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Voodoo polling v proper polling (festive edition) – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited December 2021 in General
Voodoo polling v proper polling (festive edition) – politicalbetting.com

A poll of over 4,200 GB News viewers says Die Hard is a Christmas film, with 66% of respondents voting in favour of the Bruce Willis film being a festive classic. pic.twitter.com/Mpv4CfiLxM

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    edited December 2021
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    Desperate effort by TSE to settle the Die Hard controversy.
    Though he does have a point about Voodoo polls.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    All the fuss about whether Die Hard is a Christmas film, nobody argues about that other great Christmas film, Ronin...
  • Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited December 2021
    More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London" because he knows them initimately well himself.

    BoZo will endear himself further to his backbenchers when the speaker introduces sniffer dogs in Parliament as a result...
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    And a 3.8% fare increase yet to be announced.
    Just the thing to fill carriages.
  • The misinformation and propaganda effect: Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates.



    https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1467497890419548171
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    The misinformation and propaganda effect: Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates.



    https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1467497890419548171

    I’m assuming it is too much to ask but has he taken into account other factors such as poverty rate, access to healthcare services etc?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.

    Is this Johnson just casting about for new ideas at random?

    This new politics where every political position has to be refracted through the worldview of a moron in Hartlepool with nicotine stained knuckles is just wearying.
  • Die Hard is most definitely a Christmas movie.

    Die Hard writer settles Christmas movie debate with unique argument


    It's the battle that rages every Christmas – is Die Hard really a Christmas movie?

    While in the past most people haven't considered it a classic of the festive genre, the movie's writer has settled the debate once and for all, confirming it is indeed a Christmas classic.

    Steven E de Souza gave us a handy checklist while appearing on the Script Apart podcast, comparing it to the "baseline" Christmas movie – 1954's White Christmas.

    In his examination, he notes that Die Hard takes place entirely in the Christmas holidays, while only the first and final scenes of White Christmas are set during the holiday season. The entirety of Die Hard is also at a Christmas party, while only the end of its 1950s counterpart is.

    Interestingly, there are four Christmas songs in Die Hard, compared to only two in White Christmas, and in Die Hard the party venue is threatened by terrorists, while the one in the earlier movie is threatened by foreclosure.

    De Souza goes on to note there are broadcasters with hidden agendas in both movies – Dick Thornburg in Die Hard and Ed Harrison in White Christmas – while there are also German ringleaders, namely Hans Gruber and Adolf Hitler.


    image
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    UK Omicron cases reach 246 after 86 new infections reported, according to latest figures http://news.sky.com/story/uk-omicron-cases-reach-246-after-86-new-infections-reported-according-to-latest-figures-12487401
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.

    I’ll bite.

    If you want to continue with drug criminalisation (a different question), then targeting the users with stiff penalties is the way to go.

    And you have to go after the wealthy ones, not the poor ones. The wealthy drug users keep the dealers in business. Dealers are not daft. You know you can charge someone middle class more and that subsidises the lower end of the market.

    Which means the poor suffer from leniency towards the rich. One of the key reasons why Manchester was such a drugs capital in the 1980s and 1990s was that it had a very large concentration of well-off students living in a very close proximity to Moss Side. They could leave when they finished their degrees but they left behind the problems.

    So, nail the middle class users. Name and shame them. It will only take a few examples for the rest of them to realise the cost of doing drugs is too high as opposed to a badge of honour.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,159
    dixiedean said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    And a 3.8% fare increase yet to be announced.
    Just the thing to fill carriages.
    Great news for the Lib Dems in those Surrey abc Hants marginals. Bye bye Mr Raab.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,917
    edited December 2021
    So Saving Private Ryan is NOT a WW2 movie because it was released in 1998?

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770

    The misinformation and propaganda effect: Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates.



    https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1467497890419548171

    Has that been normalized for age?
  • "52% of voters have awesome judgment"

    Too easy...
  • rcs1000 said:

    The misinformation and propaganda effect: Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates.



    https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1467497890419548171

    Has that been normalized for age?
    The trend was robust, even when controlling for age, which is the primary demographic risk of COVID-19 mortality.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    MrEd said:

    The misinformation and propaganda effect: Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates.



    https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1467497890419548171

    I’m assuming it is too much to ask but has he taken into account other factors such as poverty rate, access to healthcare services etc?
    It doesn’t really matter does it? The point is that Comrade Covid is killing Trumpah-loompahs at three times the rate of normal people. Sooner or later there is going to be an electoral effect accruing therefrom.

    I assume Trump sort of gets this which is why he hasn't switched to an explicitly antivax position even though his base would love it.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,159
    Dura_Ace said:

    MrEd said:

    The misinformation and propaganda effect: Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates.



    https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1467497890419548171

    I’m assuming it is too much to ask but has he taken into account other factors such as poverty rate, access to healthcare services etc?
    It doesn’t really matter does it? The point is that Comrade Covid is killing Trumpah-loompahs at three times the rate of normal people. Sooner or later there is going to be an electoral effect accruing therefrom.

    I assume Trump sort of gets this which is why he hasn't switched to an explicitly antivax position even though his base would love it.
    If Omicron is as it seems based on South Africa, with significant breakthrough vs infection acquired immunity, those anti-vax neighbourhoods are going to have a pretty torrid time again.
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,489
    Scott_xP said:

    UK Omicron cases reach 246 after 86 new infections reported, according to latest figures http://news.sky.com/story/uk-omicron-cases-reach-246-after-86-new-infections-reported-according-to-latest-figures-12487401

    That's a big rise :(

    246, not good that it is that big, but its starting to get to the point where we can make slightly meaningful predictions do we know how many where vaccinated, 2 or 1 jab? and or how many had been infected and recovered?

    and do we have the number by reported or sample date?
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703

    So Saving Private Ryan is NOT a WW2 movie because it was released in 1998?

    What about ‘shaving Ryan’s private’s’. An artistic film some friends of mine watched ?
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Dura_Ace said:

    MrEd said:

    The misinformation and propaganda effect: Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates.



    https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1467497890419548171

    I’m assuming it is too much to ask but has he taken into account other factors such as poverty rate, access to healthcare services etc?
    It doesn’t really matter does it? The point is that Comrade Covid is killing Trumpah-loompahs at three times the rate of normal people. Sooner or later there is going to be an electoral effect accruing therefrom.

    I assume Trump sort of gets this which is why he hasn't switched to an explicitly antivax position even though his base would love it.
    You’d have to get a shit load of more deaths to have an impact - possible but a long time to come. It sounds like the Covid version of the “We’ll rejoin the EU because the Brexiteers will die off” line
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Sure ... as long as you equally accept that "Debbie Does Dallas" is about great American cities.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Taz said:

    So Saving Private Ryan is NOT a WW2 movie because it was released in 1998?

    What about ‘shaving Ryan’s private’s’. An artistic film some friends of mine watched ?
    I’m assuming that would be a film that would go down well in, mmm, Old Compton Street and other similar areas….
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited December 2021
    MrEd said:

    More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.

    I’ll bite.

    If you want to continue with drug criminalisation (a different question), then targeting the users with stiff penalties is the way to go.

    And you have to go after the wealthy ones, not the poor ones. The wealthy drug users keep the dealers in business. Dealers are not daft. You know you can charge someone middle class more and that subsidises the lower end of the market.

    Which means the poor suffer from leniency towards the rich. One of the key reasons why Manchester was such a drugs capital in the 1980s and 1990s was that it had a very large concentration of well-off students living in a very close proximity to Moss Side. They could leave when they finished their degrees but they left behind the problems.

    So, nail the middle class users. Name and shame them. It will only take a few examples for the rest of them to realise the cost of doing drugs is too high as opposed to a badge of honour.
    Irony is there is zero votes in it yet Boris seems to think there are some.

    The problem is that the fixes that work are politically impossible - for heroin you do need shooting galleries and that is not acceptable to local voters.

    Reason I know this is I used to work on the main “crm” solution used by drug rehab agencies and police forces. 1 quick fix would be to standardise who out of local authorities \ police \ NHS are responsible for reducing addiction levels but this area is a complete mess of multiple agencies all with different reporting paths and different aims.
  • Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Well, there are only two ways to cover the cost of the railways: from the farepayer and from the taxpayer. Increasing the latter is politically impossible because it's effectively a subsidy of relatively rich South Eastern commuters and hence contrary to leveling up, and if increasing the former is politically impossible because media coverage is dictated by journalists who predominantly are relatively rich South Eastern commuters, then there's only one solution left - cut costs.
  • Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    So is the Great Escape! Since it was always on during the Xmas holidays when I was a boy. The last two summers, I have visited some of the locations where the final scenes were shot - amidst stunning Bavarian scenery - and would happily see it again this Xmas.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited December 2021
    MrEd said:

    More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.

    I’ll bite.

    If you want to continue with drug criminalisation (a different question), then targeting the users with stiff penalties is the way to go.

    And you have to go after the wealthy ones, not the poor ones. The wealthy drug users keep the dealers in business. Dealers are not daft. You know you can charge someone middle class more and that subsidises the lower end of the market.

    Which means the poor suffer from leniency towards the rich. One of the key reasons why Manchester was such a drugs capital in the 1980s and 1990s was that it had a very large concentration of well-off students living in a very close proximity to Moss Side. They could leave when they finished their degrees but they left behind the problems.

    So, nail the middle class users. Name and shame them. It will only take a few examples for the rest of them to realise the cost of doing drugs is too high as opposed to a badge of honour.
    Re; Dura Ace's point about Hartlepool, this has obviously been focus-grouped to play well in the Red Wall. It also gives the very convenient, redirecting spin on hypocrisy that the U.S. Republicans love, too - stick it to the middle-class and metropolitan elitists, rather than people at the absolute apex of power saying one thing and doing another, particularly on the very pressing questions of corruption and double standards of behaviour on isolating, amongst other things.

    On Ed's point above, I do definitely have doubts on the usefulness of our current policy of criminalisation to start with. Drug use arrests have reduced slightly but not markedly over the decades, as we still pour in huge resources into a policy that's supporting a whole range of global criminal networks. I'm not sure that the wide availability and full legality of hard, rather than soft drugs, is an answer, but one thing I'm sure is that we do need a far more open mind towards what's empirically proven to work, in terms of therapeutic interventions, and more time spent considering, at very least, the results of historical processes like Prohibition.

    On pursuing this policy if we persist with the criminality of all drugs, I have major doubts about that, too. I'm no fan of cocaine use as a social force - at all - but it's gone through many decades of evolution, well past being associated with status and a badge of honour ,to routine use among many professional groups, through to many other classes too. In that context one risks making a "show trials" example of people, which also happens to be very helpful for use in culture war politics, for very little actual social gain.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,917
    edited December 2021

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
  • image

    Case closed.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703
    MrEd said:

    Taz said:

    So Saving Private Ryan is NOT a WW2 movie because it was released in 1998?

    What about ‘shaving Ryan’s private’s’. An artistic film some friends of mine watched ?
    I’m assuming that would be a film that would go down well in, mmm, Old Compton Street and other similar areas….
    I think that’s a fair assumption to make
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393
    If feckwits, arseholes and scumbags weren't getting drugged up left, right and centre then there would be no drug problem.

    Show them that their actions have consequences. A few show trials of the rich and famous would be great.
  • Big crash in the F2 race.
  • I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
  • Big crash in the F2 race.

    Footage here.

    Note Sky aren't showing replays at the moment.

    https://twitter.com/F1onetwothree/status/1467512084539846665
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    Big crash in the F2 race.

    Footage here.

    Note Sky aren't showing replays at the moment.

    https://twitter.com/F1onetwothree/status/1467512084539846665
    Not good. That start line and first corner looks identical to Singapore.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    edited December 2021
    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,742

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,143

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Well, there are only two ways to cover the cost of the railways: from the farepayer and from the taxpayer. Increasing the latter is politically impossible because it's effectively a subsidy of relatively rich South Eastern commuters and hence contrary to leveling up, and if increasing the former is politically impossible because media coverage is dictated by journalists who predominantly are relatively rich South Eastern commuters, then there's only one solution left - cut costs.
    Can't see that that is the case at all, except insofar as there is an overall budget pie to be cut up.

    (1) That doesn't cover the case of Scotland, NI and IIRC recently) Wales.
    (2) That doesn't cover capital investment grants to specific projects. HS2 is an obvious example.
    (3) That doesn't allow for the point that different Train Operating Companies have different budgets and agreements with DfT.

    For all those reasons, differential funding can be and is applied to different areas. So one could reduce funding for London and increase it for the Adlestrop branch line, for instance. Or the converse. Indeed, it was the absurdly small funding to the NE as opposed to London commuters that exemplifies the issue -but also shows the poiint that differential funding does exist.

  • CiceroCicero Posts: 2,179

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    edited December 2021
    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The reality is that life has changed. We aren't going back to pre-COVID commuting patterns no matter how many trains they put on.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Would you like to make the Zoom log-in widely available? Sounds like a hell of a night....
  • I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts
    I think you're the PB incel virgin here, judging by the amount you of time you spend writing and editing threads for Mike :p

    Steven E de Souza was writer of Die Hard, by the way!
  • ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.

    It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    Is that true?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum#/media/File:UK_EU_referendum_polling.svg
  • tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Would you like to make the Zoom log-in widely available? Sounds like a hell of a night....
    We don't use Zoom but I can ask our IT boffins if it is possible to create a log in code for you all.

    There might be more fun than you can handle. The team comprises of 20 or so people, mostly lawyers, accountants, bankers, statisticians, and mathematicians.

    That is more excitement than most people can handle.
  • Big crash in the F2 race.

    Footage here.

    Note Sky aren't showing replays at the moment.

    https://twitter.com/F1onetwothree/status/1467512084539846665
    That Tweet has been deleted. Hope nobody is seriously hurt.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    rcs1000 said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    Is that true?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum#/media/File:UK_EU_referendum_polling.svg
    Okay, huge was perhaps overstating it, but in the latter half of 2015, Remain was ahead in almost every poll. It was only in the last few months that leave started to move ahead.
  • ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.

    It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
    You have clearly never commuted to Central London then. Or some other city centres where I would prefer a train to sitting in a traffic jam. And of course if people can't travel by train, the traffic gets even worse.
  • I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts
    I think you're the PB incel virgin here, judging by the amount you of time you spend writing and editing threads for Mike :p

    Steven E de Souza was writer of Die Hard, by the way!
    I can multitask.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
    Not…Sheffield…
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.

    It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
    You have clearly never commuted to Central London then. Or some other city centres where I would prefer a train to sitting in a traffic jam. And of course if people can't travel by train, the traffic gets even worse.
    Nobody has switched to commuting by car because there aren't quite as many trains in the peaks.
  • Charles said:

    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
    Not…Sheffield…
    I was thinking Middlesbrough.
  • ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.

    It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
    You have clearly never commuted to Central London then. Or some other city centres where I would prefer a train to sitting in a traffic jam. And of course if people can't travel by train, the traffic gets even worse.
    The overwhelming majority of people don't commute to Central London. If people want to commute into Central London they should pay a commercial rate of transportation to do so, if its uncompetitive to be doing so in Central London then commute elsewhere instead.
  • Mr. Eagles, ho ho ho.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    tlg86 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    Is that true?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum#/media/File:UK_EU_referendum_polling.svg
    Okay, huge was perhaps overstating it, but in the latter half of 2015, Remain was ahead in almost every poll. It was only in the last few months that leave started to move ahead.
    My (probably unreliable) memory is that Remain had big leads with the phone pollsters, while Leave had small leads with the online ones.
  • tlg86 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.

    It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
    You have clearly never commuted to Central London then. Or some other city centres where I would prefer a train to sitting in a traffic jam. And of course if people can't travel by train, the traffic gets even worse.
    Nobody has switched to commuting by car because there aren't quite as many trains in the peaks.
    It's possible. The fewer trains, the harder it is to leave work when you want to which lengthens your journey. It also makes it worse if the train you wanted to catch is cancelled, as it is longer to the next one. For example, my 1713 from Farnborough no longer runs. There is a 1703 or a 1733. So that adds 20 minutes onto the journey if you can't leave early.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.

    It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
    There are two types of commuter journey.

    Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.

    Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.

    The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    MrEd said:

    More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.

    I’ll bite.

    If you want to continue with drug criminalisation (a different question), then targeting the users with stiff penalties is the way to go.

    And you have to go after the wealthy ones, not the poor ones. The wealthy drug users keep the dealers in business. Dealers are not daft. You know you can charge someone middle class more and that subsidises the lower end of the market.

    Which means the poor suffer from leniency towards the rich. One of the key reasons why Manchester was such a drugs capital in the 1980s and 1990s was that it had a very large concentration of well-off students living in a very close proximity to Moss Side. They could leave when they finished their degrees but they left behind the problems.

    So, nail the middle class users. Name and shame them. It will only take a few examples for the rest of them to realise the cost of doing drugs is too high as opposed to a badge of honour.
    It's such a dumb policy. Imagine the case of a normal twenty or thirty something who occasionally takes MDMA when they go clubbing. They get caught and lose their driving license. They need their car for work so they lose their job and stop paying taxes. They go from being a successful fully functioning member of society to being a burden on taxpayers. All for possessing a substance far less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.
    Almost the only harm that a drug like MDMA does to society comes from the fact that criminals profit from it, which is entirely because it is illegal. It's a pure Catch-22 situation: it should be illegal because it's harmful because it's illegal. Only a government dead from the neck up and utterly bereft of ideas would come up with something this dumb.
    It's a policy for turning mostly functional middle class drug users into not at all functional petty criminal drug addicts.
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,489

    MrEd said:

    More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.

    I’ll bite.

    If you want to continue with drug criminalisation (a different question), then targeting the users with stiff penalties is the way to go.

    And you have to go after the wealthy ones, not the poor ones. The wealthy drug users keep the dealers in business. Dealers are not daft. You know you can charge someone middle class more and that subsidises the lower end of the market.

    Which means the poor suffer from leniency towards the rich. One of the key reasons why Manchester was such a drugs capital in the 1980s and 1990s was that it had a very large concentration of well-off students living in a very close proximity to Moss Side. They could leave when they finished their degrees but they left behind the problems.

    So, nail the middle class users. Name and shame them. It will only take a few examples for the rest of them to realise the cost of doing drugs is too high as opposed to a badge of honour.
    It's such a dumb policy. Imagine the case of a normal twenty or thirty something who occasionally takes MDMA when they go clubbing. They get caught and lose their driving license. They need their car for work so they lose their job and stop paying taxes. They go from being a successful fully functioning member of society to being a burden on taxpayers. All for possessing a substance far less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.
    Almost the only harm that a drug like MDMA does to society comes from the fact that criminals profit from it, which is entirely because it is illegal. It's a pure Catch-22 situation: it should be illegal because it's harmful because it's illegal. Only a government dead from the neck up and utterly bereft of ideas would come up with something this dumb.
    Completely agree, Only that I would extend that to all intoxicants.

    If a substance is bad for ones heath, as many are to a greater or lesser extent, the the person who suffers in the person who puts it in to there body, they also are the ones who enjoy whatever the intoxicant does. leaving that individual to 'price' in the risk/reward or cost/benefit. most of us on hear do it with beer, wine, coffee, refined sugar. Other people at different stages of there lives make calculations with other substances, that is up to them, only they fully understand the enjoyment they get, and only have to live with the damage to their body's.

    The 'cost to society' is an entirely self inflicted by the chose to make things illegal, we chose to put people in prison, and then bemoan the cost to the taxpayer of the prisons, we take people driving licence away, so they lose there jobs, or give them criminal records and then are surprised when they cant get a new job. We create a black market and then are surprised that 'criminal gangs' form to operate in that market.

    by drying to do 'good' and safe people from the affects of there own choses we have created something much much worse.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,742
    eek said:

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.

    It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
    There are two types of commuter journey.

    Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.

    Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.

    The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
    I looked at a job in Bristol recently. In the end, I didn't apply as I concluded it was too far from the railway station and there is no way I am commuting into Bristol by car again.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
    Not…Sheffield…
    I was thinking Middlesbrough.
    My best man worked for 2 years in a chlorine factory in Middlesbrough…

    He hasn’t been back since he met Roger Jenkins
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    MrEd said:

    More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.

    I’ll bite.

    If you want to continue with drug criminalisation (a different question), then targeting the users with stiff penalties is the way to go.

    And you have to go after the wealthy ones, not the poor ones. The wealthy drug users keep the dealers in business. Dealers are not daft. You know you can charge someone middle class more and that subsidises the lower end of the market.

    Which means the poor suffer from leniency towards the rich. One of the key reasons why Manchester was such a drugs capital in the 1980s and 1990s was that it had a very large concentration of well-off students living in a very close proximity to Moss Side. They could leave when they finished their degrees but they left behind the problems.

    So, nail the middle class users. Name and shame them. It will only take a few examples for the rest of them to realise the cost of doing drugs is too high as opposed to a badge of honour.
    It's such a dumb policy. Imagine the case of a normal twenty or thirty something who occasionally takes MDMA when they go clubbing. They get caught and lose their driving license. They need their car for work so they lose their job and stop paying taxes. They go from being a successful fully functioning member of society to being a burden on taxpayers. All for possessing a substance far less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.
    Almost the only harm that a drug like MDMA does to society comes from the fact that criminals profit from it, which is entirely because it is illegal. It's a pure Catch-22 situation: it should be illegal because it's harmful because it's illegal. Only a government dead from the neck up and utterly bereft of ideas would come up with something this dumb.
    It's a policy for turning mostly functional middle class drug users into not at all functional petty criminal drug addicts.
    I'm at a loss as to where the idea could have come from. Anyone who knows anything about drugs knows that prosecuting users doesn't actually get you anywhere or solve anything.

    And I don't see how there is any actual votes in it.
  • I can see an easy opportunity for Starmer to bring back tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime...

    Bedford Shooting : camera footage shows the moment a car screeches to a halt and a gunman jumps out opening fire with a handgun, a car then proceeds to attempt to run over the male before fleeing yesterday.

    https://twitter.com/ScarcityStudios/status/1467517131562668038?s=20
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,742
    Zhao walks back to his chair cursing Stephen Hendry for saying 'he's looked very comfortable all session.'
  • Carnyx said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Well, there are only two ways to cover the cost of the railways: from the farepayer and from the taxpayer. Increasing the latter is politically impossible because it's effectively a subsidy of relatively rich South Eastern commuters and hence contrary to leveling up, and if increasing the former is politically impossible because media coverage is dictated by journalists who predominantly are relatively rich South Eastern commuters, then there's only one solution left - cut costs.
    Can't see that that is the case at all, except insofar as there is an overall budget pie to be cut up.

    (1) That doesn't cover the case of Scotland, NI and IIRC recently) Wales.
    (2) That doesn't cover capital investment grants to specific projects. HS2 is an obvious example.
    (3) That doesn't allow for the point that different Train Operating Companies have different budgets and agreements with DfT.

    For all those reasons, differential funding can be and is applied to different areas. So one could reduce funding for London and increase it for the Adlestrop branch line, for instance. Or the converse. Indeed, it was the absurdly small funding to the NE as opposed to London commuters that exemplifies the issue -but also shows the poiint that differential funding does exist.

    Does Oxford-Worcester count as a branch line? Should be referred to Sunil for a definitive judgment.
  • eek said:

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.

    It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
    There are two types of commuter journey.

    Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.

    Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.

    The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
    The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.

    The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.

    Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Charles said:

    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
    Not…Sheffield…
    I was thinking Middlesbrough.
    Middlesbrough has the sea near by and redeeming features.

    If you are punishing someone send them to Stoke on Trent.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,742

    Carnyx said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Well, there are only two ways to cover the cost of the railways: from the farepayer and from the taxpayer. Increasing the latter is politically impossible because it's effectively a subsidy of relatively rich South Eastern commuters and hence contrary to leveling up, and if increasing the former is politically impossible because media coverage is dictated by journalists who predominantly are relatively rich South Eastern commuters, then there's only one solution left - cut costs.
    Can't see that that is the case at all, except insofar as there is an overall budget pie to be cut up.

    (1) That doesn't cover the case of Scotland, NI and IIRC recently) Wales.
    (2) That doesn't cover capital investment grants to specific projects. HS2 is an obvious example.
    (3) That doesn't allow for the point that different Train Operating Companies have different budgets and agreements with DfT.

    For all those reasons, differential funding can be and is applied to different areas. So one could reduce funding for London and increase it for the Adlestrop branch line, for instance. Or the converse. Indeed, it was the absurdly small funding to the NE as opposed to London commuters that exemplifies the issue -but also shows the poiint that differential funding does exist.

    Does Oxford-Worcester count as a branch line? Should be referred to Sunil for a definitive judgment.
    No, it's a mainline. Carries the expresses to Hereford.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2021
    Nothing says Christmas like a nice family photo...

    A US congressman has posted a Christmas picture of himself and what appears to be his family, smiling and posing with an assortment of guns

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/05/republican-thomas-massie-condemned-for-christmas-guns-photo-congressman-michigan-school-shooting
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,143

    Carnyx said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Well, there are only two ways to cover the cost of the railways: from the farepayer and from the taxpayer. Increasing the latter is politically impossible because it's effectively a subsidy of relatively rich South Eastern commuters and hence contrary to leveling up, and if increasing the former is politically impossible because media coverage is dictated by journalists who predominantly are relatively rich South Eastern commuters, then there's only one solution left - cut costs.
    Can't see that that is the case at all, except insofar as there is an overall budget pie to be cut up.

    (1) That doesn't cover the case of Scotland, NI and IIRC recently) Wales.
    (2) That doesn't cover capital investment grants to specific projects. HS2 is an obvious example.
    (3) That doesn't allow for the point that different Train Operating Companies have different budgets and agreements with DfT.

    For all those reasons, differential funding can be and is applied to different areas. So one could reduce funding for London and increase it for the Adlestrop branch line, for instance. Or the converse. Indeed, it was the absurdly small funding to the NE as opposed to London commuters that exemplifies the issue -but also shows the poiint that differential funding does exist.

    Does Oxford-Worcester count as a branch line? Should be referred to Sunil for a definitive judgment.
    The old O, W and W was something of a loose end in the old days ... but not latterly. You are right!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,742
    eek said:

    Charles said:

    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
    Not…Sheffield…
    I was thinking Middlesbrough.
    Middlesbrough has the sea near by and redeeming features.

    If you are punishing someone send them to Stoke on Trent.
    I think Merthyr's worse.

    Not by much, mind you.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,730
    tlg86 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The reality is that life has changed. We aren't going back to pre-COVID commuting patterns no matter how many trains they put on.
    Could that mean HS2 is not such a big deal anymore?
  • eek said:

    Charles said:

    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
    Not…Sheffield…
    I was thinking Middlesbrough.
    Middlesbrough has the sea near by and redeeming features.

    If you are punishing someone send them to Stoke on Trent.
    Oi I am originally from Stoke....
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,742

    eek said:

    Charles said:

    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
    Not…Sheffield…
    I was thinking Middlesbrough.
    Middlesbrough has the sea near by and redeeming features.

    If you are punishing someone send them to Stoke on Trent.
    Oi I am originally from Stoke....
    The operative word there being 'from?'
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.

    It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
    There are two types of commuter journey.

    Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.

    Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.

    The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
    The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.

    The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.

    Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
    Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?

    The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.

    Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
  • eek said:

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.

    It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
    There are two types of commuter journey.

    Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.

    Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.

    The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
    The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.

    The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.

    Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
    Why do you want to see a world clogged up with with traffic - nowhere to park, noise, pollution, towns and villages used as rat runs? Your priorities seem a little odd.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    isam said:

    tlg86 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The reality is that life has changed. We aren't going back to pre-COVID commuting patterns no matter how many trains they put on.
    Could that mean HS2 is not such a big deal anymore?
    Well I thought the case for HS2 was ropey before COVID!

    Personally, I think the case for railways going forward is that many people won't be able to afford a personal car once the internal combustion engine has gone.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    isam said:

    tlg86 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The reality is that life has changed. We aren't going back to pre-COVID commuting patterns no matter how many trains they put on.
    Could that mean HS2 is not such a big deal anymore?
    HS2 isn't commuter trains - the one thing HS2 adds is capacity.

    Capacity that allows both local services and would allow a decent rail based freight services to be developed.
  • F1: a thousand years late (race is only an hour and a half away), Ladbrokes has the classified markets.

    I've backed both Sainz and Leclerc to not be classified. They're 5 each, 5.25 with boost. For those who care of such things, I split one stake equally between them (and this, of course, won't count in the records as it isn't mentioned in a blog).
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,742
    eek said:

    isam said:

    tlg86 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The reality is that life has changed. We aren't going back to pre-COVID commuting patterns no matter how many trains they put on.
    Could that mean HS2 is not such a big deal anymore?
    HS2 isn't commuter trains - the one thing HS2 adds is capacity.

    Capacity that allows both local services and would allow a decent rail based freight services to be developed.
    Although if we have more working from home people might use HS2 to live further away from the office and commute longer distances on rarer occasions.

    What has poor Luca Brecel done to deserve this? Kick 100 black cats at once? That's an outrageous stroke of luck for Zhao.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    What an absolute farce this Jeddah track is
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    ydoethur said:

    eek said:

    Charles said:

    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
    Not…Sheffield…
    I was thinking Middlesbrough.
    Middlesbrough has the sea near by and redeeming features.

    If you are punishing someone send them to Stoke on Trent.
    I think Merthyr's worse.

    Not by much, mind you.
    Yep Merthyr would trump stoke - simple because of the journey time to get absolutely anywhere.

    My problem with Boro is that I know the place and it really isn't that bad - there are way worse places to be.

    Now Loftus....
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,489
    eek said:

    MrEd said:

    More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.

    I’ll bite.

    If you want to continue with drug criminalisation (a different question), then targeting the users with stiff penalties is the way to go.

    And you have to go after the wealthy ones, not the poor ones. The wealthy drug users keep the dealers in business. Dealers are not daft. You know you can charge someone middle class more and that subsidises the lower end of the market.

    Which means the poor suffer from leniency towards the rich. One of the key reasons why Manchester was such a drugs capital in the 1980s and 1990s was that it had a very large concentration of well-off students living in a very close proximity to Moss Side. They could leave when they finished their degrees but they left behind the problems.

    So, nail the middle class users. Name and shame them. It will only take a few examples for the rest of them to realise the cost of doing drugs is too high as opposed to a badge of honour.
    It's such a dumb policy. Imagine the case of a normal twenty or thirty something who occasionally takes MDMA when they go clubbing. They get caught and lose their driving license. They need their car for work so they lose their job and stop paying taxes. They go from being a successful fully functioning member of society to being a burden on taxpayers. All for possessing a substance far less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.
    Almost the only harm that a drug like MDMA does to society comes from the fact that criminals profit from it, which is entirely because it is illegal. It's a pure Catch-22 situation: it should be illegal because it's harmful because it's illegal. Only a government dead from the neck up and utterly bereft of ideas would come up with something this dumb.
    It's a policy for turning mostly functional middle class drug users into not at all functional petty criminal drug addicts.
    I'm at a loss as to where the idea could have come from. Anyone who knows anything about drugs knows that prosecuting users doesn't actually get you anywhere or solve anything.

    And I don't see how there is any actual votes in it.
    I don't know where this has come form, as some have speculated in may be a focus group thing.

    But I suspect this is much more a cases having spent the last 19 months telling people what to do for there own good, its become a but of a habit, maybe even an addiction to control over other people lives.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,742

    F1: a thousand years late (race is only an hour and a half away), Ladbrokes has the classified markets.

    I've backed both Sainz and Leclerc to not be classified. They're 5 each, 5.25 with boost. For those who care of such things, I split one stake equally between them (and this, of course, won't count in the records as it isn't mentioned in a blog).

    You should get 1/1000 on @TSE calling Verstappen something unprintable during the race. Anything shorter is free money.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    ydoethur said:

    Zhao walks back to his chair cursing Stephen Hendry for saying 'he's looked very comfortable all session.'

    Intriguing final thus far.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,143
    eek said:

    ydoethur said:

    eek said:

    Charles said:

    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
    Not…Sheffield…
    I was thinking Middlesbrough.
    Middlesbrough has the sea near by and redeeming features.

    If you are punishing someone send them to Stoke on Trent.
    I think Merthyr's worse.

    Not by much, mind you.
    Yep Merthyr would trump stoke - simple because of the journey time to get absolutely anywhere.

    My problem with Boro is that I know the place and it really isn't that bad - there are way worse places to be.

    Now Loftus....
    The last I saw of Loftus was a big hole in the ground. Where all the alum shale was.
  • SirNorfolkPassmoreSirNorfolkPassmore Posts: 6,168
    edited December 2021
    On topic (vaguely), I'd like to share my argument that 2000 Miles by the Pretenders is NOT a Christmas song, even though it is routinely treated as such.

    It was written about the death of a member of the band, James Honeyman-Scott, who had died of a drug overdose in New York in the middle of June. The wintery references are to Chrissie Hynde's mental state, and are purely ironic given it is set in the middle of summer. A couple of Christmas references are specifically to it NOT being Christmas ("it felt LIKE Christmas time", "he'll be back at Christmas time") and "I can hear people singing, it must be Christmas time" is a nod to the funeral - just about the only time many people go to Church and join in singing, other than at Christmas.

    Of course, that's all undercut by the fact it was released at Christmas, with a Christmassy video... but that's the music biz for you.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited December 2021
    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    tlg86 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The reality is that life has changed. We aren't going back to pre-COVID commuting patterns no matter how many trains they put on.
    Could that mean HS2 is not such a big deal anymore?
    Well I thought the case for HS2 was ropey before COVID!

    Personally, I think the case for railways going forward is that many people won't be able to afford a personal car once the internal combustion engine has gone.
    The cost of EV cars is a different issue - but I'm not so sure - currently an EV lease isn't much worse than a ICE one once you factor in the difference in price between electric and diesel.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,742
    Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    ydoethur said:

    eek said:

    Charles said:

    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
    Not…Sheffield…
    I was thinking Middlesbrough.
    Middlesbrough has the sea near by and redeeming features.

    If you are punishing someone send them to Stoke on Trent.
    I think Merthyr's worse.

    Not by much, mind you.
    Yep Merthyr would trump stoke - simple because of the journey time to get absolutely anywhere.

    My problem with Boro is that I know the place and it really isn't that bad - there are way worse places to be.

    Now Loftus....
    The last I saw of Loftus was a big hole in the ground. Where all the alum shale was.
    So Loftus had become downus?
  • eek said:

    eek said:

    ydoethur said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
    The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.

    It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
    There are two types of commuter journey.

    Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.

    Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.

    The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
    The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.

    The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.

    Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
    Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?

    The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.

    Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
    I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.

    Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.

    If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2021
    ydoethur said:

    eek said:

    Charles said:

    Cicero said:

    tlg86 said:

    I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.

    Die Hard is every bit as much of a Christmas Film as Home Alone.

    It's OK, TSE knows better than Die Hard's writer, Steven E de Souza!
    There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with

    Leave 52%

    Remain 48%

    :smiley:

    Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
    You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.

    I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
    I like that idea.

    My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.

    The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.

    Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
    Satan´s little helpers...
    I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
    Not…Sheffield…
    I was thinking Middlesbrough.
    Middlesbrough has the sea near by and redeeming features.

    If you are punishing someone send them to Stoke on Trent.
    Oi I am originally from Stoke....
    The operative word there being 'from?'
    Around Stoke is actually pretty nice, lots of nice countryside, and can get a massive house pretty cheap, and easy quick links to Manchester or Birmingham. And if you like more urban living, Newcastle has some lovely areas. And in the general people are all right, if you aren't super thin skinned, as they can be a bit blunt.

    Its if you had to live in one of the "6 towns" is where I think actual "punishment" would be. I remember going to going to see a friend, who was left one of the traditional terrace houses, the sort of streets where the council sold loads of a £1. We went to see it, christ alive....
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,143
    BigRich said:

    eek said:

    MrEd said:

    More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.

    I’ll bite.

    If you want to continue with drug criminalisation (a different question), then targeting the users with stiff penalties is the way to go.

    And you have to go after the wealthy ones, not the poor ones. The wealthy drug users keep the dealers in business. Dealers are not daft. You know you can charge someone middle class more and that subsidises the lower end of the market.

    Which means the poor suffer from leniency towards the rich. One of the key reasons why Manchester was such a drugs capital in the 1980s and 1990s was that it had a very large concentration of well-off students living in a very close proximity to Moss Side. They could leave when they finished their degrees but they left behind the problems.

    So, nail the middle class users. Name and shame them. It will only take a few examples for the rest of them to realise the cost of doing drugs is too high as opposed to a badge of honour.
    It's such a dumb policy. Imagine the case of a normal twenty or thirty something who occasionally takes MDMA when they go clubbing. They get caught and lose their driving license. They need their car for work so they lose their job and stop paying taxes. They go from being a successful fully functioning member of society to being a burden on taxpayers. All for possessing a substance far less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.
    Almost the only harm that a drug like MDMA does to society comes from the fact that criminals profit from it, which is entirely because it is illegal. It's a pure Catch-22 situation: it should be illegal because it's harmful because it's illegal. Only a government dead from the neck up and utterly bereft of ideas would come up with something this dumb.
    It's a policy for turning mostly functional middle class drug users into not at all functional petty criminal drug addicts.
    I'm at a loss as to where the idea could have come from. Anyone who knows anything about drugs knows that prosecuting users doesn't actually get you anywhere or solve anything.

    And I don't see how there is any actual votes in it.
    I don't know where this has come form, as some have speculated in may be a focus group thing.

    But I suspect this is much more a cases having spent the last 19 months telling people what to do for there own good, its become a but of a habit, maybe even an addiction to control over other people lives.
    Didn't someone on PB suggest it was a diversion tactic against the chatterati for being so rude as to complain about Mr Johnson's parties, non-masking in hospitals etc.?

    I do also wonder if other politicians are being targeted at the same time. Though I don't know enough about their habits to judge, and don't want to.
  • Carnyx said:

    Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.

    He really hates the trains and the users therein.

    Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.

    The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.

    With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/05/back-bad-old-days-swingeing-rail-cuts-alarm-bells-ringing

    Well, there are only two ways to cover the cost of the railways: from the farepayer and from the taxpayer. Increasing the latter is politically impossible because it's effectively a subsidy of relatively rich South Eastern commuters and hence contrary to leveling up, and if increasing the former is politically impossible because media coverage is dictated by journalists who predominantly are relatively rich South Eastern commuters, then there's only one solution left - cut costs.
    Can't see that that is the case at all, except insofar as there is an overall budget pie to be cut up.

    (1) That doesn't cover the case of Scotland, NI and IIRC recently) Wales.
    (2) That doesn't cover capital investment grants to specific projects. HS2 is an obvious example.
    (3) That doesn't allow for the point that different Train Operating Companies have different budgets and agreements with DfT.

    For all those reasons, differential funding can be and is applied to different areas. So one could reduce funding for London and increase it for the Adlestrop branch line, for instance. Or the converse. Indeed, it was the absurdly small funding to the NE as opposed to London commuters that exemplifies the issue -but also shows the poiint that differential funding does exist.

    Does Oxford-Worcester count as a branch line? Should be referred to Sunil for a definitive judgment.
    Nah, there are some long-distance trains all the way to London. Or at least there were before Covid.
This discussion has been closed.