"In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the Club"
"RA adds: "I will not be asking for any loans to be repaid."
"I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine."
£2-3bn will be a good start in terms of reparations.
Weasel words.
He’s transferring the loans to the buyer - they will pay him face value for them.
Hmmm… how do you know he’s not converting them to equity?
"The great nation of #Ukraine President #Zelenskyy Your honorable and almost unrivalled resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind. Trust that the great nation of #Iran is standing by you,while admiring this heroic persistence ." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Wow...
Mixed messages..
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · 40m The great nation of #Ukraine President #Zelenskyy Your honorable and almost unrivalled resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind. Trust that the great nation of #Iran is standing by you,while admiring this heroic persistence . Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · Feb 28 Offering #Ukraine a membership in #NATO was only to pave the way for the implementation of the tripartite agreement between the United States, Russia, and China. They are redistributing the world among them. They never grant Ukraine any membership in NATO. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · Feb 27 Following the Russia invasion of #Ukraine, the United States has offered a safe transfer of #VolodymyrZelenskyy and his family abroad, to which he has responded negatively so far. Doesn't this indicate coordination between #US and #Russia in implementing a pre-planned scenario?
"According to U.S. officials speaking today, ~100,000 #Russia troops inside #Ukraine (~70% of its entire deployed force) is running out, or has already run out of fuel & food."
I do wonder how much of that convoy may have been abandoned.
It'll be increasing by the day. No way they had enough food for this, or can easily resupply it given the territory.
On Chelsea I do not understand how Abramovich can sell in the present climate and restrictions and how the Premier League would sanction the sale
In truth Abramovich should have it confiscated but no doubt London lawyers will act for Abramovich interests to prevent it
Why should it be taken from him ? I get he’s Russian but he’s also an Israeli citizen too. Why should it be taken from him purely over Ukraine.
Confiscating these assets isn't smart in my opinion. Private property should not be confiscated from anyone without evidence that it has been acquired in an unlawful way. Otherwise you are violating fundamental principles on which our society and economy are built. By all means sanction people and ban them from entering the country, but you can't strip them of their assets without due process and justification. Otherwise, in the end, we all lose because once this has become normalised, it leads to ruin. Zimbabwe is a good case study.
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
"In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the Club"
"RA adds: "I will not be asking for any loans to be repaid."
"I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine."
£2-3bn will be a good start in terms of reparations.
Weasel words.
He’s transferring the loans to the buyer - they will pay him face value for them.
Hmmm… how do you know he’s not converting them to equity?
He might be but would be less tax efficient.
I have a company worth $3bn with $1bn in equity and $2bn in shareholder loans
Pay me $3bn and I’ll transfer you the shares and the loans. I won’t ask the company to repay the loans…
Be warned: the weather down here in The Smoke is absolutely vile. Cold wet drenching rain. Certainly doesn't feel like the 2nd day of spring...
It isn't. Spring does not start until 20th March.
I am in Oxford today and also won't be able to go but congrats PM on its 18th birthday and to OGH for launching it and hope those going have a good time
Just for the pedantry: Meteorological Spring is 1st March.
Government agencies don't get to decide the seasons, which are set by the cosmos.
The Met Office uses that date for statistical convenience, there is no science behind it.
Oh not this again.
All season definitions are arbitrary, and can be useful in different ways with varying degrees of usefulness, but if you're going to base them on the solstices and the equinoxes, then those are the mid-points of the seasons. It's the cross-quarter days in between that mark the start/end points of the season (so the astronomical spring started near the start of February).
There must have been an epic misunderstanding at some point for anyone to think that summer started on midsummer's day, but that's no excuse for propagating it.
Wrong.
Season =! totality of daylight.
Seasonal lag (insolation) means that months with much less daylight are substantially warmer than those with more.
September is notably warmer than May in the UK, despite having considerably less daylight hours!
But the thermal lag is different in different places, so if you want to use temperature to define the seasons then fine - use temperature. But that will give you different dates then the equinoxes and the solstices.
If you're using the solstices and the equinoxes then by definition you're using the length of the days as your definition, and so summer should be the season of your longest days with midsummer at the midpoint.
The two fallacies in this discussion are (a) that there are precisely four seasons and (b) that they are all the same length.
Not at all - as I said, season definitions are arbitrary, so you can have as many as you want. I've seen good arguments, for the British climate, in favour of two seasons and six. The first attempt to define the British seasons from weather patterns came up with five.
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
The Kazakhs asked for Russian troops to put down their incipient revolution back in January, and Putin sent them and the protests were duly surpessed. Then a few days back, Putin asked Kazakhstan to send him troops to help in Ukraine and the Kazakhs said "nyet"! Putin must be seething!
"According to U.S. officials speaking today, ~100,000 #Russia troops inside #Ukraine (~70% of its entire deployed force) is running out, or has already run out of fuel & food."
I do wonder how much of that convoy may have been abandoned.
It'll be increasing by the day. No way they had enough food for this, or can easily resupply it given the territory.
Are you currently in a 40 odd km queue NW of Kyiv perchance?
Much as I would dearly love to believe this tales and tweets of RU military falling to bits under logistics problems, I suspect all this underestimates Putin. There will be some kind of turn around even if it all is true.
On Chelsea I do not understand how Abramovich can sell in the present climate and restrictions and how the Premier League would sanction the sale
In truth Abramovich should have it confiscated but no doubt London lawyers will act for Abramovich interests to prevent it
Why should it be taken from him ? I get he’s Russian but he’s also an Israeli citizen too. Why should it be taken from him purely over Ukraine.
Portuguese as well now.
I wonder who he will go for next. Fiji is nice.
I would not be surprised if some of the oligarchs are looking for citizenship with diplomatic immunity as a backup. Yes those can be bought from a price from several countries.
On Chelsea I do not understand how Abramovich can sell in the present climate and restrictions and how the Premier League would sanction the sale
In truth Abramovich should have it confiscated but no doubt London lawyers will act for Abramovich interests to prevent it
Why should it be taken from him ? I get he’s Russian but he’s also an Israeli citizen too. Why should it be taken from him purely over Ukraine.
Confiscating these assets isn't smart in my opinion. Private property should not be confiscated from anyone without evidence that it has been acquired in an unlawful way. Otherwise you are violating fundamental principles on which our society and economy are built. By all means sanction people and ban them from entering the country, but you can't strip them of their assets without due process and justification. Otherwise, in the end, we all lose because once this has become normalised, it leads to ruin. Zimbabwe is a good case study.
IIRC when the RFC first started dropping bombs from aircraft, they were instructed to refrain from attacking sites like the Krupps munitions factories on the grounds that they were "private property". That didn't last long.
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
The Kazakhs asked for Russian troops to put down their incipient revolution back in January, and Putin sent them and the protests were duly surpessed. Then a few days back, Putin asked Kazakhstan to send him troops to help in Ukraine and the Kazakhs said "nyet"! Putin must be seething!
He has a few issues like that
Belarus - apparently have revealed his grand plan, and sitting on their hands
Kazakhstan - as you say
Chechnya - Grandstanding
Georgia - hardly in his orbit, but now going totally EU
China - they've not been an Empire for a grillion years without accidentally being able to pick up on opportunity.
"The great nation of #Ukraine President #Zelenskyy Your honorable and almost unrivalled resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind. Trust that the great nation of #Iran is standing by you,while admiring this heroic persistence ." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Wow...
Some very funny replies on there.
"Thankyou for not being antisemitic for the first time in your life"...."Has this official account been hacked ?"
"Mahmoud, how long do you think the Major League Baseball lockout will last? Will there be a 2022 season?"
There have been numerous CCTV clips of Russian soldiers raiding supermarkets. As an invading force, you absolutely see individuals looking to enrich themselves, but taking time to go nicking some fruit / veg and some ciggies, suggests that perhaps they might be a caught short.
Or that Russian field rations are as crap as most countries'. And didn't @Dura_Ace post the other day that such minor looting of supermarkets was standard practice by British forces in Basra?
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
South Africa and India though. WTF.
I don't know what India's track record is of voting on resolutions about other conflicts. I could easily imagine that they have a policy of not passing judgement on conflicts elsewhere, because they don't want other countries passing judgement on the conflict in Kashmir.
However, it is the sort of thing that would make one pause about the idea of forming a D10 group of nations with India involved.
There have been numerous CCTV clips of Russian soldiers raiding supermarkets. As an invading force, you absolutely see individuals looking to enrich themselves, but taking time to go nicking some fruit / veg and some ciggies, suggests that perhaps they might be a caught short.
Or that Russian field rations are as crap as most countries'. And didn't @Dura_Ace post the other day that such minor looting of supermarkets was standard practice by British forces in Basra?
The one of a soldier trying to get into a locked electronic goods shop made me wonder if they needed mobile phones and chargers.
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
Indeed. For all that Russia is safe from direct assault because of its nukes, even most of those friendly to Putin may well draw the line at endorsing invasion - the changing nature of the pretext for invasion, seeking a more globally relevant one like nukes, seems to have been an attempt to garner some like minded supporters around the world, but its so flimsy it doesn't seem to have worked at enthusing those potential allies.
On Chelsea I do not understand how Abramovich can sell in the present climate and restrictions and how the Premier League would sanction the sale
In truth Abramovich should have it confiscated but no doubt London lawyers will act for Abramovich interests to prevent it
Why should it be taken from him ? I get he’s Russian but he’s also an Israeli citizen too. Why should it be taken from him purely over Ukraine.
Portuguese as well now.
I wonder who he will go for next. Fiji is nice.
I would not be surprised if some of the oligarchs are looking for citizenship with diplomatic immunity as a backup. Yes those can be bought from a price from several countries.
"In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the Club"
"RA adds: "I will not be asking for any loans to be repaid."
"I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine."
£2-3bn will be a good start in terms of reparations.
Weasel words.
He’s transferring the loans to the buyer - they will pay him face value for them.
The Saudis must be a bit hacked off that they bought the Toon when they could have had Chelski for the same $$$, a few months later
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
The Kazakhs asked for Russian troops to put down their incipient revolution back in January, and Putin sent them and the protests were duly surpessed. Then a few days back, Putin asked Kazakhstan to send him troops to help in Ukraine and the Kazakhs said "nyet"! Putin must be seething!
He has a few issues like that Belarus - apparently have revealed his grand plan, and sitting on their hands Kazakhstan - as you say Chechnya - Grandstanding Georgia - hardly in his orbit, but now going totally EU China - they've not been an Empire for a grillion years without accidentally being able to pick up on opportunity.
Belarus is the interesting one - I wonder if Lukashenko was too dim to realise what Putin was planning to do until the article declaring that he was annexing Belarus was published by mistake. Since then they've been distinctly unhelpful to Putin, and are now refusing to go in.
Be warned: the weather down here in The Smoke is absolutely vile. Cold wet drenching rain. Certainly doesn't feel like the 2nd day of spring...
It isn't. Spring does not start until 20th March.
I am in Oxford today and also won't be able to go but congrats PM on its 18th birthday and to OGH for launching it and hope those going have a good time
Just for the pedantry: Meteorological Spring is 1st March.
Government agencies don't get to decide the seasons, which are set by the cosmos.
The Met Office uses that date for statistical convenience, there is no science behind it.
Oh not this again.
All season definitions are arbitrary, and can be useful in different ways with varying degrees of usefulness, but if you're going to base them on the solstices and the equinoxes, then those are the mid-points of the seasons. It's the cross-quarter days in between that mark the start/end points of the season (so the astronomical spring started near the start of February).
There must have been an epic misunderstanding at some point for anyone to think that summer started on midsummer's day, but that's no excuse for propagating it.
Wrong.
Season =! totality of daylight.
Seasonal lag (insolation) means that months with much less daylight are substantially warmer than those with more.
September is notably warmer than May in the UK, despite having considerably less daylight hours!
But the thermal lag is different in different places, so if you want to use temperature to define the seasons then fine - use temperature. But that will give you different dates then the equinoxes and the solstices.
If you're using the solstices and the equinoxes then by definition you're using the length of the days as your definition, and so summer should be the season of your longest days with midsummer at the midpoint.
The two fallacies in this discussion are (a) that there are precisely four seasons and (b) that they are all the same length.
Not at all - as I said, season definitions are arbitrary, so you can have as many as you want. I've seen good arguments, for the British climate, in favour of two seasons and six. The first attempt to define the British seasons from weather patterns came up with five.
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
'Can't abide' seems a bit strong, given that the astronomical definition is a) pretty established and b) makes no attempt to describe anything other than angle of earth to sun. Pretty useful if that's what you're attempting to describe. But if you're going with 'feels like', it's certainly not Spring in Manchester yet. We have blossom on our copper beech but that came in mid-Feb last year. For 'feels like' - and this is both weather related and culture related - I would go entirely with the meteorological definition, with the exception that Spring doesn't start until the equinox. Does even always start at the same time, but starts most satisfyingly when in the form of a massive fuck-you, here-I-am, all-at-once power chord of blossom and magnolia and colour and warmth. Always makes me feel a little melancholy, actually, that I'll only get to see it another, what, 40-odd times. Alternatively, Spring starts once the six nations is over. One of the many things I love about the Six Nations is the changing of the season: start with a match in the gloom of an Edinburgh evening in late January or early February; the odd advance glance of the coming season from Paris or Rome along the way, and finish in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Which is also a liminal moment between the seasons. (To borrow an idea from Terry Pratchett, maybe thats why Spring 2020 felt so wrong. Maybe the 6 Nations is the Morris Dance which brings the new season in properly.)
On Chelsea I do not understand how Abramovich can sell in the present climate and restrictions and how the Premier League would sanction the sale
In truth Abramovich should have it confiscated but no doubt London lawyers will act for Abramovich interests to prevent it
Why should it be taken from him ? I get he’s Russian but he’s also an Israeli citizen too. Why should it be taken from him purely over Ukraine.
Confiscating these assets isn't smart in my opinion. Private property should not be confiscated from anyone without evidence that it has been acquired in an unlawful way. Otherwise you are violating fundamental principles on which our society and economy are built. By all means sanction people and ban them from entering the country, but you can't strip them of their assets without due process and justification. Otherwise, in the end, we all lose because once this has become normalised, it leads to ruin. Zimbabwe is a good case study.
I agree and this also feeds into the conspiracy theorists.
Alas my diary changed and I am in Aberdeenshire and not that London. Next time...
Maybe have one somewhere like Leeds or Newcastle or Manchester ?
I had a work (old colleagues now a mentoring network) night out in Newcastle on Saturday night, so why not. Will be in London most weeks from June so later in the year I would have been there!
"The great nation of #Ukraine President #Zelenskyy Your honorable and almost unrivalled resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind. Trust that the great nation of #Iran is standing by you,while admiring this heroic persistence ." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Wow...
Mixed messages..
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · 40m The great nation of #Ukraine President #Zelenskyy Your honorable and almost unrivalled resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind. Trust that the great nation of #Iran is standing by you,while admiring this heroic persistence . Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · Feb 28 Offering #Ukraine a membership in #NATO was only to pave the way for the implementation of the tripartite agreement between the United States, Russia, and China. They are redistributing the world among them. They never grant Ukraine any membership in NATO. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · Feb 27 Following the Russia invasion of #Ukraine, the United States has offered a safe transfer of #VolodymyrZelenskyy and his family abroad, to which he has responded negatively so far. Doesn't this indicate coordination between #US and #Russia in implementing a pre-planned scenario?
Not mixed at all
The Iranians, who are not stupid, have noticed that the entire world is on the side of Ukraine, and that Putin is looking entirely mad, with his seventy metre tables and puffy face. It's like Ireland switching from Hitler to Churchill in about 1944
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
The Kazakhs asked for Russian troops to put down their incipient revolution back in January, and Putin sent them and the protests were duly surpessed. Then a few days back, Putin asked Kazakhstan to send him troops to help in Ukraine and the Kazakhs said "nyet"! Putin must be seething!
He has a few issues like that Belarus - apparently have revealed his grand plan, and sitting on their hands Kazakhstan - as you say Chechnya - Grandstanding Georgia - hardly in his orbit, but now going totally EU China - they've not been an Empire for a grillion years without accidentally being able to pick up on opportunity.
Belarus is the interesting one - I wonder if Lukashenko was too dim to realise what Putin was planning to do until the article declaring that he was annexing Belarus was published by mistake. Since then they've been distinctly unhelpful to Putin, and are now refusing to go in.
like showing a map implying that moldova is next...
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
The Kazakhs asked for Russian troops to put down their incipient revolution back in January, and Putin sent them and the protests were duly surpessed. Then a few days back, Putin asked Kazakhstan to send him troops to help in Ukraine and the Kazakhs said "nyet"! Putin must be seething!
He has a few issues like that Belarus - apparently have revealed his grand plan, and sitting on their hands Kazakhstan - as you say Chechnya - Grandstanding Georgia - hardly in his orbit, but now going totally EU China - they've not been an Empire for a grillion years without accidentally being able to pick up on opportunity.
Belarus is the interesting one - I wonder if Lukashenko was too dim to realise what Putin was planning to do until the article declaring that he was annexing Belarus was published by mistake. Since then they've been distinctly unhelpful to Putin, and are now refusing to go in.
Having ruled his own little fiefdom for so long he surely would not have invited the Russians in so much, with a risk they might not wish to leave, unless he had very little choice.
Alas my diary changed and I am in Aberdeenshire and not that London. Next time...
Maybe have one somewhere like Leeds or Newcastle or Manchester ?
I had a work (old colleagues now a mentoring network) night out in Newcastle on Saturday night, so why not. Will be in London most weeks from June so later in the year I would have been there!
Ah, Brill. It’s a fab place for,a night out. Where do you go ? Assuming you remember.
"The great nation of #Ukraine President #Zelenskyy Your honorable and almost unrivalled resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind. Trust that the great nation of #Iran is standing by you,while admiring this heroic persistence ." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Wow...
Mixed messages..
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · 40m The great nation of #Ukraine President #Zelenskyy Your honorable and almost unrivalled resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind. Trust that the great nation of #Iran is standing by you,while admiring this heroic persistence . Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · Feb 28 Offering #Ukraine a membership in #NATO was only to pave the way for the implementation of the tripartite agreement between the United States, Russia, and China. They are redistributing the world among them. They never grant Ukraine any membership in NATO. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · Feb 27 Following the Russia invasion of #Ukraine, the United States has offered a safe transfer of #VolodymyrZelenskyy and his family abroad, to which he has responded negatively so far. Doesn't this indicate coordination between #US and #Russia in implementing a pre-planned scenario?
I mean, if you’re going to have to run an insurgency, they are useful to bring in as advisers.
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
South Africa and India though. WTF.
I don't know what India's track record is of voting on resolutions about other conflicts. I could easily imagine that they have a policy of not passing judgement on conflicts elsewhere, because they don't want other countries passing judgement on the conflict in Kashmir.
However, it is the sort of thing that would make one pause about the idea of forming a D10 group of nations with India involved.
The Indians have good relations with Russia stretching back into the Soviet era. They apparently import an awful lot of vital fertiliser from Russian manufacturers, and they're also concerned about China, Russia and Pakistan forming a united front against their interests.
I've no idea what South Africa was playing at, but a large number of African countries either formally abstained or declined to register an opinion at all. I've no idea if that has anything to do with historical ties to the Soviet Union as well, or if there's something else going on.
Amongst the possible surprises voting for the resolution: Serbia, Afghanistan and Myanmar.
Alas my diary changed and I am in Aberdeenshire and not that London. Next time...
Maybe have one somewhere like Leeds or Newcastle or Manchester ?
We often say this. Much though it pains me to admit it, I can see why London ones work best. While it's not very central, there are simply more of us within an hour or so of London than anywhere else. But if we ever do Manchester, Liverpool Leeds or Sheffield I'm in.
Be warned: the weather down here in The Smoke is absolutely vile. Cold wet drenching rain. Certainly doesn't feel like the 2nd day of spring...
It isn't. Spring does not start until 20th March.
I am in Oxford today and also won't be able to go but congrats PM on its 18th birthday and to OGH for launching it and hope those going have a good time
Just for the pedantry: Meteorological Spring is 1st March.
Government agencies don't get to decide the seasons, which are set by the cosmos.
The Met Office uses that date for statistical convenience, there is no science behind it.
Oh not this again.
All season definitions are arbitrary, and can be useful in different ways with varying degrees of usefulness, but if you're going to base them on the solstices and the equinoxes, then those are the mid-points of the seasons. It's the cross-quarter days in between that mark the start/end points of the season (so the astronomical spring started near the start of February).
There must have been an epic misunderstanding at some point for anyone to think that summer started on midsummer's day, but that's no excuse for propagating it.
Wrong.
Season =! totality of daylight.
Seasonal lag (insolation) means that months with much less daylight are substantially warmer than those with more.
September is notably warmer than May in the UK, despite having considerably less daylight hours!
But the thermal lag is different in different places, so if you want to use temperature to define the seasons then fine - use temperature. But that will give you different dates then the equinoxes and the solstices.
If you're using the solstices and the equinoxes then by definition you're using the length of the days as your definition, and so summer should be the season of your longest days with midsummer at the midpoint.
The two fallacies in this discussion are (a) that there are precisely four seasons and (b) that they are all the same length.
Not at all - as I said, season definitions are arbitrary, so you can have as many as you want. I've seen good arguments, for the British climate, in favour of two seasons and six. The first attempt to define the British seasons from weather patterns came up with five.
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
'Can't abide' seems a bit strong, given that the astronomical definition is a) pretty established and b) makes no attempt to describe anything other than angle of earth to sun. Pretty useful if that's what you're attempting to describe. But if you're going with 'feels like', it's certainly not Spring in Manchester yet. We have blossom on our copper beech but that came in mid-Feb last year. For 'feels like' - and this is both weather related and culture related - I would go entirely with the meteorological definition, with the exception that Spring doesn't start until the equinox. Does even always start at the same time, but starts most satisfyingly when in the form of a massive fuck-you, here-I-am, all-at-once power chord of blossom and magnolia and colour and warmth. Always makes me feel a little melancholy, actually, that I'll only get to see it another, what, 40-odd times. Alternatively, Spring starts once the six nations is over. One of the many things I love about the Six Nations is the changing of the season: start with a match in the gloom of an Edinburgh evening in late January or early February; the odd advance glance of the coming season from Paris or Rome along the way, and finish in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Which is also a liminal moment between the seasons. (To borrow an idea from Terry Pratchett, maybe thats why Spring 2020 felt so wrong. Maybe the 6 Nations is the Morris Dance which brings the new season in properly.)
There is always a melancholy to spring, as Housman noted. Because you only get so many in one life
A Shropshire Lad 2
BY A. E. HOUSMAN
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
The Kazakhs asked for Russian troops to put down their incipient revolution back in January, and Putin sent them and the protests were duly surpessed. Then a few days back, Putin asked Kazakhstan to send him troops to help in Ukraine and the Kazakhs said "nyet"! Putin must be seething!
He has a few issues like that Belarus - apparently have revealed his grand plan, and sitting on their hands Kazakhstan - as you say Chechnya - Grandstanding Georgia - hardly in his orbit, but now going totally EU China - they've not been an Empire for a grillion years without accidentally being able to pick up on opportunity.
Belarus is the interesting one - I wonder if Lukashenko was too dim to realise what Putin was planning to do until the article declaring that he was annexing Belarus was published by mistake. Since then they've been distinctly unhelpful to Putin, and are now refusing to go in.
You don't get to be a country's leader if you're thick. Much as the evidence stacks against that.
Lukashenko won't have liked one bit being forced to bow to Putin. I'd guess his battle-plan mistake was entirely planned. His forces are undoubtedly preparing, but they'll continue to prepare until the result is without doubt.
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
South Africa and India though. WTF.
I don't know what India's track record is of voting on resolutions about other conflicts. I could easily imagine that they have a policy of not passing judgement on conflicts elsewhere, because they don't want other countries passing judgement on the conflict in Kashmir.
However, it is the sort of thing that would make one pause about the idea of forming a D10 group of nations with India involved.
I think some of it is a hangover from their policy of non-alignment during the Cold War (though on balance they probably pivoted closer to the USSR as a reaction to Pakistan coming under US influence). I would however not profess to be an expert.
Be warned: the weather down here in The Smoke is absolutely vile. Cold wet drenching rain. Certainly doesn't feel like the 2nd day of spring...
It isn't. Spring does not start until 20th March.
I am in Oxford today and also won't be able to go but congrats PM on its 18th birthday and to OGH for launching it and hope those going have a good time
Just for the pedantry: Meteorological Spring is 1st March.
Government agencies don't get to decide the seasons, which are set by the cosmos.
The Met Office uses that date for statistical convenience, there is no science behind it.
Oh not this again.
All season definitions are arbitrary, and can be useful in different ways with varying degrees of usefulness, but if you're going to base them on the solstices and the equinoxes, then those are the mid-points of the seasons. It's the cross-quarter days in between that mark the start/end points of the season (so the astronomical spring started near the start of February).
There must have been an epic misunderstanding at some point for anyone to think that summer started on midsummer's day, but that's no excuse for propagating it.
Wrong.
Season =! totality of daylight.
Seasonal lag (insolation) means that months with much less daylight are substantially warmer than those with more.
September is notably warmer than May in the UK, despite having considerably less daylight hours!
But the thermal lag is different in different places, so if you want to use temperature to define the seasons then fine - use temperature. But that will give you different dates then the equinoxes and the solstices.
If you're using the solstices and the equinoxes then by definition you're using the length of the days as your definition, and so summer should be the season of your longest days with midsummer at the midpoint.
The two fallacies in this discussion are (a) that there are precisely four seasons and (b) that they are all the same length.
Not at all - as I said, season definitions are arbitrary, so you can have as many as you want. I've seen good arguments, for the British climate, in favour of two seasons and six. The first attempt to define the British seasons from weather patterns came up with five.
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
'Can't abide' seems a bit strong, given that the astronomical definition is a) pretty established and b) makes no attempt to describe anything other than angle of earth to sun. Pretty useful if that's what you're attempting to describe. But if you're going with 'feels like', it's certainly not Spring in Manchester yet. We have blossom on our copper beech but that came in mid-Feb last year. For 'feels like' - and this is both weather related and culture related - I would go entirely with the meteorological definition, with the exception that Spring doesn't start until the equinox. Does even always start at the same time, but starts most satisfyingly when in the form of a massive fuck-you, here-I-am, all-at-once power chord of blossom and magnolia and colour and warmth. Always makes me feel a little melancholy, actually, that I'll only get to see it another, what, 40-odd times. Alternatively, Spring starts once the six nations is over. One of the many things I love about the Six Nations is the changing of the season: start with a match in the gloom of an Edinburgh evening in late January or early February; the odd advance glance of the coming season from Paris or Rome along the way, and finish in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Which is also a liminal moment between the seasons. (To borrow an idea from Terry Pratchett, maybe thats why Spring 2020 felt so wrong. Maybe the 6 Nations is the Morris Dance which brings the new season in properly.)
There is always a melancholy to spring, as Housman noted. Because you only get so many in one life
A Shropshire Lad 2
BY A. E. HOUSMAN
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.
Gosh. I had no idea I was channelling Housman. I feel both vindicated and disappointed that my insight is unoriginal.
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
The Kazakhs asked for Russian troops to put down their incipient revolution back in January, and Putin sent them and the protests were duly surpessed. Then a few days back, Putin asked Kazakhstan to send him troops to help in Ukraine and the Kazakhs said "nyet"! Putin must be seething!
He has a few issues like that Belarus - apparently have revealed his grand plan, and sitting on their hands Kazakhstan - as you say Chechnya - Grandstanding Georgia - hardly in his orbit, but now going totally EU China - they've not been an Empire for a grillion years without accidentally being able to pick up on opportunity.
Belarus is the interesting one - I wonder if Lukashenko was too dim to realise what Putin was planning to do until the article declaring that he was annexing Belarus was published by mistake. Since then they've been distinctly unhelpful to Putin, and are now refusing to go in.
You don't get to be a country's leader if you're thick. Much as the evidence stacks against that.
Lukashenko won't have liked one bit being forced to bow to Putin. I'd guess his battle-plan mistake was entirely planned. His forces are undoubtedly preparing, but they'll continue to prepare until the result is without doubt.
Probably realises he’ll need them at home before long?
Be warned: the weather down here in The Smoke is absolutely vile. Cold wet drenching rain. Certainly doesn't feel like the 2nd day of spring...
It isn't. Spring does not start until 20th March.
I am in Oxford today and also won't be able to go but congrats PM on its 18th birthday and to OGH for launching it and hope those going have a good time
Just for the pedantry: Meteorological Spring is 1st March.
Government agencies don't get to decide the seasons, which are set by the cosmos.
The Met Office uses that date for statistical convenience, there is no science behind it.
Oh not this again.
All season definitions are arbitrary, and can be useful in different ways with varying degrees of usefulness, but if you're going to base them on the solstices and the equinoxes, then those are the mid-points of the seasons. It's the cross-quarter days in between that mark the start/end points of the season (so the astronomical spring started near the start of February).
There must have been an epic misunderstanding at some point for anyone to think that summer started on midsummer's day, but that's no excuse for propagating it.
Wrong.
Season =! totality of daylight.
Seasonal lag (insolation) means that months with much less daylight are substantially warmer than those with more.
September is notably warmer than May in the UK, despite having considerably less daylight hours!
But the thermal lag is different in different places, so if you want to use temperature to define the seasons then fine - use temperature. But that will give you different dates then the equinoxes and the solstices.
If you're using the solstices and the equinoxes then by definition you're using the length of the days as your definition, and so summer should be the season of your longest days with midsummer at the midpoint.
The two fallacies in this discussion are (a) that there are precisely four seasons and (b) that they are all the same length.
Not at all - as I said, season definitions are arbitrary, so you can have as many as you want. I've seen good arguments, for the British climate, in favour of two seasons and six. The first attempt to define the British seasons from weather patterns came up with five.
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
'Can't abide' seems a bit strong, given that the astronomical definition is a) pretty established and b) makes no attempt to describe anything other than angle of earth to sun. Pretty useful if that's what you're attempting to describe. But if you're going with 'feels like', it's certainly not Spring in Manchester yet. We have blossom on our copper beech but that came in mid-Feb last year. For 'feels like' - and this is both weather related and culture related - I would go entirely with the meteorological definition, with the exception that Spring doesn't start until the equinox. Does even always start at the same time, but starts most satisfyingly when in the form of a massive fuck-you, here-I-am, all-at-once power chord of blossom and magnolia and colour and warmth. Always makes me feel a little melancholy, actually, that I'll only get to see it another, what, 40-odd times. Alternatively, Spring starts once the six nations is over. One of the many things I love about the Six Nations is the changing of the season: start with a match in the gloom of an Edinburgh evening in late January or early February; the odd advance glance of the coming season from Paris or Rome along the way, and finish in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Which is also a liminal moment between the seasons. (To borrow an idea from Terry Pratchett, maybe thats why Spring 2020 felt so wrong. Maybe the 6 Nations is the Morris Dance which brings the new season in properly.)
There is always a melancholy to spring, as Housman noted. Because you only get so many in one life
A Shropshire Lad 2
BY A. E. HOUSMAN
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.
Gosh. I had no idea I was channelling Housman. I feel both vindicated and disappointed that my insight is unoriginal.
Everyone else is just happy to have identified you as the new Housman. Great things are expected.
Be warned: the weather down here in The Smoke is absolutely vile. Cold wet drenching rain. Certainly doesn't feel like the 2nd day of spring...
It isn't. Spring does not start until 20th March.
I am in Oxford today and also won't be able to go but congrats PM on its 18th birthday and to OGH for launching it and hope those going have a good time
Just for the pedantry: Meteorological Spring is 1st March.
Government agencies don't get to decide the seasons, which are set by the cosmos.
The Met Office uses that date for statistical convenience, there is no science behind it.
Oh not this again.
All season definitions are arbitrary, and can be useful in different ways with varying degrees of usefulness, but if you're going to base them on the solstices and the equinoxes, then those are the mid-points of the seasons. It's the cross-quarter days in between that mark the start/end points of the season (so the astronomical spring started near the start of February).
There must have been an epic misunderstanding at some point for anyone to think that summer started on midsummer's day, but that's no excuse for propagating it.
Wrong.
Season =! totality of daylight.
Seasonal lag (insolation) means that months with much less daylight are substantially warmer than those with more.
September is notably warmer than May in the UK, despite having considerably less daylight hours!
But the thermal lag is different in different places, so if you want to use temperature to define the seasons then fine - use temperature. But that will give you different dates then the equinoxes and the solstices.
If you're using the solstices and the equinoxes then by definition you're using the length of the days as your definition, and so summer should be the season of your longest days with midsummer at the midpoint.
The two fallacies in this discussion are (a) that there are precisely four seasons and (b) that they are all the same length.
Not at all - as I said, season definitions are arbitrary, so you can have as many as you want. I've seen good arguments, for the British climate, in favour of two seasons and six. The first attempt to define the British seasons from weather patterns came up with five.
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
'Can't abide' seems a bit strong, given that the astronomical definition is a) pretty established and b) makes no attempt to describe anything other than angle of earth to sun. Pretty useful if that's what you're attempting to describe. But if you're going with 'feels like', it's certainly not Spring in Manchester yet. We have blossom on our copper beech but that came in mid-Feb last year. For 'feels like' - and this is both weather related and culture related - I would go entirely with the meteorological definition, with the exception that Spring doesn't start until the equinox. Does even always start at the same time, but starts most satisfyingly when in the form of a massive fuck-you, here-I-am, all-at-once power chord of blossom and magnolia and colour and warmth. Always makes me feel a little melancholy, actually, that I'll only get to see it another, what, 40-odd times. Alternatively, Spring starts once the six nations is over. One of the many things I love about the Six Nations is the changing of the season: start with a match in the gloom of an Edinburgh evening in late January or early February; the odd advance glance of the coming season from Paris or Rome along the way, and finish in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Which is also a liminal moment between the seasons. (To borrow an idea from Terry Pratchett, maybe thats why Spring 2020 felt so wrong. Maybe the 6 Nations is the Morris Dance which brings the new season in properly.)
The point about the astronomical definition is that it defines length of day. So if you want to define seasons by length of day it makes sense that you have a season with the shortest days - which you could call winter - which would start on the cross-quarter day between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.
It just doesn't make any sense at all to start the season at the winter solstice. That's the reason I feel strongly about it. There's no rational explanation for it.
Like I've said, I've no particular favourite season definition. I can appreciate them all, because they all have something behind them - except for the supposed definition of starting four seasons at the solstices and equinoxes.
If you did want to have a sensible definition of seasons that used the solstices and equinoxes then you would have just two seasons - summer and winter - six months long each, from equinox to equinox. That would make sense.
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
South Africa and India though. WTF.
I don't know what India's track record is of voting on resolutions about other conflicts. I could easily imagine that they have a policy of not passing judgement on conflicts elsewhere, because they don't want other countries passing judgement on the conflict in Kashmir.
However, it is the sort of thing that would make one pause about the idea of forming a D10 group of nations with India involved.
The Indians have good relations with Russia stretching back into the Soviet era. They apparently import an awful lot of vital fertiliser from Russian manufacturers, and they're also concerned about China, Russia and Pakistan forming a united front against their interests.
I've no idea what South Africa was playing at, but a large number of African countries either formally abstained or declined to register an opinion at all. I've no idea if that has anything to do with historical ties to the Soviet Union as well, or if there's something else going on.
Amongst the possible surprises voting for the resolution: Serbia, Afghanistan and Myanmar.
Afganistan, I think the UN seat and Vote are still controlled by the former Government Now in exile, and will not do anything to Upset there US supporters.
RT on digital channel 234 is no longer operating. It was yesterday.
it's been removed completely from my Virgin box
And my Sky app
easy as it would be to applod this, I have a lot of resevations.
This will give Putin an excuse to bloke/cancel/censer more of the press in Russia, both foren owned and domestic.
RT is so ridicules, it I think it demonstrate that the Russia don't have any justifiable arguments, its certanaly not affecting public opinion here.
International news in Russia, even though not much watched, is at least a glimps of the outside would.
How many people actually watch it anyway? Maybe some people really do think “oh I must catch Russia Today this evening” but I’m not sure I’ve ever met them.
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
The Kazakhs asked for Russian troops to put down their incipient revolution back in January, and Putin sent them and the protests were duly surpessed. Then a few days back, Putin asked Kazakhstan to send him troops to help in Ukraine and the Kazakhs said "nyet"! Putin must be seething!
He has a few issues like that Belarus - apparently have revealed his grand plan, and sitting on their hands Kazakhstan - as you say Chechnya - Grandstanding Georgia - hardly in his orbit, but now going totally EU China - they've not been an Empire for a grillion years without accidentally being able to pick up on opportunity.
Belarus is the interesting one - I wonder if Lukashenko was too dim to realise what Putin was planning to do until the article declaring that he was annexing Belarus was published by mistake. Since then they've been distinctly unhelpful to Putin, and are now refusing to go in.
You don't get to be a country's leader if you're thick. Much as the evidence stacks against that.
Lukashenko won't have liked one bit being forced to bow to Putin. I'd guess his battle-plan mistake was entirely planned. His forces are undoubtedly preparing, but they'll continue to prepare until the result is without doubt.
Not sure that Lukashenka (I prefer the Belarusian spelling as would probably piss him off) is the brightest spark in the matchbox: in the old USSR he hadn't risen to anything beyond director of a collective farm. If anything, he has been such a Putinist that he kept pushing for the embryonic "Union State" set up back in the day between Russia and Belarus to be upgraded to a full-scale USSR v2.0, but Putin wasn't very interested. Plus his "referendum" on Sunday removed constitutional blocks on Belarus fully participating in the Ukraine war.
RT on digital channel 234 is no longer operating. It was yesterday.
it's been removed completely from my Virgin box
And my Sky app
easy as it would be to applod this, I have a lot of resevations.
This will give Putin an excuse to bloke/cancel/censer more of the press in Russia, both foren owned and domestic.
RT is so ridicules, it I think it demonstrate that the Russia don't have any justifiable arguments, its certanaly not affecting public opinion here.
International news in Russia, even though not much watched, is at least a glimps of the outside would.
How many people actually watch it anyway? Maybe some people really do think “oh I must catch Russia Today this evening” but I’m not sure I’ve ever met them.
I know a few people that do. mostly on the very loony left
Be warned: the weather down here in The Smoke is absolutely vile. Cold wet drenching rain. Certainly doesn't feel like the 2nd day of spring...
It isn't. Spring does not start until 20th March.
I am in Oxford today and also won't be able to go but congrats PM on its 18th birthday and to OGH for launching it and hope those going have a good time
Just for the pedantry: Meteorological Spring is 1st March.
Government agencies don't get to decide the seasons, which are set by the cosmos.
The Met Office uses that date for statistical convenience, there is no science behind it.
Oh not this again.
All season definitions are arbitrary, and can be useful in different ways with varying degrees of usefulness, but if you're going to base them on the solstices and the equinoxes, then those are the mid-points of the seasons. It's the cross-quarter days in between that mark the start/end points of the season (so the astronomical spring started near the start of February).
There must have been an epic misunderstanding at some point for anyone to think that summer started on midsummer's day, but that's no excuse for propagating it.
Wrong.
Season =! totality of daylight.
Seasonal lag (insolation) means that months with much less daylight are substantially warmer than those with more.
September is notably warmer than May in the UK, despite having considerably less daylight hours!
But the thermal lag is different in different places, so if you want to use temperature to define the seasons then fine - use temperature. But that will give you different dates then the equinoxes and the solstices.
If you're using the solstices and the equinoxes then by definition you're using the length of the days as your definition, and so summer should be the season of your longest days with midsummer at the midpoint.
The two fallacies in this discussion are (a) that there are precisely four seasons and (b) that they are all the same length.
Not at all - as I said, season definitions are arbitrary, so you can have as many as you want. I've seen good arguments, for the British climate, in favour of two seasons and six. The first attempt to define the British seasons from weather patterns came up with five.
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
'Can't abide' seems a bit strong, given that the astronomical definition is a) pretty established and b) makes no attempt to describe anything other than angle of earth to sun. Pretty useful if that's what you're attempting to describe. But if you're going with 'feels like', it's certainly not Spring in Manchester yet. We have blossom on our copper beech but that came in mid-Feb last year. For 'feels like' - and this is both weather related and culture related - I would go entirely with the meteorological definition, with the exception that Spring doesn't start until the equinox. Does even always start at the same time, but starts most satisfyingly when in the form of a massive fuck-you, here-I-am, all-at-once power chord of blossom and magnolia and colour and warmth. Always makes me feel a little melancholy, actually, that I'll only get to see it another, what, 40-odd times. Alternatively, Spring starts once the six nations is over. One of the many things I love about the Six Nations is the changing of the season: start with a match in the gloom of an Edinburgh evening in late January or early February; the odd advance glance of the coming season from Paris or Rome along the way, and finish in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Which is also a liminal moment between the seasons. (To borrow an idea from Terry Pratchett, maybe thats why Spring 2020 felt so wrong. Maybe the 6 Nations is the Morris Dance which brings the new season in properly.)
There is always a melancholy to spring, as Housman noted. Because you only get so many in one life
A Shropshire Lad 2
BY A. E. HOUSMAN
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.
Gosh. I had no idea I was channelling Housman. I feel both vindicated and disappointed that my insight is unoriginal.
We are all and always channelling Housman
What sentient human, in their right mind, has not felt this, looking across much loved countryside? -
A Shropshire Lad XL
A. E. Housman - 1859-1936
Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot come again.
As I have mentioned before, this wonderfully simple yet utterly slaying poem also adorns the greatest end to any movie ever, Walkabout, by Nicholas Roeg
I agree that confiscations are ultimately self-defeating. The UK needs to maintain the rule of law, which includes property rights.
On the other hand, the Tories are riddled with oligarch money. I don’t expect there’ll be a reckoning, but they’re in the same place as all those nazi-loving aristos in the 1930s. But without a Churchill to expunge the moral stain.
Still, it’s “nice” that Dmitry Leus has resigned as President of the Runnymede Conservative Party.
Be warned: the weather down here in The Smoke is absolutely vile. Cold wet drenching rain. Certainly doesn't feel like the 2nd day of spring...
It isn't. Spring does not start until 20th March.
I am in Oxford today and also won't be able to go but congrats PM on its 18th birthday and to OGH for launching it and hope those going have a good time
Just for the pedantry: Meteorological Spring is 1st March.
Government agencies don't get to decide the seasons, which are set by the cosmos.
The Met Office uses that date for statistical convenience, there is no science behind it.
Oh not this again.
All season definitions are arbitrary, and can be useful in different ways with varying degrees of usefulness, but if you're going to base them on the solstices and the equinoxes, then those are the mid-points of the seasons. It's the cross-quarter days in between that mark the start/end points of the season (so the astronomical spring started near the start of February).
There must have been an epic misunderstanding at some point for anyone to think that summer started on midsummer's day, but that's no excuse for propagating it.
Wrong.
Season =! totality of daylight.
Seasonal lag (insolation) means that months with much less daylight are substantially warmer than those with more.
September is notably warmer than May in the UK, despite having considerably less daylight hours!
But the thermal lag is different in different places, so if you want to use temperature to define the seasons then fine - use temperature. But that will give you different dates then the equinoxes and the solstices.
If you're using the solstices and the equinoxes then by definition you're using the length of the days as your definition, and so summer should be the season of your longest days with midsummer at the midpoint.
The two fallacies in this discussion are (a) that there are precisely four seasons and (b) that they are all the same length.
Not at all - as I said, season definitions are arbitrary, so you can have as many as you want. I've seen good arguments, for the British climate, in favour of two seasons and six. The first attempt to define the British seasons from weather patterns came up with five.
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
'Can't abide' seems a bit strong, given that the astronomical definition is a) pretty established and b) makes no attempt to describe anything other than angle of earth to sun. Pretty useful if that's what you're attempting to describe. But if you're going with 'feels like', it's certainly not Spring in Manchester yet. We have blossom on our copper beech but that came in mid-Feb last year. For 'feels like' - and this is both weather related and culture related - I would go entirely with the meteorological definition, with the exception that Spring doesn't start until the equinox. Does even always start at the same time, but starts most satisfyingly when in the form of a massive fuck-you, here-I-am, all-at-once power chord of blossom and magnolia and colour and warmth. Always makes me feel a little melancholy, actually, that I'll only get to see it another, what, 40-odd times. Alternatively, Spring starts once the six nations is over. One of the many things I love about the Six Nations is the changing of the season: start with a match in the gloom of an Edinburgh evening in late January or early February; the odd advance glance of the coming season from Paris or Rome along the way, and finish in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Which is also a liminal moment between the seasons. (To borrow an idea from Terry Pratchett, maybe thats why Spring 2020 felt so wrong. Maybe the 6 Nations is the Morris Dance which brings the new season in properly.)
There is always a melancholy to spring, as Housman noted. Because you only get so many in one life
A Shropshire Lad 2
BY A. E. HOUSMAN
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.
- Cases are still falling, R is below 1 for age and region. Some signs that the fall is slowing further - MV Beds - seems to be plateauing, after the increase around the 28th Feb - In hospital - likewise - Admissions - spike on the 28th. Need to see more data to see what is going on - Deaths down
The BA.2 bump feeding through.
It's why Northern Ireland has such high prevalence in the ONS infections survey and why Scotland has had admissions and hospital figures going up (but after NI):
Probably won't be very visible on the cases data; that's now less and less reliable. Watch the ONS survey and the hospital data.
Infections are bumping upwards in the oldest categories (most vulnerable) and this will feed through into hospitals.
Personally, I'm expecting more a "bump" than a "surge." NI look to be on their way down from the BA.2 bump. Scotland still rising but should plateau soon (I hope). We're now just starting that rise in England, but I'm expecting (hoping?) it'll be less severe because England's had longer for BA.1 to make its way around so immunity should be wider-spread (and vaccine coverage is better in England than NI).
Expect 2-3 weeks of a reversal in the drop in infections and admissions, though.
Well fuck. The thing keeping me happy was the low MV figures in Scotland (as low as early summer last year) but now they are sharply rising to go with the surging In Hospital figures.
Does look like England figures are going to follow.
Unconfirmed: Romanian MiG-21 LanceR and IAR 330 rescue helicopter go missing over the Black Sea.
*gulp*
reading the article the MIG is thought to have crashed due to adverse weather conditions. wouldn't surprise me if issues with maintenance on the chopper and bad weather caused another.
Kira Rudik @kiraincongress The #war is not between #Russia and #Ukraine, but between the past and the future, between tyrany and freedom, between bad guys and good guys.
I want to believe that the good guys always win. #StopPutinNOW
Michael Gove is drawing up plans to seize British property owned by Russian oligarchs with links to President Vladimir Putin, without paying them compensation
Michael Gove is drawing up plans to seize British property owned by Russian oligarchs with links to President Vladimir Putin, without paying them compensation
"The great nation of #Ukraine President #Zelenskyy Your honorable and almost unrivalled resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind. Trust that the great nation of #Iran is standing by you,while admiring this heroic persistence ." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Wow...
Mixed messages..
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · 40m The great nation of #Ukraine President #Zelenskyy Your honorable and almost unrivalled resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind. Trust that the great nation of #Iran is standing by you,while admiring this heroic persistence . Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · Feb 28 Offering #Ukraine a membership in #NATO was only to pave the way for the implementation of the tripartite agreement between the United States, Russia, and China. They are redistributing the world among them. They never grant Ukraine any membership in NATO. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad @Ahmadinejad1956 · Feb 27 Following the Russia invasion of #Ukraine, the United States has offered a safe transfer of #VolodymyrZelenskyy and his family abroad, to which he has responded negatively so far. Doesn't this indicate coordination between #US and #Russia in implementing a pre-planned scenario?
Not mixed at all
The Iranians, who are not stupid, have noticed that the entire world is on the side of Ukraine, and that Putin is looking entirely mad, with his seventy metre tables and puffy face. It's like Ireland switching from Hitler to Churchill in about 1944
Also Biden misspoke yesterday and said Iranian when he meant Ukrainian, which might at the very least have drawn Iran's attention.
Michael Gove is drawing up plans to seize British property owned by Russian oligarchs with links to President Vladimir Putin, without paying them compensation
They did go into Georgia around the time of the Beijing olympics (day or two before). maybe we should prevent China hosting anything until Putin is no more
I’m afraid I with those who say that Spring starts March 20. March is, in the main, still a dreary month in the UK at least.
Depends where you are in the UK, emotionally and horticulturally
Down in the far southwest spring can start as early as mid-late Feb. You might get proper bursts of warm weather, and daffodils, in the Scillies and favoured parts of south Cornwall and Devon, by the last weeks of Feb
In London it is more like early-mid March. Say March 10? In northern England mid-late March. In Scotland arguably never, but for the sake of politeness, the beginning of April is a good bet
Midday: Starmer at PMQs asks the PM why Abramovich hasn't been sanctioned yet.
6pm: Abramovich announces that he's selling Chelsea lock, stock and barrel.
Smells like a bit of a victory to Starmer to me.
Abramovich has either had an attack of conscience after decades as a care free billionaire and the ties to the Russian government that requires, or he is worried about something.
Michael Gove is drawing up plans to seize British property owned by Russian oligarchs with links to President Vladimir Putin, without paying them compensation
I’m afraid I with those who say that Spring starts March 20. March is, in the main, still a dreary month in the UK at least.
Depends where you are in the UK, emotionally and horticulturally
Down in the far southwest spring can start as early as mid-late Feb. You might get proper bursts of warm weather, and daffodils, in the Scillies and favoured parts of south Cornwall and Devon, by the last weeks of Feb
In London it is more like early-mid March. Say March 10? In northern England mid-late March. In Scotland arguably never, but for the sake of politeness, the beginning of April is a good bet
You're right about Scotland. My definition is, when the road south from here isn't going to get blocked if we are at all unlucky.
Be warned: the weather down here in The Smoke is absolutely vile. Cold wet drenching rain. Certainly doesn't feel like the 2nd day of spring...
It isn't. Spring does not start until 20th March.
I am in Oxford today and also won't be able to go but congrats PM on its 18th birthday and to OGH for launching it and hope those going have a good time
Just for the pedantry: Meteorological Spring is 1st March.
Government agencies don't get to decide the seasons, which are set by the cosmos.
The Met Office uses that date for statistical convenience, there is no science behind it.
Oh not this again.
All season definitions are arbitrary, and can be useful in different ways with varying degrees of usefulness, but if you're going to base them on the solstices and the equinoxes, then those are the mid-points of the seasons. It's the cross-quarter days in between that mark the start/end points of the season (so the astronomical spring started near the start of February).
There must have been an epic misunderstanding at some point for anyone to think that summer started on midsummer's day, but that's no excuse for propagating it.
Wrong.
Season =! totality of daylight.
Seasonal lag (insolation) means that months with much less daylight are substantially warmer than those with more.
September is notably warmer than May in the UK, despite having considerably less daylight hours!
But the thermal lag is different in different places, so if you want to use temperature to define the seasons then fine - use temperature. But that will give you different dates then the equinoxes and the solstices.
If you're using the solstices and the equinoxes then by definition you're using the length of the days as your definition, and so summer should be the season of your longest days with midsummer at the midpoint.
The two fallacies in this discussion are (a) that there are precisely four seasons and (b) that they are all the same length.
Not at all - as I said, season definitions are arbitrary, so you can have as many as you want. I've seen good arguments, for the British climate, in favour of two seasons and six. The first attempt to define the British seasons from weather patterns came up with five.
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
'Can't abide' seems a bit strong, given that the astronomical definition is a) pretty established and b) makes no attempt to describe anything other than angle of earth to sun. Pretty useful if that's what you're attempting to describe. But if you're going with 'feels like', it's certainly not Spring in Manchester yet. We have blossom on our copper beech but that came in mid-Feb last year. For 'feels like' - and this is both weather related and culture related - I would go entirely with the meteorological definition, with the exception that Spring doesn't start until the equinox. Does even always start at the same time, but starts most satisfyingly when in the form of a massive fuck-you, here-I-am, all-at-once power chord of blossom and magnolia and colour and warmth. Always makes me feel a little melancholy, actually, that I'll only get to see it another, what, 40-odd times. Alternatively, Spring starts once the six nations is over. One of the many things I love about the Six Nations is the changing of the season: start with a match in the gloom of an Edinburgh evening in late January or early February; the odd advance glance of the coming season from Paris or Rome along the way, and finish in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Which is also a liminal moment between the seasons. (To borrow an idea from Terry Pratchett, maybe thats why Spring 2020 felt so wrong. Maybe the 6 Nations is the Morris Dance which brings the new season in properly.)
The point about the astronomical definition is that it defines length of day. So if you want to define seasons by length of day it makes sense that you have a season with the shortest days - which you could call winter - which would start on the cross-quarter day between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.
It just doesn't make any sense at all to start the season at the winter solstice. That's the reason I feel strongly about it. There's no rational explanation for it.
Like I've said, I've no particular favourite season definition. I can appreciate them all, because they all have something behind them - except for the supposed definition of starting four seasons at the solstices and equinoxes.
If you did want to have a sensible definition of seasons that used the solstices and equinoxes then you would have just two seasons - summer and winter - six months long each, from equinox to equinox. That would make sense.
We only have two seasons in Scotland; winter and midge season.
Be warned: the weather down here in The Smoke is absolutely vile. Cold wet drenching rain. Certainly doesn't feel like the 2nd day of spring...
It isn't. Spring does not start until 20th March.
I am in Oxford today and also won't be able to go but congrats PM on its 18th birthday and to OGH for launching it and hope those going have a good time
Just for the pedantry: Meteorological Spring is 1st March.
Government agencies don't get to decide the seasons, which are set by the cosmos.
The Met Office uses that date for statistical convenience, there is no science behind it.
Oh not this again.
All season definitions are arbitrary, and can be useful in different ways with varying degrees of usefulness, but if you're going to base them on the solstices and the equinoxes, then those are the mid-points of the seasons. It's the cross-quarter days in between that mark the start/end points of the season (so the astronomical spring started near the start of February).
There must have been an epic misunderstanding at some point for anyone to think that summer started on midsummer's day, but that's no excuse for propagating it.
Wrong.
Season =! totality of daylight.
Seasonal lag (insolation) means that months with much less daylight are substantially warmer than those with more.
September is notably warmer than May in the UK, despite having considerably less daylight hours!
But the thermal lag is different in different places, so if you want to use temperature to define the seasons then fine - use temperature. But that will give you different dates then the equinoxes and the solstices.
If you're using the solstices and the equinoxes then by definition you're using the length of the days as your definition, and so summer should be the season of your longest days with midsummer at the midpoint.
The two fallacies in this discussion are (a) that there are precisely four seasons and (b) that they are all the same length.
Not at all - as I said, season definitions are arbitrary, so you can have as many as you want. I've seen good arguments, for the British climate, in favour of two seasons and six. The first attempt to define the British seasons from weather patterns came up with five.
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
'Can't abide' seems a bit strong, given that the astronomical definition is a) pretty established and b) makes no attempt to describe anything other than angle of earth to sun. Pretty useful if that's what you're attempting to describe. But if you're going with 'feels like', it's certainly not Spring in Manchester yet. We have blossom on our copper beech but that came in mid-Feb last year. For 'feels like' - and this is both weather related and culture related - I would go entirely with the meteorological definition, with the exception that Spring doesn't start until the equinox. Does even always start at the same time, but starts most satisfyingly when in the form of a massive fuck-you, here-I-am, all-at-once power chord of blossom and magnolia and colour and warmth. Always makes me feel a little melancholy, actually, that I'll only get to see it another, what, 40-odd times. Alternatively, Spring starts once the six nations is over. One of the many things I love about the Six Nations is the changing of the season: start with a match in the gloom of an Edinburgh evening in late January or early February; the odd advance glance of the coming season from Paris or Rome along the way, and finish in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Which is also a liminal moment between the seasons. (To borrow an idea from Terry Pratchett, maybe thats why Spring 2020 felt so wrong. Maybe the 6 Nations is the Morris Dance which brings the new season in properly.)
The point about the astronomical definition is that it defines length of day. So if you want to define seasons by length of day it makes sense that you have a season with the shortest days - which you could call winter - which would start on the cross-quarter day between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.
It just doesn't make any sense at all to start the season at the winter solstice. That's the reason I feel strongly about it. There's no rational explanation for it.
Like I've said, I've no particular favourite season definition. I can appreciate them all, because they all have something behind them - except for the supposed definition of starting four seasons at the solstices and equinoxes.
If you did want to have a sensible definition of seasons that used the solstices and equinoxes then you would have just two seasons - summer and winter - six months long each, from equinox to equinox. That would make sense.
We only have two seasons in Scotland; winter and midge season.
Be warned: the weather down here in The Smoke is absolutely vile. Cold wet drenching rain. Certainly doesn't feel like the 2nd day of spring...
It isn't. Spring does not start until 20th March.
I am in Oxford today and also won't be able to go but congrats PM on its 18th birthday and to OGH for launching it and hope those going have a good time
Just for the pedantry: Meteorological Spring is 1st March.
Government agencies don't get to decide the seasons, which are set by the cosmos.
The Met Office uses that date for statistical convenience, there is no science behind it.
Oh not this again.
All season definitions are arbitrary, and can be useful in different ways with varying degrees of usefulness, but if you're going to base them on the solstices and the equinoxes, then those are the mid-points of the seasons. It's the cross-quarter days in between that mark the start/end points of the season (so the astronomical spring started near the start of February).
There must have been an epic misunderstanding at some point for anyone to think that summer started on midsummer's day, but that's no excuse for propagating it.
Wrong.
Season =! totality of daylight.
Seasonal lag (insolation) means that months with much less daylight are substantially warmer than those with more.
September is notably warmer than May in the UK, despite having considerably less daylight hours!
But the thermal lag is different in different places, so if you want to use temperature to define the seasons then fine - use temperature. But that will give you different dates then the equinoxes and the solstices.
If you're using the solstices and the equinoxes then by definition you're using the length of the days as your definition, and so summer should be the season of your longest days with midsummer at the midpoint.
The two fallacies in this discussion are (a) that there are precisely four seasons and (b) that they are all the same length.
Not at all - as I said, season definitions are arbitrary, so you can have as many as you want. I've seen good arguments, for the British climate, in favour of two seasons and six. The first attempt to define the British seasons from weather patterns came up with five.
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
'Can't abide' seems a bit strong, given that the astronomical definition is a) pretty established and b) makes no attempt to describe anything other than angle of earth to sun. Pretty useful if that's what you're attempting to describe. But if you're going with 'feels like', it's certainly not Spring in Manchester yet. We have blossom on our copper beech but that came in mid-Feb last year. For 'feels like' - and this is both weather related and culture related - I would go entirely with the meteorological definition, with the exception that Spring doesn't start until the equinox. Does even always start at the same time, but starts most satisfyingly when in the form of a massive fuck-you, here-I-am, all-at-once power chord of blossom and magnolia and colour and warmth. Always makes me feel a little melancholy, actually, that I'll only get to see it another, what, 40-odd times. Alternatively, Spring starts once the six nations is over. One of the many things I love about the Six Nations is the changing of the season: start with a match in the gloom of an Edinburgh evening in late January or early February; the odd advance glance of the coming season from Paris or Rome along the way, and finish in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Which is also a liminal moment between the seasons. (To borrow an idea from Terry Pratchett, maybe thats why Spring 2020 felt so wrong. Maybe the 6 Nations is the Morris Dance which brings the new season in properly.)
The point about the astronomical definition is that it defines length of day. So if you want to define seasons by length of day it makes sense that you have a season with the shortest days - which you could call winter - which would start on the cross-quarter day between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.
It just doesn't make any sense at all to start the season at the winter solstice. That's the reason I feel strongly about it. There's no rational explanation for it.
Like I've said, I've no particular favourite season definition. I can appreciate them all, because they all have something behind them - except for the supposed definition of starting four seasons at the solstices and equinoxes.
If you did want to have a sensible definition of seasons that used the solstices and equinoxes then you would have just two seasons - summer and winter - six months long each, from equinox to equinox. That would make sense.
We only have two seasons in Scotland; winter and midge season.
Depends how windy/boggy it is. Mr J choosing Applecross in late July the other year ... But Wick is good, it's nice and breezy, not so much shelter for the midges.
Well yes, because even governments that are broadly sympathetic to Russia still want either to be independent states or to be able to choose their own non-puppet government. There must be a lot of Russia's friends who are thinking "we could be next".
South Africa and India though. WTF.
I don't know what India's track record is of voting on resolutions about other conflicts. I could easily imagine that they have a policy of not passing judgement on conflicts elsewhere, because they don't want other countries passing judgement on the conflict in Kashmir.
However, it is the sort of thing that would make one pause about the idea of forming a D10 group of nations with India involved.
I think some of it is a hangover from their policy of non-alignment during the Cold War (though on balance they probably pivoted closer to the USSR as a reaction to Pakistan coming under US influence). I would however not profess to be an expert.
I asked a friend at work (from India) about the relationship. He said Russia was an 'old' friend who had been good to them in the past. He then went on to saying that India was immune to attacks from the west as it could simply turn off everyone's IT.
I understand why India is “neutral”, but it’s not a great showing for a wannabe great power.
Interesting to see that swathe of Africa morally compromised by dependence on China. Very surprised to see South Africa as one of them. Doesn’t speak well of their political or economic orientation, frankly.
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 20% (-1) Fianna Fáil 17% (-5) Greens 5% (-2) Social Democrats 4% (+1) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 3% (nc) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 11% (-3)
(Red C/Business Post; 23 February 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
That is a terrible poll for both FG and FF even though Sinn Fein is 'only' on 33% . Would be nice to see some properly detailed seat/constituency projections.
Sinn Féin 63 +26 Fine Gael 40 +6 Fianna Fáil 34 -3 Independents 8 -12 Social Democrats 5 -1 Green Party 3 -9 PBP/Solidarity 3 -2 Labour 3 -4 Aontú 1 nc Right2Change 0 -
Parliament has 160 members, so 81 needed for a majority.
So in other words the governing Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are on 74 and SF are on 63.
Add in the Independents to FG and FF and they have 82 seats and a majority
LOL.
Not the remotest chance.
The only stable coalition on those figures would be SF + FF, on the assumption that FF are much more likely to form a coalition with SF than FG.
Why would they do that when they are already in government with FG and could govern with them again with Independents.
FG and FF may even move closer to form one united party of the centre right in the Republic of Ireland with SF the main party of the left
Comments
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
@Ahmadinejad1956
·
40m
The great nation of #Ukraine
President #Zelenskyy
Your honorable and almost unrivalled resistance uncovered the Satanic plots of enemies of mankind.
Trust that the great nation of #Iran is standing by you,while admiring this heroic persistence .
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
@Ahmadinejad1956
·
Feb 28
Offering #Ukraine a membership in #NATO was only to pave the way for the implementation of the tripartite agreement between the United States, Russia, and China. They are redistributing the world among them. They never grant Ukraine any membership in NATO.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
@Ahmadinejad1956
·
Feb 27
Following the Russia invasion of #Ukraine, the United States has offered a safe transfer of #VolodymyrZelenskyy and his family abroad, to which he has responded negatively so far.
Doesn't this indicate coordination between #US and #Russia in implementing a pre-planned scenario?
I have a company worth $3bn with $1bn in equity and $2bn in shareholder loans
Pay me $3bn and I’ll transfer you the shares and the loans. I won’t ask the company to repay the loans…
There are many different ways you can define the seasons, and I find that interesting, but the one definition I can't abide is using the solstices and the equinoxes in a nonsensical way. It makes no sense to say that winter is the season the starts when the days are at their shortest and ends when days and nights are of equal length.
Belarus - apparently have revealed his grand plan, and sitting on their hands
Kazakhstan - as you say
Chechnya - Grandstanding
Georgia - hardly in his orbit, but now going totally EU
China - they've not been an Empire for a grillion years without accidentally being able to pick up on opportunity.
"Thankyou for not being antisemitic for the first time in your life"...."Has this official account been hacked ?"
"Mahmoud, how long do you think the Major League Baseball lockout will last? Will there be a 2022 season?"
However, it is the sort of thing that would make one pause about the idea of forming a D10 group of nations with India involved.
But if you're going with 'feels like', it's certainly not Spring in Manchester yet. We have blossom on our copper beech but that came in mid-Feb last year. For 'feels like' - and this is both weather related and culture related - I would go entirely with the meteorological definition, with the exception that Spring doesn't start until the equinox. Does even always start at the same time, but starts most satisfyingly when in the form of a massive fuck-you, here-I-am, all-at-once power chord of blossom and magnolia and colour and warmth. Always makes me feel a little melancholy, actually, that I'll only get to see it another, what, 40-odd times.
Alternatively, Spring starts once the six nations is over. One of the many things I love about the Six Nations is the changing of the season: start with a match in the gloom of an Edinburgh evening in late January or early February; the odd advance glance of the coming season from Paris or Rome along the way, and finish in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Which is also a liminal moment between the seasons.
(To borrow an idea from Terry Pratchett, maybe thats why Spring 2020 felt so wrong. Maybe the 6 Nations is the Morris Dance which brings the new season in properly.)
The Iranians, who are not stupid, have noticed that the entire world is on the side of Ukraine, and that Putin is looking entirely mad, with his seventy metre tables and puffy face. It's like Ireland switching from Hitler to Churchill in about 1944
I've no idea what South Africa was playing at, but a large number of African countries either formally abstained or declined to register an opinion at all. I've no idea if that has anything to do with historical ties to the Soviet Union as well, or if there's something else going on.
Amongst the possible surprises voting for the resolution: Serbia, Afghanistan and Myanmar.
Much though it pains me to admit it, I can see why London ones work best. While it's not very central, there are simply more of us within an hour or so of London than anywhere else.
But if we ever do Manchester, Liverpool Leeds or Sheffield I'm in.
A Shropshire Lad 2
BY A. E. HOUSMAN
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
Lukashenko won't have liked one bit being forced to bow to Putin. I'd guess his battle-plan mistake was entirely planned. His forces are undoubtedly preparing, but they'll continue to prepare until the result is without doubt.
This will give Putin an excuse to bloke/cancel/censer more of the press in Russia, both foren owned and domestic.
RT is so ridicules, it I think it demonstrate that the Russia don't have any justifiable arguments, its certanaly not affecting public opinion here.
International news in Russia, even though not much watched, is at least a glimps of the outside would.
It just doesn't make any sense at all to start the season at the winter solstice. That's the reason I feel strongly about it. There's no rational explanation for it.
Like I've said, I've no particular favourite season definition. I can appreciate them all, because they all have something behind them - except for the supposed definition of starting four seasons at the solstices and equinoxes.
If you did want to have a sensible definition of seasons that used the solstices and equinoxes then you would have just two seasons - summer and winter - six months long each, from equinox to equinox. That would make sense.
What sentient human, in their right mind, has not felt this, looking across much loved countryside? -
A Shropshire Lad XL
A. E. Housman - 1859-1936
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
As I have mentioned before, this wonderfully simple yet utterly slaying poem also adorns the greatest end to any movie ever, Walkabout, by Nicholas Roeg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9w41F_f9cs
Warning: questionable nudity in these prurient times (QNPT)
Thoughts and prayers.
How will he pay for his tartan trousers now?
On the other hand, the Tories are riddled with oligarch money. I don’t expect there’ll be a reckoning, but they’re in the same place as all those nazi-loving aristos in the 1930s. But without a Churchill to expunge the moral stain.
Still, it’s “nice” that Dmitry Leus has resigned as President of the Runnymede Conservative Party.
Fecking cruel month.
Unconfirmed: Romanian MiG-21 LanceR and IAR 330 rescue helicopter go missing over the Black Sea.
*gulp*
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60585603
Does look like England figures are going to follow.
https://twitter.com/barbarossa69/status/1498631363133681669?s=21
Kira Rudik
@kiraincongress
The #war is not between #Russia and #Ukraine, but between the past and the future, between tyrany and freedom, between bad guys and good guys.
I want to believe that the good guys always win. #StopPutinNOW
https://twitter.com/kiraincongress/status/1499112225633615872
Michael Gove is drawing up plans to seize British property owned by Russian oligarchs with links to President Vladimir Putin, without paying them compensation
via @FT
https://on.ft.com/3sDqdcp
6pm: Abramovich announces that he's selling Chelsea lock, stock and barrel.
Smells like a bit of a victory to Starmer to me.
https://www.ig.com/uk/commodities/markets-commodities/brent-crude
Down in the far southwest spring can start as early as mid-late Feb. You might get proper bursts of warm weather, and daffodils, in the Scillies and favoured parts of south Cornwall and Devon, by the last weeks of Feb
In London it is more like early-mid March. Say March 10? In northern England mid-late March. In Scotland arguably never, but for the sake of politeness, the beginning of April is a good bet
I think your rule-of-law point is a good one. (Don't really agree with the rest)
We really need the Red Army to turn around and save the world. Come along Boris! (Not the PM Boris)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMLona9oelM
Thought it was quite an interesting response.
MrBristol
(Apparently I wasn't the first person to ask him)
I understand why India is “neutral”, but it’s not a great showing for a wannabe great power.
Interesting to see that swathe of Africa morally compromised by dependence on China.
Very surprised to see South Africa as one of them. Doesn’t speak well of their political or economic orientation, frankly.
" давай 200 "...
FG and FF may even move closer to form one united party of the centre right in the Republic of Ireland with SF the main party of the left