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.
Hallo! My name is Juergen Sunil. I feel I must apologise for my nation-of-birth's conduct during the Ukraine War.
I still think the idea is totally batshit, but he does note that they could be justified under the UK/US/Russia territorial integrity agreement from 1994.
So the Chinese were warned that an invasion was due. By the Russians, looking for support, or the US, looking to prevent it. Was China playing both sides off against each other?
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
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.
Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka too.
I've not looked at their individual explanations, but 'staying out of it' seems reasonable even if we don't like 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.
Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka too.
I've not looked at their individual explanations, but 'staying out of it' seems reasonable even if we don't like it.
For countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan it is almost certainly a case of "don't annoy China, so do what they do"
eg Sri Lanka is close to default and entirely dependant on Chinese debt and aid (and not happy about it, but there it is)
India is more a case of Just Have An Independent Voice, I suspect (ie don't vote with the West OR Russia)
I'm actually surprised by how many countries with a dependence on either Russia and/or China have actually been brave enough to say "No, this invasion sucks"
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.
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.
Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka too.
I've not looked at their individual explanations, but 'staying out of it' seems reasonable even if we don't like it.
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka do what China tell them to do. Pakistan too, plus the Russia relationship is important.
India is disappointing but not surprising.
It’s South Africa who is an outlier. I get all the history, but it doesn’t quite have the same complicating factors as India.
$150 in the next week or so according to CNBC finance.
We will see.
Inflation is going to keep on going higher.
We’re going to keep testing central banker’s models.
Some of the inflation is a covid supply shock. Some of it is a russian supply shock. And some of it is “expectations”.
Only the last bit is responsive to interest rate rises.
Lucky we have Andrew Bailey at the helm.
Oh.
The other question is,
is the russian supply shock going away in the next 6 months/year or will there still be an effective embargo on russian oil/gas which keeps the price high long term.
once the war ends how long do the sanctions last (both in law and in pactice)?
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
Russian troops seized the strategically important city of Kherson, Ukrainian officials said, in a significant moment in the battle for the country’s south. Explosions struck the capital, Kyiv, and Russian troops continued to lay siege to Kharkiv.
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.
Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka too.
I've not looked at their individual explanations, but 'staying out of it' seems reasonable even if we don't like it.
For countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan it is almost certainly a case of "don't annoy China, so do what they do"
eg Sri Lanka is close to default and entirely dependant on Chinese debt and aid (and not happy about it, but there it is)
India is more a case of Just Have An Independent Voice, I suspect (ie don't vote with the West OR Russia)
I'm actually surprised by how many countries with a dependence on either Russia and/or China have actually been brave enough to say "No, this invasion sucks"
Their connections to China might be important (not India though), but if I lived in Pakistan (for example) I really would be thinking that I'd seen quite enough of war, thanks very much.
China will condemn the Russians in a few days anyway. Their news sites have ebbed and flowed on the fringes of all this, but (so far as I know) they haven't cut off the social media taps. India, much the same.
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
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.
Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka too.
I've not looked at their individual explanations, but 'staying out of it' seems reasonable even if we don't like it.
Imran Khan went to visit Putin the day the Russians invaded Ukraine.
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
No doubt the CIA will be happy to pay scrap value for any Russian high tech that becomes available.
Indeed. I think one of the unindented consequences of Putin's late middle age meltdown is that the entire RU war machine is now the most photographed and analysed military on the planet.
Good luck keeping anything secret about it all Vlad!
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.
Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka too.
I've not looked at their individual explanations, but 'staying out of it' seems reasonable even if we don't like it.
Imran Khan went to visit Putin the day the Russians invaded Ukraine.
He was visting, but I can't imagine he was anything other than caught up by circumstances.
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
Well the one major plus about all this is that we can get a full Bond re-boot to the golden days where it was MI6/CIA v the Russians. Old Skool spy wars. Safari suits and Russian ladies with mysterious double-entendre names - the works!
"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…
Indeed that makes sense. If the club isn't going to repay loans then isn't that essentially Abramovich 'gifting' £1.5bn to Chelsea? How does that possibly fit with the bad joke that is called Financial Fair Play?
Well the one major plus about all this is that we can get a full Bond re-boot to the golden days where it was MI6/CIA v the Russians. Old Skool spy wars. Safari suits and Russian ladies with mysterious double-entendre names - the works!
Putin is following the plot of Octopussy. 40 years old...
A scene from the 1983 Bond movie Octopussy has become, in recent days, unexpectedly eerie.
It’s set within a grand Soviet war room and features a deranged Russian military leader called General Orlov who, predicting Putin, espouses the value of a “lightning thrust” into Europe
Nato, says Orlov, is weak and the invasion would lead to “total victory in five days against any possible defence scenario”.
And why? “The West is decadent and divided, it has no stomach to risk our atomic reprisals”
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
Well the one major plus about all this is that we can get a full Bond re-boot to the golden days where it was MI6/CIA v the Russians. Old Skool spy wars. Safari suits and Russian ladies with mysterious double-entendre names - the works!
All this ramping up of defence speninding might have to be ramped back down again when the Russians cease to exist as a miltary agent.
Well the one major plus about all this is that we can get a full Bond re-boot to the golden days where it was MI6/CIA v the Russians. Old Skool spy wars. Safari suits and Russian ladies with mysterious double-entendre names - the works!
Putin is following the plot of Octopussy. 40 years old...
A scene from the 1983 Bond movie Octopussy has become, in recent days, unexpectedly eerie.
It’s set within a grand Soviet war room and features a deranged Russian military leader called General Orlov who, predicting Putin, espouses the value of a “lightning thrust” into Europe
Nato, says Orlov, is weak and the invasion would lead to “total victory in five days against any possible defence scenario”.
And why? “The West is decadent and divided, it has no stomach to risk our atomic reprisals”
Well the one major plus about all this is that we can get a full Bond re-boot to the golden days where it was MI6/CIA v the Russians. Old Skool spy wars. Safari suits and Russian ladies with mysterious double-entendre names - the works!
Putin is following the plot of Octopussy. 40 years old...
A scene from the 1983 Bond movie Octopussy has become, in recent days, unexpectedly eerie.
It’s set within a grand Soviet war room and features a deranged Russian military leader called General Orlov who, predicting Putin, espouses the value of a “lightning thrust” into Europe
Nato, says Orlov, is weak and the invasion would lead to “total victory in five days against any possible defence scenario”.
And why? “The West is decadent and divided, it has no stomach to risk our atomic reprisals”
Michael Gove is drawing up plans to seize British property owned by Russian oligarchs with links to President Vladimir Putin, without paying them compensation
There’s a decent case for freezing assets while investigating illegal activity, but the history of asset seizure at the temporary whim of politicians is not a good one at all.
How would they justify that I wonder? Yes yes, aggressive language from NATO, but they are supposed to be talking about how great the not-a-war in Ukraine is going.
How would they justify that I wonder? Yes yes, aggressive language from NATO, but they are supposed to be talking about how great the not-a-war in Ukraine is going.
Nothing is happening, I repeat nothing is happening, we have some mild peacekeeping operations in the Donbas that the locals are throwing flowers at us they're so grateful for our help, but overall nothing is happening.
But you can't have any money out of ATMs, don't bother leaving home with your Mastercard, the stock market has been closed all week and we are implementing martial law.
Michael Gove is drawing up plans to seize British property owned by Russian oligarchs with links to President Vladimir Putin, without paying them compensation
There’s a decent case for freezing assets while investigating illegal activity, but the history of asset seizure at the temporary whim of politicians is not a good one at all.
Totally agree - the UK etc has to be absolutely by the letter of the law on seizures/freezing etc - one of the absolute foundations of the UK as a financial and legal centre is that the rule of law is applied and the rule of law is stable.
If emergency powers are to be created they have to be focussed and very clearly very temporary.
And with their help, Russia would have won in 48 hours.
Edit - incidentally there was a poster a while back when it was asked if PM Corbyn would send soldiers to Estonia in the event of a Russian invasion, commented drily that Russia could probably manage without their assistance.
I wonder if that poster still thinks the same way. Although the Ukrainian resistance sadly has a feel of slowing the inevitable, the Russian army really has ended up looking rather weak and foolish.
Does anyone think that was in the battle plan for week two?
but the Army are all in Ukraine. Who is going to police it?
It won't need policing. No reason for the people to be remotely unhappy with the fact they can't get their money, can't afford their mortgages, can't get an Apple Phone, can't see the latest movies, and have to send their young sons off to the Ukraine meat grinder.....
How would they justify that I wonder? Yes yes, aggressive language from NATO, but they are supposed to be talking about how great the not-a-war in Ukraine is going.
Nothing is happening, I repeat nothing is happening, we have some mild peacekeeping operations in the Donbas that the locals are throwing flowers at us they're so grateful for our help, but overall nothing is happening.
But you can't have any money out of ATMs, don't bother leaving home with your Mastercard, the stock market has been closed all week and we are implementing martial law.
But nothing is happening.
If you didn't know about the Ukrainian side of the story and were simply judging things on what is happening in Moscow; special operation in Ukraine, stock market closed, interest rates doubled, measures to stop currency flight, all kinds of businesses and services stopping, and now maybe martial law, what would you think? You would think that Russia is about to go through a coup or revolution.
If Corbyn had won in 2019 and become PM the UK would almost certainly have abstained on the UN resolution tonight at the General Assembly rather than voted to condemn Russia's invasion as it has done on the Security Council and in the General Assembly
If Corbyn had won in 2019 and become PM the UK would almost certainly have abstained on the UN resolution tonight at the General Assembly rather than voted to condemn Russia's invasion as it has done on the Security Council and in the General Assembly
I still think the idea is totally batshit, but he does note that they could be justified under the UK/US/Russia territorial integrity agreement from 1994.
Few hours ago Ben Wallace said no as it will stop Ukraine doing the good work it’s doing in the air. But everyone is inching towards it though, and West running out of excuses, if Ukraine can keep this fight up long enough.
Everyday This forty mile convoy is in the same glitch in time as Nuclear Fusion just ten years away is. Replace 10 years with just 10K from keev
Does suggest something has gone terribly wrong for Russians, if we believe there’s a forty mile convoy always stuck just 10K from keev every single day
It’s not like they on the M25 or somewhere notorious like that which explains it 🤔
And as Ben Wallace pointed out, a week in and Russia don’t have air superiority, and that would be worse than logistics and their convoy stuck.
(This is me in believing all the news mode, I have gone out and avoided war today)
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.
Whilst I do like Housman, my preference is for John Clare
The Spring comes in with all her hues and smells, In freshness breathing over hills and dells; O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings, And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs. Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free From the bold rifling of the amorous bee. The happy time of singing birds is come, And Love’s lone pilgrimage now finds a home; Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove, And the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love. The foxes play around their dens, and bark In joy’s excess, ’mid woodland shadows dark. The flowers join lips below; the leaves above; And every sound that meets the ear is Love.
If Corbyn had won in 2019 and become PM the UK would almost certainly have abstained on the UN resolution tonight at the General Assembly rather than voted to condemn Russia's invasion as it has done on the Security Council and in the General Assembly
He would have voted against and with Russia
I doubt he would have gone that far but we would have abstained and I expect Corbyn would in due course have pulled the UK out of NATO and scrapped Trident
Any day now Putin will be bringing out the serious deep state tech. You know the kind. No obvious means of propulsion, can fly 17,000mph with right angle turns, through water, air and space and can remotely disable nukes. He’s been buzzing the US Navy with them since the Millennium apparently.
No? It’s just 40 year old tanks and helicopters that break down? Oh.
$150 in the next week or so according to CNBC finance.
We will see.
Inflation is going to keep on going higher.
We’re going to keep testing central banker’s models.
Some of the inflation is a covid supply shock. Some of it is a russian supply shock. And some of it is “expectations”.
Only the last bit is responsive to interest rate rises.
Lucky we have Andrew Bailey at the helm.
Oh.
That's not true.
Raising interest rates increases the attractiveness of saving relative to spending, and therefore suppresses aggregate demand. Lower aggregate demand reduces demand for oil & gas and everything else.
Do you think it’s a good idea for all the bad Partygate news for Boris to come out sooner than later now?
A few weeks ago No. 10 maybe hoping MET, delay action, kick it in long grass, let it take months, this week they hoping MET: act now, get it all out there asap? Should Operation Save Big Dog try to manage it so it comes out on peak rally round flag with other stuff on news? It would be very good politics to escape like that, rather than the naff politics to stumble into that silly and needless crisis in first place?
If Corbyn had won in 2019 and become PM the UK would almost certainly have abstained on the UN resolution tonight at the General Assembly rather than voted to condemn Russia's invasion as it has done on the Security Council and in the General Assembly
He would have voted against and with Russia
I doubt he would have gone that far but we would have abstained and I expect Corbyn would in due course have pulled the UK out of NATO and scrapped Trident
There’s quite a lot of past material from the “Stop The War” coalition that explicitly backs Russia over NATO.
Do you think it’s a good idea for all the bad Partygate news for Boris to come out sooner than later now?
A few weeks ago No. 10 maybe hoping MET, delay action, kick it in long grass, let it take months, this week they hoping MET: act now, get it all out there asap? Should Operation Save Big Dog try to manage it so it comes out on peak rally round flag with other stuff on news? It would be very good politics to escape like that, rather than the naff politics to stumble into that silly and needless crisis in first place?
Ukrainian President, ambushed by Russian missiles
BoZo, ambushed by cake
The comparison with a genuine wartime leader is doing the Big Dog no favours
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
@JimmySecUKThe Russians are burning through some of their most modern and most sophisticated equipment at a incredibly fast rate.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
Does anyone think that was in the battle plan for week two?
but the Army are all in Ukraine. Who is going to police it?
It might be worth it just to get the power to fully turn the phones and internet off and to shut down the none sycophantic elements of the broadcast media.
"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
Impose sanctions 83% (+5) Let refugees come UK 76% (+23) Send weapons 76% (+12) Obligation to help refugees 65% (+15) Troops to NATO E Europe 62% (+2) Strike Russia in Ukr 29% (+1) Troops to Ukr 26% (+1)
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.
Whilst I do like Housman, my preference is for John Clare
The Spring comes in with all her hues and smells, In freshness breathing over hills and dells; O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings, And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs. Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free From the bold rifling of the amorous bee. The happy time of singing birds is come, And Love’s lone pilgrimage now finds a home; Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove, And the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love. The foxes play around their dens, and bark In joy’s excess, ’mid woodland shadows dark. The flowers join lips below; the leaves above; And every sound that meets the ear is Love.
I don't quite get poetry. I get it more if I look long and hard at it though.
Perhaps you'll forgive an anecdote. When I was quite young we were instructed to write poems about winter. Mine was undoubtedly crap and talked about ice, and then followed up with something like 'but home to a bowl of rice'. At the time the teachers criticism which was really a bad teacher thing and had me lauged at by the class might have been excusable - nobody went home to bowls of rice... and yet of course they did - most of the world did. If only I'd been a little smarter. Really crap from the teacher.
Around 6000 Russians killed in Ukraine so far. “two Western officials tell @NBCNews that about 5,800 Russians have been killed, a number in line with Ukraine’s estimates.” @JoshNBCNews
$150 in the next week or so according to CNBC finance.
We will see.
Inflation is going to keep on going higher.
We’re going to keep testing central banker’s models.
Some of the inflation is a covid supply shock. Some of it is a russian supply shock. And some of it is “expectations”.
Only the last bit is responsive to interest rate rises.
Lucky we have Andrew Bailey at the helm.
Oh.
That's not true.
Raising interest rates increases the attractiveness of saving relative to spending, and therefore suppresses aggregate demand. Lower aggregate demand reduces demand for oil & gas and everything else.
Higher prices will reduce aggregate demand and thus reduce inflation. Oh, hold on.
If Corbyn had won in 2019 and become PM the UK would almost certainly have abstained on the UN resolution tonight at the General Assembly rather than voted to condemn Russia's invasion as it has done on the Security Council and in the General Assembly
He would have voted against and with Russia
I doubt he would have gone that far but we would have abstained and I expect Corbyn would in due course have pulled the UK out of NATO and scrapped Trident
There’s quite a lot of past material from the “Stop The War” coalition that explicitly backs Russia over NATO.
I saw* a thread on Free Republic about what is going on in Ukraine, and the replies were all "fake" and "photoshopped", they don't think a war is happening, to the nuttier MAGA types it's the deep state at work again. Genuinely more bonkers than the Russians who think everything is going according to plan.
* A couple of pages was enough for me, I haven't read that site in years, and it was even worse than I remember.
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.
Whilst I do like Housman, my preference is for John Clare
The Spring comes in with all her hues and smells, In freshness breathing over hills and dells; O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings, And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs. Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free From the bold rifling of the amorous bee. The happy time of singing birds is come, And Love’s lone pilgrimage now finds a home; Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove, And the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love. The foxes play around their dens, and bark In joy’s excess, ’mid woodland shadows dark. The flowers join lips below; the leaves above; And every sound that meets the ear is Love.
I love outbreaks of poetry on PB, reading these transported and lifted me. this is like wet, cold day, the clouds low and oppressive, suddenly at sunset the sky in the west turns chalky bright.
But I’m obviously not in a spring mood…
This night grows fuller, like a creeper from a crypt, thrown athwart thru seasons, yet still draws ever closer to a weakening eye. Stretching from loam and stubble of sweetest earth, a tall hedge stands here, weaved from tangles of bramble and twist of thorns, bracken green, bracken broken brown - a crunch and crackle, a call concluding, hence flutter theft of snagged feather upon each branch. A hedge intimate to all weather, intimate to all men slain here, the clouds who visit from heavens fields, the visitors from wastes for souls harvested in autumn, sown with carrot seed each new year.
I’ll log out rather than bring everyone down with me.
Around 6000 Russians killed in Ukraine so far. “two Western officials tell @NBCNews that about 5,800 Russians have been killed, a number in line with Ukraine’s estimates.” @JoshNBCNews
What the Russian government probably will be fretting over more is the amount of equipment, fuel, food and money that they've lost in that time, rather than the butcher's bill.
If Corbyn had won in 2019 and become PM the UK would almost certainly have abstained on the UN resolution tonight at the General Assembly rather than voted to condemn Russia's invasion as it has done on the Security Council and in the General Assembly
Around 6000 Russians killed in Ukraine so far. “two Western officials tell @NBCNews that about 5,800 Russians have been killed, a number in line with Ukraine’s estimates.” @JoshNBCNews
And that is before they even get near to Kyiv.....
As I said earlier, I suspect Ukrainians are largely telling it how it is. They must have been expecting to be telling of much worse- and they may yet have to. But they are further distancing themselves from Russia - by giving straight-talking information about what is going on.
Around 6000 Russians killed in Ukraine so far. “two Western officials tell @NBCNews that about 5,800 Russians have been killed, a number in line with Ukraine’s estimates.” @JoshNBCNews
$150 in the next week or so according to CNBC finance.
We will see.
Inflation is going to keep on going higher.
We’re going to keep testing central banker’s models.
Some of the inflation is a covid supply shock. Some of it is a russian supply shock. And some of it is “expectations”.
Only the last bit is responsive to interest rate rises.
Lucky we have Andrew Bailey at the helm.
Oh.
That's not true.
Raising interest rates increases the attractiveness of saving relative to spending, and therefore suppresses aggregate demand. Lower aggregate demand reduces demand for oil & gas and everything else.
Higher prices will reduce aggregate demand and thus reduce inflation. Oh, hold on.
Higher prices are inflation.
But there are two things at work here. One the higher prices mean that savings go less far, and therefore that aggregate demand falls. The other is that people expect inflation to continue and therefore seek to spend their cash now while it still has value.
Around 6000 Russians killed in Ukraine so far. “two Western officials tell @NBCNews that about 5,800 Russians have been killed, a number in line with Ukraine’s estimates.” @JoshNBCNews
Of course, the Germans lost 40,000 when they invaded Poland.
Armies were bigger then, mind.
6000 in a week and they aren't even close to winning step 1. When they do finally overrun Ukraine major cities they then will be losing regular numbers of soldiers to insurgents for years to come.
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.
You can define the seasons on the basis of how dreary the weather is if you want, but if you were to do that systematically you wouldn't end up with dates that matched the solstices and the equinoxes, since they don't have a direct connection to how dreary the weather is.
Comments
I still think the idea is totally batshit, but he does note that they could be justified under the UK/US/Russia territorial integrity agreement from 1994.
This Kamov Ka-52 Alligator was reportedly damaged during a skirmish with a Ukrainian helicopter, forced to land, and was then captured by Ukrainian forces.🇺🇦
https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1499112711719993357
I've not looked at their individual explanations, but 'staying out of it' seems reasonable even if we don't like it.
Some of the inflation is a covid supply shock. Some of it is a russian supply shock. And some of it is “expectations”.
Only the last bit is responsive to interest rate rises.
Lucky we have Andrew Bailey at the helm.
Oh.
eg Sri Lanka is close to default and entirely dependant on Chinese debt and aid (and not happy about it, but there it is)
India is more a case of Just Have An Independent Voice, I suspect (ie don't vote with the West OR Russia)
I'm actually surprised by how many countries with a dependence on either Russia and/or China have actually been brave enough to say "No, this invasion sucks"
India is disappointing but not surprising.
It’s South Africa who is an outlier. I get all the history, but it doesn’t quite have the same complicating factors as India.
is the russian supply shock going away in the next 6 months/year or will there still be an effective embargo on russian oil/gas which keeps the price high long term.
once the war ends how long do the sanctions last (both in law and in pactice)?
This aircraft (RF-91961, bort # red 07) was one of the Su-25SM attack aircraft deployed from the Eastern Military District to Belarus. It was last photographed in Novosibirsk's Tolmachevo Airport in 2022. Pretty solid confirmation it was lost.
https://russianplanes.net/id299602 https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1499110279745097728 https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1499112501996400642/photo/1
NY Times
China will condemn the Russians in a few days anyway. Their news sites have ebbed and flowed on the fringes of all this, but (so far as I know) they haven't cut off the social media taps. India, much the same.
eurasiantimes.com
Good luck keeping anything secret about it all Vlad!
It may even work.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60587154
https://twitter.com/mumbosteve/status/1499108439687114758?s=20&t=_lXOA71zVyC01UAN-H4hpA
A scene from the 1983 Bond movie Octopussy has become, in recent days, unexpectedly eerie.
It’s set within a grand Soviet war room and features a deranged Russian military leader called General Orlov who, predicting Putin, espouses the value of a “lightning thrust” into Europe
Nato, says Orlov, is weak and the invasion would lead to “total victory in five days against any possible defence scenario”.
And why? “The West is decadent and divided, it has no stomach to risk our atomic reprisals”
https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1499113724350709765
But you can't have any money out of ATMs, don't bother leaving home with your Mastercard, the stock market has been closed all week and we are implementing martial law.
But nothing is happening.
If emergency powers are to be created they have to be focussed and very clearly very temporary.
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1499113231205425154?t=3t-1WytTXPnYyEL7pxcsYw&s=19
And with their help, Russia would have won in 48 hours.
Edit - incidentally there was a poster a while back when it was asked if PM Corbyn would send soldiers to Estonia in the event of a Russian invasion, commented drily that Russia could probably manage without their assistance.
I wonder if that poster still thinks the same way. Although the Ukrainian resistance sadly has a feel of slowing the inevitable, the Russian army really has ended up looking rather weak and foolish.
Looks like Russia's encirclement of Kyiv is running into quite a few obstacles.
To be fair Ushmanov looks like he’s had a few thousand big Mac’s.
https://railsofsheffield.com/products/aip-aip10007-thunderbirds-the-mole-model-kit?variant=39340558713023¤cy=GBP&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google+shopping&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5sOBq62o9gIVAeztCh2XZgZ7EAQYASABEgJlp_D_BwE
Everyday This forty mile convoy is in the same glitch in time as Nuclear Fusion just ten years away is. Replace 10 years with just 10K from keev
Does suggest something has gone terribly wrong for Russians, if we believe there’s a forty mile convoy always stuck just 10K from keev every single day
It’s not like they on the M25 or somewhere notorious like that which explains it 🤔
And as Ben Wallace pointed out, a week in and Russia don’t have air superiority, and that would be worse than logistics and their convoy stuck.
(This is me in believing all the news mode, I have gone out and avoided war today)
The Spring comes in with all her hues and smells,
In freshness breathing over hills and dells;
O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings,
And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs.
Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free
From the bold rifling of the amorous bee.
The happy time of singing birds is come,
And Love’s lone pilgrimage now finds a home;
Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove,
And the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love.
The foxes play around their dens, and bark
In joy’s excess, ’mid woodland shadows dark.
The flowers join lips below; the leaves above;
And every sound that meets the ear is Love.
No? It’s just 40 year old tanks and helicopters that break down? Oh.
Raising interest rates increases the attractiveness of saving relative to spending, and therefore suppresses aggregate demand. Lower aggregate demand reduces demand for oil & gas and everything else.
A few weeks ago No. 10 maybe hoping MET, delay action, kick it in long grass, let it take months, this week they hoping MET: act now, get it all out there asap? Should Operation Save Big Dog try to manage it so it comes out on peak rally round flag with other stuff on news? It would be very good politics to escape like that, rather than the naff politics to stumble into that silly and needless crisis in first place?
BoZo, ambushed by cake
The comparison with a genuine wartime leader is doing the Big Dog no favours
Do you not remember the scene: Bond and the girl are in the helicopter, the missies fire and they need to eject.
Wait, wait, massive Russian asset siezure, sudden turn around by the Germans?
This has all be orchestrated by DeucheBank!
But I think he was referring the one that crashed in Ukraine. Why didn't they eject...
Impose sanctions 83% (+5)
Let refugees come UK 76% (+23)
Send weapons 76% (+12)
Obligation to help refugees 65% (+15)
Troops to NATO E Europe 62% (+2)
Strike Russia in Ukr 29% (+1)
Troops to Ukr 26% (+1)
Mar 1st. (Change) since Feb 25.
YouGov
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1499126598397800469
Perhaps you'll forgive an anecdote. When I was quite young we were instructed to write poems about winter. Mine was undoubtedly crap and talked about ice, and then followed up with something like 'but home to a bowl of rice'. At the time the teachers criticism which was really a bad teacher thing and had me lauged at by the class might have been excusable - nobody went home to bowls of rice... and yet of course they did - most of the world did. If only I'd been a little smarter. Really crap from the teacher.
https://twitter.com/RichardEngel/status/1499119611190599686?s=20&t=XZwPO1LRuHQEGJZRNzP1-A
That's serious rate of losses.
* A couple of pages was enough for me, I haven't read that site in years, and it was even worse than I remember.
But I’m obviously not in a spring mood…
This night grows fuller, like a creeper from a crypt, thrown athwart thru seasons, yet still draws ever closer to a weakening eye. Stretching from loam and stubble of sweetest earth, a tall hedge stands here, weaved from tangles of bramble and twist of thorns, bracken green, bracken broken brown - a crunch and crackle, a call concluding, hence flutter theft of snagged feather upon each branch. A hedge intimate to all weather, intimate to all men slain here, the clouds who visit from heavens fields, the visitors from wastes for souls harvested in autumn, sown with carrot seed each new year.
I’ll log out rather than bring everyone down with me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc07qyLcx2U
However crap, a liar and a cheat Boris is, the other option on the ballot was this man. The UK dodged a bullet.
As I said earlier, I suspect Ukrainians are largely telling it how it is. They must have been expecting to be telling of much worse- and they may yet have to. But they are further distancing themselves from Russia - by giving straight-talking information about what is going on.
Armies were bigger then, mind.
But there are two things at work here. One the higher prices mean that savings go less far, and therefore that aggregate demand falls. The other is that people expect inflation to continue and therefore seek to spend their cash now while it still has value.
https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1499137668332101647