bassett and people paying their respects.

    457 soldiers killed, 405 through enemy action. Ca. 23 a year.

    I do not diminish their sacrifice or the loss their loved ones suffer.

    But these women too have a name and people who loved them and miss them and this weary acceptance of their deaths really will not do.

    Still, we have a "Day", I suppose. Must we be content just with that?

    How many men have been killed in the same period? I am not trying to be crass. Every murder is horrific in its own way, whether it is a knife fight among gangs, or a murdered wife at home. How about an Elimination of Violence against people day instead?
    I find it rather sad that this kind of logic no longer works. People love their identities and shape their worldview around them. Political change only seems to happen these days if it’s “end X (bad thing) against Y (group).

    The debate then revolves around why Y group is special and deserving of protection from X. Scant resources then get diverted to protecting Y from X - until group Z comes along. Rinse and repeat.

    I miss the old days, when the debate was mainly about X, with occasional emphasis on groups Y, Z etc
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    MattW said:

    FPT:

    rcs1000 said:



    Yes the genuine refugees do that. That's kind of the point.

    It would be interesting, though difficult, to see an unbiased analysis of why a minority do press on to the UK. For the benefits? Hardly - benefits are much more generous elsewhere. Because they speak some English and reckon they've got a better chance here? Possibly, but pay a fortune and risk death for that? Because they know others here and feel that would make life better?

    The implication that taking risks to get here suggests they aren't genuine is a non-sequitur. Yes, step 1 is to get out of a hell-hole, and arrive in, say, Greece. But if you don't speak Greek or know any Greeks, and you do speak English and know someone in London, then step 2 may be to try to get here. That doesn't invalidate step 1.
    There is a big undocumented economy in the UK compared to most European countries.
    Are there international stats available on this?
    Yes, the ONS produces an estimate of the undocumented economy every year, not sure what the series is called though.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,844

    Cyclefree said:

    Anyway, today is Elimination of Violence Against Women Day, I am told.

    I am not, on the whole, a fan of all these "Days".

    But it is worth remembering that, as of today, in Britain so far this year 127 women have been killed.

    328 days of the year. 127 women killed.

    1 woman killed every two and a half days.

    Most do not even make the local let alone national news. If this number were killed in one go, we'd never hear the end of it. But one here and there all over the country every few days, most in domestic settings, most by people known to them, overwhelmingly by men - well they just become routine, part of the daily background, unknown, forgotten and not cared enough about for anyone to do anything effective to understand why this happens and what can be done to change it.

    And this rate of killing is broadly the same year after year.

    Let's compare it to the 20 years the British Army spent in Afghanistan - a largely pointless undertaking, mostly remembered for the sad convoys through Wootten Bassett and people paying their respects.

    457 soldiers killed, 405 through enemy action. Ca. 23 a year.

    I do not diminish their sacrifice or the loss their loved ones suffer.

    But these women too have a name and people who loved them and miss them and this weary acceptance of their deaths really will not do.

    Still, we have a "Day", I suppose. Must we be content just with that?

    How many men have been killed in the same period? I am not trying to be crass. Every murder is horrific in its own way, whether it is a knife fight among gangs, or a murdered wife at home. How about an Elimination of Violence against people day instead?
    Should be every day, really, shouldn't it. But on this, although you're right, there's the point of the imbalance. Most murder victims are male, yes, but so are most murderers and the latter 'most' is the bigger one - ie if you calculate the m/f ratio of murder victims and murderers, the 2nd number will be much higher.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    boulay said:

    On the news just now they announced that a 5th person has been arrested in France Re the boat people who died.

    How is it that the French authorities can within 24 hours arrest 5 people, they must have enough evidence of their involvement, and not use that intelligence they must have had to arrest them before on people trafficking offences?

    It’s another key question I have is why does there not seem to be a big enough intelligence effort to infiltrate the gangs or process to stop these gangs in the same way they target drugs gangs?

    France is following a perfectly sane policy (and which is the same as the policy in both Switzerland and Norway) of encouraging asylum seekers to self deport.

    If an asylum seeker in Northern Ireland was walking towards the Irish border, should we tackle him to the ground to prevent him leaving the country?
    Yes, we should and would tackle him, if he was carrying a child and crossing potentially lethal water

    That's the difference. The French are callously allowing children to die, to rid themselves of a problem. There are videos of armed police standing by, in broad daylight, doing nothing, as the migrants climb into the boats - with kids

    The cops claim they are intimidated by "the numbers" but it is bollocks. They have guns, the migrants don't.

    Sure they can't stop every boat, but they aren't even trying

    Should is very different to would.

    The idea that, in the absence of any kind of treaty requirement, the UK government would spend significant amounts of money preventing people it did not want here from leaving is for the fairies.

    I disagree. There is one particularly damning Sky video - I can't find it now, I wonder if it has been removed? - of about French 10 cops apathetically looking on as roughly 30 migrants climb on a crappy dinghy, with children, in the middle of the day, all of the migrants potentially heading to their demise

    If that vid was taken in the UK, there would be an outcry and the cops would be ID'd and they would find themselves in major trouble, and the incident would not happen again.

    In this instance we are more soft-hearted than the French. I'm not sure why, however. I do NOT believe it is because we are morally superior, or anything daft like that - I'm not a Scot Nat - so it must be something else. Perhaps itis because we don't have so many illegal migrants as France, and also because we have a more powerful liberal media - the BBC, and the Guardian, even the Mail when its in the right mood - which can and does successfully pressure HMG
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    That's a sign that you've probably previously had COVID.
  • boulay said:

    rcs1000 said:

    In news that will surprise exactly no one, early reviews suggest that Peter Jackson's Get Back is far too long.

    He should have got Yoko Ono on board as an editor - she could have reduced it by a quarter.
    Or as John himself said to Geoff Emerick on the final day the Beatles recorded as a 4-piece, "cut it right there"
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    I had similar with Pfizer after AZ x 2. It will be very time limited though. You'll be fine tomorrow.
    Ta. I am reassured

    It's an odd feeling, like waking up with a really bad cold except no sneezing, runny nose, sore throat. Just the malaise. All I wanna do is crawl back into bed

    Also like waking up after Mike Tyson, in his peak, punched you repeatedly in the upper arm as you slept
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    Nationalise it FFS.
    I remember when utilities, the railways, car manufacturers et al were "nationalised". Also, more laughably known as "in public ownership". They were all totally and utterly shit. And sorry, for all their faults, much much shitter than they are today. The man in Whitehall really does not know best.
    How are you separating out the effect of being state owned versus the fact that it was the ‘70s and early ‘80s, when lots of things were utterly shit. For example compare the way the Police operated then compared to now?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    edited November 2021

    Mr. Pulpstar, ages ago I used to watch the paper review on Sky News.

    There was a wonderful moment with an older present and guest, and a younger guest. The younger guest made some comment about evil Tories and Thatcher being a milk-snatcher, which made the two older guests reminisce about how much they hated the milk, being either freezing cold or warm and horrid, at which point the youth performed a swift u-turn and declared he was too young to remember it.

    Luckily, we have history to teach us how stupid some things (like socialism) are, without needing to undergo the atrocity of inflicting them on the human race ever again.

    LOL is this a pastiche of a Tory election ppb you have seen? 😄

    I am thinking of voting Labour Grandad.
    Oh. Oh dear. Let me tell you about what it was like before you were born.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    CON: 39% (-)
    LAB: 36% (+2)
    LDEM: 10% (+2)
    GRN: 5% (-3)

    via
    @Kantar
    , 18 - 22 Nov
    https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1463816123326115842?s=20

    Labour only up 3% on the general election and the LDs actually down 2%. Interesting, after nearly 12 years of Conservative or Conservative-led government.
    For the benefit of comparing like with like

    14 to 19 Oct Kantar had it
    39% 34% 8
    23-27 Sept
    43% 30% 11

    The take out there is Kantar finding more Labour support each time they poll?
    It maybe Boris love and Jabby bonus are wearing off? The only indicator if those things will be enjoyed again and there will be swingback is to look behind headline polling to gauges of strength of opinion? Such as if Boris little behind in polls but his personal ratings still good, we should expect swing back, but if his personal ratings dire and on the slide, maybe not much swingback?

    Seriously, if the slump continues perhaps the best option for the Conservatives is to press the reset button and re-market their offering?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited November 2021
    MaxPB said:

    MattW said:

    FPT:

    rcs1000 said:



    Yes the genuine refugees do that. That's kind of the point.

    It would be interesting, though difficult, to see an unbiased analysis of why a minority do press on to the UK. For the benefits? Hardly - benefits are much more generous elsewhere. Because they speak some English and reckon they've got a better chance here? Possibly, but pay a fortune and risk death for that? Because they know others here and feel that would make life better?

    The implication that taking risks to get here suggests they aren't genuine is a non-sequitur. Yes, step 1 is to get out of a hell-hole, and arrive in, say, Greece. But if you don't speak Greek or know any Greeks, and you do speak English and know someone in London, then step 2 may be to try to get here. That doesn't invalidate step 1.
    There is a big undocumented economy in the UK compared to most European countries.
    Are there international stats available on this?
    Yes, the ONS produces an estimate of the undocumented economy every year, not sure what the series is called though.
    International? :smile:

    I could only find this at a moment's notice:


    https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/02/09/where-the-worlds-shadow-economies-are-firmly-established-infographic/?sh=6b6a4211742c
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,844
    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    In news that will surprise exactly no one, early reviews suggest that Peter Jackson's Get Back is far too long.

    Spencer was less than 2 hours long. One of the reasons I decided to go to see it the other day.
    It feels like nearly 2 days long is what I hear.
  • maaarshmaaarsh Posts: 3,391
    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Anyway, today is Elimination of Violence Against Women Day, I am told.

    I am not, on the whole, a fan of all these "Days".

    But it is worth remembering that, as of today, in Britain so far this year 127 women have been killed.

    328 days of the year. 127 women killed.

    1 woman killed every two and a half days.

    Most do not even make the local let alone national news. If this number were killed in one go, we'd never hear the end of it. But one here and there all over the country every few days, most in domestic settings, most by people known to them, overwhelmingly by men - well they just become routine, part of the daily background, unknown, forgotten and not cared enough about for anyone to do anything effective to understand why this happens and what can be done to change it.

    And this rate of killing is broadly the same year after year.

    Let's compare it to the 20 years the British Army spent in Afghanistan - a largely pointless undertaking, mostly remembered for the sad convoys through Wootten Bassett and people paying their respects.

    457 soldiers killed, 405 through enemy action. Ca. 23 a year.

    I do not diminish their sacrifice or the loss their loved ones suffer.

    But these women too have a name and people who loved them and miss them and this weary acceptance of their deaths really will not do.

    Still, we have a "Day", I suppose. Must we be content just with that?

    How many men have been killed in the same period? I am not trying to be crass. Every murder is horrific in its own way, whether it is a knife fight among gangs, or a murdered wife at home. How about an Elimination of Violence against people day instead?
    Should be every day, really, shouldn't it. But on this, although you're right, there's the point of the imbalance. Most murder victims are male, yes, but so are most murderers and the latter 'most' is the bigger one - ie if you calculate the m/f ratio of murder victims and murderers, the 2nd number will be much higher.
    But unless you think the male victims are also the male murders, on what basis does them having the same gender mean there is a transferrence of guilt, or cross gendler murders are 'worse'. Is it an underlying assumption that men should be able to defend themselves, whilst women are helpless, so any male victim is weak in a bad way?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,877
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    That's a sign that you've probably previously had COVID.
    You sure? I had a huge reaction to the Pfizer booster after nothing really from the AZ. Pretty sure I've not had covid. There is a possibility it is a reaction to the delivery vector.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,603
    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    Nationalise it FFS.
    I remember when utilities, the railways, car manufacturers et al were "nationalised". Also, more laughably known as "in public ownership". They were all totally and utterly shit. And sorry, for all their faults, much much shitter than they are today. The man in Whitehall really does not know best.
    How are you separating out the effect of being state owned versus the fact that it was the ‘70s and early ‘80s, when lots of things were utterly shit. For example compare the way the Police operated then compared to now?
    The reason they were shit for the consumers of the services/product was that the priorities were

    - Keep the Treasury happy
    - Keep the workforce happy
    - Keep the rest of the government happy

    Customers were a problem, not a priority.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    Mr. Pulpstar, ages ago I used to watch the paper review on Sky News.

    There was a wonderful moment with an older present and guest, and a younger guest. The younger guest made some comment about evil Tories and Thatcher being a milk-snatcher, which made the two older guests reminisce about how much they hated the milk, being either freezing cold or warm and horrid, at which point the youth performed a swift u-turn and declared he was too young to remember it.

    Luckily, we have history to teach us how stupid some things (like socialism) are, without needing to undergo the atrocity of inflicting them on the human race ever again.

    You're massively politically interested though - extremely atypical. The previous arguments against nationalisation simply won't work with the public below the age of about 45 as of now, because there's really no memory of how nationalisation was back in the day.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    CON: 39% (-)
    LAB: 36% (+2)
    LDEM: 10% (+2)
    GRN: 5% (-3)

    via
    @Kantar
    , 18 - 22 Nov
    https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1463816123326115842?s=20

    Labour only up 3% on the general election and the LDs actually down 2%. Interesting, after nearly 12 years of Conservative or Conservative-led government.
    If you compare it to the 2010GE the changes are:
    CON +2
    LAB +6
    LDM -14
    GRN +4

    It's surprising to see the Tories up after such a long period in government, but the Coalition still casts a long shadow.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    So the head of school at my daughter’s old school has just been fired. The Education department is investigating accusations of “racial indoctrination” of pupils. Hit piece in the Times today (and the Mail yesterday)

    She does seem to be making quite the exit:

    Who’d have thought that teaching a bunch of rich kids, that themselves and their parents ae all racist, might generate negative feedback about the school?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/educating-snowflakes-public-schools-have-gone-woke/

    “To civil rights campaigners of the 1950s and 1960s, it might seem utterly baffling, if not a cause for despair and alarm. They fought for an end to segregation; battled to ensure that black children could attend the same schools as their white peers. Brave little girls and boys had to be escorted to their desks by the police, all in the cause of tearing down the barriers between races.”
    And yet we are assured by many on here that Woke is not an issue. They are either wilfully blind or exceptionally foolish
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    "Migrant crisis latest: Britain is too 'attractive' for illegal migrants seeking work, says French minister"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/11/25/politics-latest-news-brexit-boris-johnson-priti-patel-calais/
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,877
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    I had similar with Pfizer after AZ x 2. It will be very time limited though. You'll be fine tomorrow.
    Ta. I am reassured

    It's an odd feeling, like waking up with a really bad cold except no sneezing, runny nose, sore throat. Just the malaise. All I wanna do is crawl back into bed

    Also like waking up after Mike Tyson, in his peak, punched you repeatedly in the upper arm as you slept
    First night I was extremely hot in bed*, but a dry heat. Wife loved it.**
    Second night I was a bit hot in bed***, but it was a damp heat. Wife hated it.

    *Not in that way.
    **Still not in that way.
    ***I think you know by now...
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    boulay said:

    On the news just now they announced that a 5th person has been arrested in France Re the boat people who died.

    How is it that the French authorities can within 24 hours arrest 5 people, they must have enough evidence of their involvement, and not use that intelligence they must have had to arrest them before on people trafficking offences?

    It’s another key question I have is why does there not seem to be a big enough intelligence effort to infiltrate the gangs or process to stop these gangs in the same way they target drugs gangs?

    France is following a perfectly sane policy (and which is the same as the policy in both Switzerland and Norway) of encouraging asylum seekers to self deport.

    If an asylum seeker in Northern Ireland was walking towards the Irish border, should we tackle him to the ground to prevent him leaving the country?
    Yes, we should and would tackle him, if he was carrying a child and crossing potentially lethal water

    That's the difference. The French are callously allowing children to die, to rid themselves of a problem. There are videos of armed police standing by, in broad daylight, doing nothing, as the migrants climb into the boats - with kids

    The cops claim they are intimidated by "the numbers" but it is bollocks. They have guns, the migrants don't.

    Sure they can't stop every boat, but they aren't even trying

    Should is very different to would.

    The idea that, in the absence of any kind of treaty requirement, the UK government would spend significant amounts of money preventing people it did not want here from leaving is for the fairies.

    I disagree. There is one particularly damning Sky video - I can't find it now, I wonder if it has been removed? - of about French 10 cops apathetically looking on as roughly 30 migrants climb on a crappy dinghy, with children, in the middle of the day, all of the migrants potentially heading to their demise

    If that vid was taken in the UK, there would be an outcry and the cops would be ID'd and they would find themselves in major trouble, and the incident would not happen again.

    In this instance we are more soft-hearted than the French. I'm not sure why, however. I do NOT believe it is because we are morally superior, or anything daft like that - I'm not a Scot Nat - so it must be something else. Perhaps itis because we don't have so many illegal migrants as France, and also because we have a more powerful liberal media - the BBC, and the Guardian, even the Mail when its in the right mood - which can and does successfully pressure HMG

    The Sun and Mail headlines write themselves - "Let them leave". There would be no outcry until, like now, people died. And then it would be quickly forgotten and it would all carry on. What is happening in the Channel represents a total failure by the UK and French governments to put Brexit to one side and to find a way through a mess that is not going to go away. Both have blood on their hands.

  • Kitty Donaldson
    @kitty_donaldson
    ·
    31m
    NEW: The executive of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs has been in en masse to see Prime Minister Boris Johnson
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    edited November 2021
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    I had similar with Pfizer after AZ x 2. It will be very time limited though. You'll be fine tomorrow.
    Ta. I am reassured

    It's an odd feeling, like waking up with a really bad cold except no sneezing, runny nose, sore throat. Just the malaise. All I wanna do is crawl back into bed

    Also like waking up after Mike Tyson, in his peak, punched you repeatedly in the upper arm as you slept
    I had the same with Moderna, followed by an incredibly stiff neck.

    Though this was my second rather than a booster.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    That's a sign that you've probably previously had COVID.
    I am now near-certain that I did have Covid way back in January 2020, caught in Thailand. That's what Public Health England thought, that's why they sent me to be tested in UCLH, tho a SNAFU prevented any actual test

    It would also explain why I haven't caught Covid since, despite taking many risks in recent months: pubs, bars, restaurants, planes, the works
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    I had similar with Pfizer after AZ x 2. It will be very time limited though. You'll be fine tomorrow.
    Ta. I am reassured

    It's an odd feeling, like waking up with a really bad cold except no sneezing, runny nose, sore throat. Just the malaise. All I wanna do is crawl back into bed

    Also like waking up after Mike Tyson, in his peak, punched you repeatedly in the upper arm as you slept
    I agree it's an odd feeling (I had same after Pfizer booster). It's hard to describe. Just severely under the weather was the best I could do.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    I had similar with Pfizer after AZ x 2. It will be very time limited though. You'll be fine tomorrow.
    Ta. I am reassured

    It's an odd feeling, like waking up with a really bad cold except no sneezing, runny nose, sore throat. Just the malaise. All I wanna do is crawl back into bed

    Also like waking up after Mike Tyson, in his peak, punched you repeatedly in the upper arm as you slept
    I agree it's an odd feeling (I had same after Pfizer booster). It's hard to describe. Just severely under the weather was the best I could do.
    I thought of it as a "dry cold". Only lasted about 12-24 hours though.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    I still don't really get the SNP-Green deal. It doesn't speak to forming a referendum winning coalition.

    Was it just to shake stuff up? Was Sturgeon more wary of being outflanked by the pro-indy left rather than right? Harvie = Farage?
  • Mr. Pulpstar, less interested than I was, I rarely watch the news now.

    Mr. Rabbit, actually it's a recollection, as I clearly stated. If you want to accuse me of lying, that's fine, but I shall thrash you about the head and neck with a large haddock until you learn the error of your ways.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    boulay said:

    On the news just now they announced that a 5th person has been arrested in France Re the boat people who died.

    How is it that the French authorities can within 24 hours arrest 5 people, they must have enough evidence of their involvement, and not use that intelligence they must have had to arrest them before on people trafficking offences?

    It’s another key question I have is why does there not seem to be a big enough intelligence effort to infiltrate the gangs or process to stop these gangs in the same way they target drugs gangs?

    France is following a perfectly sane policy (and which is the same as the policy in both Switzerland and Norway) of encouraging asylum seekers to self deport.

    If an asylum seeker in Northern Ireland was walking towards the Irish border, should we tackle him to the ground to prevent him leaving the country?
    Yes, we should and would tackle him, if he was carrying a child and crossing potentially lethal water

    That's the difference. The French are callously allowing children to die, to rid themselves of a problem. There are videos of armed police standing by, in broad daylight, doing nothing, as the migrants climb into the boats - with kids

    The cops claim they are intimidated by "the numbers" but it is bollocks. They have guns, the migrants don't.

    Sure they can't stop every boat, but they aren't even trying

    Should is very different to would.

    The idea that, in the absence of any kind of treaty requirement, the UK government would spend significant amounts of money preventing people it did not want here from leaving is for the fairies.

    I disagree. There is one particularly damning Sky video - I can't find it now, I wonder if it has been removed? - of about French 10 cops apathetically looking on as roughly 30 migrants climb on a crappy dinghy, with children, in the middle of the day, all of the migrants potentially heading to their demise

    If that vid was taken in the UK, there would be an outcry and the cops would be ID'd and they would find themselves in major trouble, and the incident would not happen again.

    In this instance we are more soft-hearted than the French. I'm not sure why, however. I do NOT believe it is because we are morally superior, or anything daft like that - I'm not a Scot Nat - so it must be something else. Perhaps itis because we don't have so many illegal migrants as France, and also because we have a more powerful liberal media - the BBC, and the Guardian, even the Mail when its in the right mood - which can and does successfully pressure HMG

    The Sun and Mail headlines write themselves - "Let them leave". There would be no outcry until, like now, people died. And then it would be quickly forgotten and it would all carry on. What is happening in the Channel represents a total failure by the UK and French governments to put Brexit to one side and to find a way through a mess that is not going to go away. Both have blood on their hands.

    No, by the time this video was taken, people had already drowned. The video would have provoked uproar in the UK

    No way any Fleet Street editor, aware of the many deaths, would run the headline "Let Them Leave". It would be the opposite - "Why are the police allowing kids to drown??"

    It's not a major issue, but on this one you are reading it wrong.

    The major issue, of course, is how to stop it. As I said last night I don't see any solution other than the Aussie solution. Decant them (at hideous expense) to a safe but dull and depressing processing centre, a long way away

    They will very soon stop coming. The Aussies solved their problem in a few months
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    So the head of school at my daughter’s old school has just been fired. The Education department is investigating accusations of “racial indoctrination” of pupils. Hit piece in the Times today (and the Mail yesterday)

    She does seem to be making quite the exit:

    Who’d have thought that teaching a bunch of rich kids, that themselves and their parents ae all racist, might generate negative feedback about the school?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/educating-snowflakes-public-schools-have-gone-woke/

    “To civil rights campaigners of the 1950s and 1960s, it might seem utterly baffling, if not a cause for despair and alarm. They fought for an end to segregation; battled to ensure that black children could attend the same schools as their white peers. Brave little girls and boys had to be escorted to their desks by the police, all in the cause of tearing down the barriers between races.”
    Once again, importing American culture ends up with a ridiculous culture clash.

    I have fun with my youngest daughter, who is caught up in the whole AOC end of American politics. Sometimes she comes up with things like "nationalise Healthcare!"
    Ha ha. It won’t be long before she thinks we should ban guns and legalise abortion. :D
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,844
    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    Commiserations, hopefully will be just a 48 hour thing. I had the Pfizer, which I'd heard had a kick like a mule, so I got prep'd up with the tins of chicken soup, hot water bottle, and cheap detective novel, but no, all in vain, nothing to speak of, the side effects, as it turned out. And that's with having the flu jab at the same time too!
  • F1: suggestion Bottas might have yet another engine in Saudi Arabia:
    https://twitter.com/f1talks/status/1463844366926200835
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Cyclefree said:

    Anyway, today is Elimination of Violence Against Women Day, I am told.

    I am not, on the whole, a fan of all these "Days".

    But it is worth remembering that, as of today, in Britain so far this year 127 women have been killed.

    328 days of the year. 127 women killed.

    1 woman killed every two and a half days.

    Most do not even make the local let alone national news. If this number were killed in one go, we'd never hear the end of it. But one here and there all over the country every few days, most in domestic settings, most by people known to them, overwhelmingly by men - well they just become routine, part of the daily background, unknown, forgotten and not cared enough about for anyone to do anything effective to understand why this happens and what can be done to change it.

    And this rate of killing is broadly the same year after year.

    Let's compare it to the 20 years the British Army spent in Afghanistan - a largely pointless undertaking, mostly remembered for the sad convoys through Wootten Bassett and people paying their respects.

    457 soldiers killed, 405 through enemy action. Ca. 23 a year.

    I do not diminish their sacrifice or the loss their loved ones suffer.

    But these women too have a name and people who loved them and miss them and this weary acceptance of their deaths really will not do.

    Still, we have a "Day", I suppose. Must we be content just with that?

    How many men have been killed in the same period? I am not trying to be crass. Every murder is horrific in its own way, whether it is a knife fight among gangs, or a murdered wife at home. How about an Elimination of Violence against people day instead?
    @DavidL made the same point.

    All killings are awful. We largely ignore killings unless, for some reason, they make the news. See the killings of teenage - largely black boys - in cities, for instance.

    But if you and @DavidL want to focus on the elimination of the violence, then we need to focus on those doing the violence. And they are overwhelmingly men. It is men killing women. It is men killing other men.

    Why is that? And what are men going to do about it?

    Rather than have "Days" or men making making obvious but trite points, perhaps they might ask themselves this.

    Or are we just going to get the usual "well it's all very complicated" and "it always happens" and "it's not all men" etc.

    Not getting at you or @DavidL personally. But these killings are done by people, overwhelmingly male people. That would be a good starting point if we want to try and eliminate it.
  • Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    That's a sign that you've probably previously had COVID.
    I am now near-certain that I did have Covid way back in January 2020, caught in Thailand. That's what Public Health England thought, that's why they sent me to be tested in UCLH, tho a SNAFU prevented any actual test

    It would also explain why I haven't caught Covid since, despite taking many risks in recent months: pubs, bars, restaurants, planes, the works
    "That's a sign that you've probably previously had COVID."

    Is it? First I've heard of that idea.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    Nationalise it FFS.
    I remember when utilities, the railways, car manufacturers et al were "nationalised". Also, more laughably known as "in public ownership". They were all totally and utterly shit. And sorry, for all their faults, much much shitter than they are today. The man in Whitehall really does not know best.
    How are you separating out the effect of being state owned versus the fact that it was the ‘70s and early ‘80s, when lots of things were utterly shit. For example compare the way the Police operated then compared to now?
    If you just focus on the police you won't see a huge difference, frankly ......
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    Commiserations, hopefully will be just a 48 hour thing. I had the Pfizer, which I'd heard had a kick like a mule, so I got prep'd up with the tins of chicken soup, hot water bottle, and cheap detective novel, but no, all in vain, nothing to speak of, the side effects, as it turned out. And that's with having the flu jab at the same time too!
    Thanks

    On the upside it does mean I won't be nasty to anyone on here as long as this malaise lasts, because if anyone is nasty in return I will likely start crying

    Always a silver lining!
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    In news that will surprise exactly no one, early reviews suggest that Peter Jackson's Get Back is far too long.

    Spencer was less than 2 hours long. One of the reasons I decided to go to see it the other day.
    It feels like nearly 2 days long is what I hear.
    It seems the album is dire even by Beatles standards, so dire that even the Beatles noticed.

    https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/nov/25/the-beatles-get-back-review-peter-jackson-eight-hours-of-tv-so-aimless-it-threatens-your-sanity

    I do hope this paltry 8 hour attempt to address it is only part 1 of a trilogy
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    That's a sign that you've probably previously had COVID.
    I am now near-certain that I did have Covid way back in January 2020, caught in Thailand. That's what Public Health England thought, that's why they sent me to be tested in UCLH, tho a SNAFU prevented any actual test

    It would also explain why I haven't caught Covid since, despite taking many risks in recent months: pubs, bars, restaurants, planes, the works
    "That's a sign that you've probably previously had COVID."

    Is it? First I've heard of that idea.
    Yes it has been punted before, by proper scientists, tho there are also other explanations, ofc
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    SandraMc said:

    When I think about the old British Rail, I am reminded of the story about how the flamboyant advertising executive Peter Marsh (who was once married to the actress Pat Phoenix) pitched for the BR account. Executives from BR turned up at the ABM (Allen, Brady, Marsh) offices to be met by a bored looking receptionist, who told them to wait. The waiting room was filthy with dirty coffee cups and filled ashtrays. Just as the BR executives got tired of waiting and were about to leave, Peter Marsh burst in and said: "Now that you've seen what people think of BR, let's discuss how we can change your image."

    Didn't do anything for the actual service, of course.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    F1: suggestion Bottas might have yet another engine in Saudi Arabia:
    https://twitter.com/f1talks/status/1463844366926200835

    Ooh, a two-race engine. That’s going to be even faster than Lewis’s three-race engine.

    It was clear earlier in the year, that Mercedes were doing experiments with Valtteri and his many engines. This is going to be the culmination of their work, producing engines that are physically identical (they are homologated designs) but with wildly different power outputs controlled by software.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598

    eek said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    I think that Bulb has £1.7m customers, so that is about £1k per customer.
    £1.7bn is the max cash requirement. The cost to the taxpayer will be far less.
    Cost at the moment is expected to be 40% of that (I posted the figure yesterday) - so it's currently £700m.

    And remember that the existing companies are having to sub that £400 from their reserves so don't expect prices to fall at any point in the next few years (there is a lot of debt to be made up).

    Even that £400 both does depend on how winter plays out and how the market changes - you best bet long term is to get as energy efficient as possible.
    In future the regulator needs to ensure energy firms have sufficient capital to match their number of customers and hedging risks. It is crazy to allow limited companies a hugely leveraged free bet on energy prices subsidised by taxpayer (and industry competitor) implicit backstop guarantees.
    What is the point? Get rid. Nationalise the lot.
  • Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    So the head of school at my daughter’s old school has just been fired. The Education department is investigating accusations of “racial indoctrination” of pupils. Hit piece in the Times today (and the Mail yesterday)

    She does seem to be making quite the exit:

    Who’d have thought that teaching a bunch of rich kids, that themselves and their parents ae all racist, might generate negative feedback about the school?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/educating-snowflakes-public-schools-have-gone-woke/

    “To civil rights campaigners of the 1950s and 1960s, it might seem utterly baffling, if not a cause for despair and alarm. They fought for an end to segregation; battled to ensure that black children could attend the same schools as their white peers. Brave little girls and boys had to be escorted to their desks by the police, all in the cause of tearing down the barriers between races.”
    And yet we are assured by many on here that Woke is not an issue. They are either wilfully blind or exceptionally foolish
    It is an issue, just not the massive issue that you would like it to be.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,117
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    The actual Yes figure is 46.5% - which is above the 2014 referendum figure.

    But of course you are muddling figures which include and which exclude DKs.

    Professor Curtice would not be impressed.
    It is 40% including DKs, so in terms of all voters below the 45% from 2014 as I said
    Just to point out the fallacy in this particular variant of HYUFDomathics.

    In an election or referendum, the DKs are ignored.

    To generate an opinion poll result comparable to an election, the DKs have to be excluded fromt he calculation. So only the 40 percentage points for Yes and the 46 percentage points for No are counted.

    The percentages haver to be recalculated eg 40 divided by (40 plus 46) gives 46 and a half true percent. Which is up from 2014.
    No they don't, indeed in 2014 most DKs went No giving No an even bigger lead than final polls.

    So to be accurate you have to include DKs
    Haw, Isaac Newton, maths doesn't work that way.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    edited November 2021
    WATO woman saying illuminatingly that there's two tiers of wannabe channel crossers. The relatively rich have paid people smugglers who are running halfway professional operations, the poor are freelancing and trying to cross in kayaks and toy dinghies and stuff

    Going rate is eur 3000-6000 for a place in a boat
  • HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    The actual Yes figure is 46.5% - which is above the 2014 referendum figure.

    But of course you are muddling figures which include and which exclude DKs.

    Professor Curtice would not be impressed.
    It is 40% including DKs, so in terms of all voters below the 45% from 2014 as I said
    Here we go again. So you agree that a majority do not explicitly support the Union?
    The majority explicitly supported the Union in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and this Tory government as long as it remains in power will not allow another indyref2 for at least a generation until 2014 has elapsed
    You just don't want to admit you made a crass schoolboy error with your stats.

    Time to see a nice Deltic photo, I think.
    No error at all.

    45% of all voters voted Yes in 2014, only 40% of all voters back Yes now amongst all voters, a disaster for Sturgeon
    So 55% of all voters voted No in 2014, only 45% of all voters back No now amongst all voters, so disaster for Boris?
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    SandraMc said:

    When I think about the old British Rail, I am reminded of the story about how the flamboyant advertising executive Peter Marsh (who was once married to the actress Pat Phoenix) pitched for the BR account. Executives from BR turned up at the ABM (Allen, Brady, Marsh) offices to be met by a bored looking receptionist, who told them to wait. The waiting room was filthy with dirty coffee cups and filled ashtrays. Just as the BR executives got tired of waiting and were about to leave, Peter Marsh burst in and said: "Now that you've seen what people think of BR, let's discuss how we can change your image."

    Great story. Did he win the account?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Sandpit said:

    F1: suggestion Bottas might have yet another engine in Saudi Arabia:
    https://twitter.com/f1talks/status/1463844366926200835

    Ooh, a two-race engine. That’s going to be even faster than Lewis’s three-race engine.

    It was clear earlier in the year, that Mercedes were doing experiments with Valtteri and his many engines. This is going to be the culmination of their work, producing engines that are physically identical (they are homologated designs) but with wildly different power outputs controlled by software.
    They still have the 'party mode' (as do the other teams, though Honda don't believe they can get so much benefit), and will have calculated how close they can get to it.
    The difference is that under current rules, if they use it, they have do do so throughout the entire race as well, which tends to do bad things to engine life - and the power output drops off quite quickly as the engine wears.

    And of course engines are outside the budget cap. Though customer teams would still have to pay, which I guess is not worth their while.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    eek said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    I think that Bulb has £1.7m customers, so that is about £1k per customer.
    £1.7bn is the max cash requirement. The cost to the taxpayer will be far less.
    Cost at the moment is expected to be 40% of that (I posted the figure yesterday) - so it's currently £700m.

    And remember that the existing companies are having to sub that £400 from their reserves so don't expect prices to fall at any point in the next few years (there is a lot of debt to be made up).

    Even that £400 both does depend on how winter plays out and how the market changes - you best bet long term is to get as energy efficient as possible.
    In future the regulator needs to ensure energy firms have sufficient capital to match their number of customers and hedging risks. It is crazy to allow limited companies a hugely leveraged free bet on energy prices subsidised by taxpayer (and industry competitor) implicit backstop guarantees.
    What is the point? Get rid. Nationalise the lot.
    Do you not remember British Telecom, when it would take them three months to install a line, it would likely end up being a DACS line, and you’d better be damn grateful that they were kind enough to provide you service in the first place?

    The solution is a number of companies, competing to provide service over a single infrastructure. But regulators need to ensure that these companies are sufficiently capitalised and with guaranteed supply at the prices they are selling, and not simply marketing operations placing a one way bet playing the energy markets.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Ugh, now I've got a weirdly stiff and aching back. What's that about?

    Most peculiar.

    PB-ers may want to put me on mute coz I'm gonna be whining all day, I suspect
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557

    SandraMc said:

    When I think about the old British Rail, I am reminded of the story about how the flamboyant advertising executive Peter Marsh (who was once married to the actress Pat Phoenix) pitched for the BR account. Executives from BR turned up at the ABM (Allen, Brady, Marsh) offices to be met by a bored looking receptionist, who told them to wait. The waiting room was filthy with dirty coffee cups and filled ashtrays. Just as the BR executives got tired of waiting and were about to leave, Peter Marsh burst in and said: "Now that you've seen what people think of BR, let's discuss how we can change your image."

    Great story. Did he win the account?
    Yes.
  • Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    So the head of school at my daughter’s old school has just been fired. The Education department is investigating accusations of “racial indoctrination” of pupils. Hit piece in the Times today (and the Mail yesterday)

    She does seem to be making quite the exit:

    Who’d have thought that teaching a bunch of rich kids, that themselves and their parents ae all racist, might generate negative feedback about the school?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/educating-snowflakes-public-schools-have-gone-woke/

    “To civil rights campaigners of the 1950s and 1960s, it might seem utterly baffling, if not a cause for despair and alarm. They fought for an end to segregation; battled to ensure that black children could attend the same schools as their white peers. Brave little girls and boys had to be escorted to their desks by the police, all in the cause of tearing down the barriers between races.”
    Once again, importing American culture ends up with a ridiculous culture clash.

    I have fun with my youngest daughter, who is caught up in the whole AOC end of American politics. Sometimes she comes up with things like "nationalise Healthcare!"
    Ha ha. It won’t be long before she thinks we should ban guns and legalise abortion. :D
    Its not all bad. She might end up hating the red party and supporting the blue one as a result too. 😂
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    Leon said:

    Ugh, now I've got a weirdly stiff and aching back. What's that about?

    Most peculiar.

    PB-ers may want to put me on mute coz I'm gonna be whining all day, I suspect

    Plus ca change :)
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,117
    Leon said:

    Ugh, now I've got a weirdly stiff and aching back. What's that about?

    Most peculiar.

    PB-ers may want to put me on mute coz I'm gonna be whining all day, I suspect

    May just be the effect of having to hold the muscles in an unfamiliar way to compensate for the stiff neck and shoulder.

    (Or a councidence, in the form of a dose of flu caught at the jab venue. Though one hopes not.)
  • Leon said:

    Ugh, now I've got a weirdly stiff and aching back. What's that about?

    You're old.

    Sorry.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    Commiserations, hopefully will be just a 48 hour thing. I had the Pfizer, which I'd heard had a kick like a mule, so I got prep'd up with the tins of chicken soup, hot water bottle, and cheap detective novel, but no, all in vain, nothing to speak of, the side effects, as it turned out. And that's with having the flu jab at the same time too!
    Thanks

    On the upside it does mean I won't be nasty to anyone on here as long as this malaise lasts, because if anyone is nasty in return I will likely start crying

    Always a silver lining!
    If it’s any consolation, I had a very powerful reaction to AZ1, that was akin to the worst feverish flu ever and lasted most of the night. Paracetamol took the edge off it. Apparently it’s a very good sign if you do get a reaction as a) it shows your immune system is working as it should and b) is a indicator that you might already have had asymptomatic covid - which is again great news for you vis a vis your immunity levels going forward.

    Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    MaxPB said:

    geoffw said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap isn't irrelevant. Suppose you are supplying 1m homes and you are told to supply another 200,000? How do you do that except by buying at the current variable market rate.

    Now Bulb may have had a strange (to you) business model of dynamic price changes to reflect the current market price but 1.7million customers liked that business model, it wasn't illegal and it made sense to people who I suspect were market savvy.

    The issue really is a very simple one, the cap needs to reflect current market prices and it very clearly doesn't - and equally those people who are happy to be on a dynamic pricing model should have been left on it sans cap.
    Interesting. I didn't know that Bulb sold at very variable rates. The cap basically makes their model impossible.

    Different situation to the unhedged cowboys.
    Same situation. If you sell to consumers over the long term at any price below the cap, you need to make sure you can buy the stuff at lower prices over the same long term.
    Lets say all the companies buying gas have hedged to buy long at a capped cost.

    The problem at the moment is lack of supply. Who gets cut off first?
    Industrial users - initially those on interruptible contracts.
    German industry is increasingly worried about this, loads of them expect to have to shut down in December and January because gas supplies will be diverted to heating people's houses.
    Yes, I understand this is what will actually happen.


    My point was really that the market can't work if _everyone_ is hedged and there is less supply than demand. Eventually someone somewhere must go bust.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    So the head of school at my daughter’s old school has just been fired. The Education department is investigating accusations of “racial indoctrination” of pupils. Hit piece in the Times today (and the Mail yesterday)

    She does seem to be making quite the exit:

    Who’d have thought that teaching a bunch of rich kids, that themselves and their parents ae all racist, might generate negative feedback about the school?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/educating-snowflakes-public-schools-have-gone-woke/

    “To civil rights campaigners of the 1950s and 1960s, it might seem utterly baffling, if not a cause for despair and alarm. They fought for an end to segregation; battled to ensure that black children could attend the same schools as their white peers. Brave little girls and boys had to be escorted to their desks by the police, all in the cause of tearing down the barriers between races.”
    And yet we are assured by many on here that Woke is not an issue. They are either wilfully blind or exceptionally foolish
    It is an issue, just not the massive issue that you would like it to be.
    Ask @Charles what he thinks of it. He was one of the many parents to take their kids out of ASL, because of the school’s new-found racism.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    Leon said:

    Ugh, now I've got a weirdly stiff and aching back. What's that about?

    Most peculiar.

    PB-ers may want to put me on mute coz I'm gonna be whining all day, I suspect

    Please point me to the mute Leon button.

    I promise to take it off tomorrow 😐
  • Is the 1922 Committee still the old guard who were generally pro-Paterson, pro-second jobs?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    So the head of school at my daughter’s old school has just been fired. The Education department is investigating accusations of “racial indoctrination” of pupils. Hit piece in the Times today (and the Mail yesterday)

    She does seem to be making quite the exit:

    Who’d have thought that teaching a bunch of rich kids, that themselves and their parents ae all racist, might generate negative feedback about the school?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/educating-snowflakes-public-schools-have-gone-woke/

    “To civil rights campaigners of the 1950s and 1960s, it might seem utterly baffling, if not a cause for despair and alarm. They fought for an end to segregation; battled to ensure that black children could attend the same schools as their white peers. Brave little girls and boys had to be escorted to their desks by the police, all in the cause of tearing down the barriers between races.”
    And yet we are assured by many on here that Woke is not an issue. They are either wilfully blind or exceptionally foolish
    It is an issue, just not the massive issue that you would like it to be.
    Well, Wokeness could, by itself, swing the US midterm elections, and then the presidency in 2024. That's the leader of the world's most powerful country (even if it is about to be eclipsed by China). So, yes. I'd say Woke is a big big issue

    Even bigger if it means Donald Trump: president
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    So the head of school at my daughter’s old school has just been fired. The Education department is investigating accusations of “racial indoctrination” of pupils. Hit piece in the Times today (and the Mail yesterday)

    She does seem to be making quite the exit:

    Who’d have thought that teaching a bunch of rich kids, that themselves and their parents ae all racist, might generate negative feedback about the school?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/educating-snowflakes-public-schools-have-gone-woke/

    “To civil rights campaigners of the 1950s and 1960s, it might seem utterly baffling, if not a cause for despair and alarm. They fought for an end to segregation; battled to ensure that black children could attend the same schools as their white peers. Brave little girls and boys had to be escorted to their desks by the police, all in the cause of tearing down the barriers between races.”
    Once again, importing American culture ends up with a ridiculous culture clash.

    I have fun with my youngest daughter, who is caught up in the whole AOC end of American politics. Sometimes she comes up with things like "nationalise Healthcare!"
    Ha ha. It won’t be long before she thinks we should ban guns and legalise abortion. :D
    Its not all bad. She might end up hating the red party and supporting the blue one as a result too. 😂
    Ah yes, always vote for the blue party!
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,603
    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    Nationalise it FFS.
    I remember when utilities, the railways, car manufacturers et al were "nationalised". Also, more laughably known as "in public ownership". They were all totally and utterly shit. And sorry, for all their faults, much much shitter than they are today. The man in Whitehall really does not know best.
    How are you separating out the effect of being state owned versus the fact that it was the ‘70s and early ‘80s, when lots of things were utterly shit. For example compare the way the Police operated then compared to now?
    If you just focus on the police you won't see a huge difference, frankly ......
    Now, now....

    They've all completed their courses on Sensitivity Awareness. I bet Constable Savage got 100% on his Ethnic Community Sensibilities multiple choice test at the end of his seminar.
  • kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    I’m now on my fourth fake cowboy ‘supplier’ in 12 months. Sick of emails, bills and meter readings. It’s the definition of boring chores.

    Nationalise it FFS.
    Yes, if the product is standard and essential, and if a big supplier of it can't be allowed to go bust in the normal way of a failed commercial enterprise, this is a pointer to something that at the very least should be strongly considered for public ownership. By which I mean the question should be flipped to be, what compelling reason is there for this to be in the private sector?
    The compelling reason is that these are commodities that need to be bought and sold. The "state", wherever it is in the world is notoriously shit at that process. Why do you think civil servants might be better than business people? It is ludicrous to think that they are. This is why almost every country in the western world followed the UK in denationalisation. Competition ultimately drives up standards, though it is never utopian. Nationalisation (and the resultant lack of competition and drive for improvement) always drives them down.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Ugh, now I've got a weirdly stiff and aching back. What's that about?

    You're old.

    Sorry.
    I am, indeed, old

    *weeps uncontrollably*

    Tho I have also read that the young tend to react badly to the jabs more than their elders, so there's that
  • Bulb told me in August that sorry, we're putting your prices up in October, but no more rises for six months.

    I am a little taken aback that they made this specific commitment without having bought the requisite futures.

    Although I have been told that maybe they did, but the influx of new customers wasn't accounted for.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    IshmaelZ said:

    WATO woman saying illuminatingly that there's two tiers of wannabe channel crossers. The relatively rich have paid people smugglers who are running halfway professional operations, the poor are freelancing and trying to cross in kayaks and toy dinghies and stuff

    Going rate is eur 3000-6000 for a place in a boat

    Is that paid up front, or paid back over time, to people who ‘know’ the crossers’ families ‘back home’?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    Mr. Pulpstar, ages ago I used to watch the paper review on Sky News.

    There was a wonderful moment with an older present and guest, and a younger guest. The younger guest made some comment about evil Tories and Thatcher being a milk-snatcher, which made the two older guests reminisce about how much they hated the milk, being either freezing cold or warm and horrid, at which point the youth performed a swift u-turn and declared he was too young to remember it.

    Luckily, we have history to teach us how stupid some things (like socialism) are, without needing to undergo the atrocity of inflicting them on the human race ever again.

    LOL is this a pastiche of a Tory election ppb you have seen? 😄

    I am thinking of voting Labour Grandad.
    Oh. Oh dear. Let me tell you about what it was like before you were born.
    You do realise, if the Conservatives adopt such a “ Luckily, we have history to teach us how stupid some things (like socialism) are, without needing to undergo the atrocity of inflicting them on the human race ever again” message there won’t be a single Conservative voter left in fifty years?

    Why? Because it’s Patronising. 18-40s. are intelligent and sentient too, we can work things out for ourselves from the evidence for and against.

    How do you think this older generation today is going to be remembered in the future? Abysmally. As they who presided over decline, ruin and bad decision making. On the watch of today’s older voters, what a complete mess has been made of everything!

    So it’s the one older generation of all most least in position to patronise anyone.
  • I've got my booster this afternoon. I've had two Pfizers, not sure what I'll get.. probably Moderna?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Leon said:

    Ugh, now I've got a weirdly stiff and aching back. What's that about?

    Your immune response chucks out chemicals (interleukins and cytokines) which cause muscle pain.
    A paracetamol would probably help.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,117

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    I’m now on my fourth fake cowboy ‘supplier’ in 12 months. Sick of emails, bills and meter readings. It’s the definition of boring chores.

    Nationalise it FFS.
    Yes, if the product is standard and essential, and if a big supplier of it can't be allowed to go bust in the normal way of a failed commercial enterprise, this is a pointer to something that at the very least should be strongly considered for public ownership. By which I mean the question should be flipped to be, what compelling reason is there for this to be in the private sector?
    The compelling reason is that these are commodities that need to be bought and sold. The "state", wherever it is in the world is notoriously shit at that process. Why do you think civil servants might be better than business people? It is ludicrous to think that they are. This is why almost every country in the western world followed the UK in denationalisation. Competition ultimately drives up standards, though it is never utopian. Nationalisation (and the resultant lack of competition and drive for improvement) always drives them down.
    Not true. I travelled often on BR on a variety of routes from c. 1965 to 1993. The story was one of general improvement till privatisation at which it instantly went shit - for the simple reason that the cross-country connections on which I relied were no longer held even for a fraction of a minute if the trains were of different companies.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    WATO woman saying illuminatingly that there's two tiers of wannabe channel crossers. The relatively rich have paid people smugglers who are running halfway professional operations, the poor are freelancing and trying to cross in kayaks and toy dinghies and stuff

    Going rate is eur 3000-6000 for a place in a boat

    Is that paid up front, or paid back over time, to people who ‘know’ the crossers’ families ‘back home’?
    Didn't say

    She did say that the professional operations are run from the UK at least as much as from France
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Nigelb said:

    SandraMc said:

    When I think about the old British Rail, I am reminded of the story about how the flamboyant advertising executive Peter Marsh (who was once married to the actress Pat Phoenix) pitched for the BR account. Executives from BR turned up at the ABM (Allen, Brady, Marsh) offices to be met by a bored looking receptionist, who told them to wait. The waiting room was filthy with dirty coffee cups and filled ashtrays. Just as the BR executives got tired of waiting and were about to leave, Peter Marsh burst in and said: "Now that you've seen what people think of BR, let's discuss how we can change your image."

    Didn't do anything for the actual service, of course.
    Presumably, the result of the pitch was “We’re Getting There”?
  • Kitty Donaldson
    @kitty_donaldson
    ·
    31m
    NEW: The executive of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs has been in en masse to see Prime Minister Boris Johnson

    "Sort your shit out Prime Minister or we'll sack you"
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,603

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    So the head of school at my daughter’s old school has just been fired. The Education department is investigating accusations of “racial indoctrination” of pupils. Hit piece in the Times today (and the Mail yesterday)

    She does seem to be making quite the exit:

    Who’d have thought that teaching a bunch of rich kids, that themselves and their parents ae all racist, might generate negative feedback about the school?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/educating-snowflakes-public-schools-have-gone-woke/

    “To civil rights campaigners of the 1950s and 1960s, it might seem utterly baffling, if not a cause for despair and alarm. They fought for an end to segregation; battled to ensure that black children could attend the same schools as their white peers. Brave little girls and boys had to be escorted to their desks by the police, all in the cause of tearing down the barriers between races.”
    Once again, importing American culture ends up with a ridiculous culture clash.

    I have fun with my youngest daughter, who is caught up in the whole AOC end of American politics. Sometimes she comes up with things like "nationalise Healthcare!"
    Ha ha. It won’t be long before she thinks we should ban guns and legalise abortion. :D
    Its not all bad. She might end up hating the red party and supporting the blue one as a result too. 😂
    Strangely, she wants to learn to shoot. When she is old enough, will take her clay pigeon shooting, to see if she likes it.

    I drive her up the wall by listing the policies that AOC supports that are to the *Right* of the Conservative Party manifesto.

    This woke stuff is jolly good fun.
  • Mr. Leon, I had an aching back for a week or so, then a few days of respite, then an aching neck/shoulder, then a day of respite, then a week of aching back.

    At the moment I'm wary to return to exercise because I've had a week or so of my back actually functioning fairly well.
  • No_Offence_AlanNo_Offence_Alan Posts: 3,701
    edited November 2021
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Pretty bloody ropey after my Moderna booster jab. Seriously sore and frozen arm, general malaise and fatigue. Much worse than AZ, which caused a tiny bit of tenderness in the shoulder...

    I had similar with Pfizer after AZ x 2. It will be very time limited though. You'll be fine tomorrow.
    Ta. I am reassured

    It's an odd feeling, like waking up with a really bad cold except no sneezing, runny nose, sore throat. Just the malaise. All I wanna do is crawl back into bed

    Also like waking up after Mike Tyson, in his peak, punched you repeatedly in the upper arm as you slept
    I had no reaction at all to my 2 ANZ jabs.
    But I felt shit for 2 days after my first ever flu jab (that will teach me to hit 60) a couple of weeks ago.
    Should be getting my COVID booster in a couple of weeks.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Mr. Leon, I had an aching back for a week or so, then a few days of respite, then an aching neck/shoulder, then a day of respite, then a week of aching back.

    At the moment I'm wary to return to exercise because I've had a week or so of my back actually functioning fairly well.

    God, that doesn't sound good

    I shall pray for a better outcome. My sympathies
This discussion has been closed.