Club class review on the BA 787 - Overall a good experience, I'd upgrade the food from merely acceptable to good compared to pre-COVID. Wine selection was ace as usual, I think we were on a brand new plane which made the beds extra comfy. The bedding seems to be better as well, kept us warm through the whole flight.
Entertainment selection was still spotty and I'm still shocked that in flight WiFi is a paid extra for club class (as is advanced seating, which we paid for to get two together), only included for first.
I'd say that BA have definitely improved the product since I last flew pre-COVID, but it was so far behind the competition at that point the only way was up
Special mention to the BA cabin crew and absolutely brilliant flight crew. We ran into the worst ever turbulence I've experienced (and I fly a lot, so bad that they paused cabin service and at times you could see the crew looking a bit nervous) and the flight crew kept us well informed, told us how long they expected it to last and to keep calm if it felt as though the plane was falling because it wouldn't be. I think it's the crew that really sets BA apart from other airlines still, the product itself doesn't compare but the staff are still incredible. The true BA resource.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
I think that's a key issue. There's enough accrued sentiment that it seems best to let her live our her life in peace rather than upset a very old lady. Not entirely rational, but a politically interfering middle-aged chap with a poor reputation for marital stability is a very different kettle of fish when ti comes to people claiming the Divine Right (prop: James VI and I). And remember the very concept of an Established Church, let alone one with the King or Queen as head and the bishops as state employees, was explosive politically from 1540s to the 20th century (and was resolved in part by eradicating the concept, as in Scotland). It's only because of the decline in religion that the insistence of retaining a mediaeval theocracy, complete with legislative seats for the shamans of only one religion out of many, is not still more explosive today.
Rubbish, we had and have an established church to ensure its authority comes from the monarch not the Pope. The Parish system it provides also ensures any Parishioner can get married or buried in their Parish Church.
The Bishops represent less than 5% of a House of Lords which is still completely unelected anyway
Our whole constitutional arrangement centred around the monarch drawing their power from God is outdated:
“Of the 16% of people who define as belonging to the Church of England, 51.9% never attend services and in fact only 10.7% of people who identify with the Church of England report attending church at least weekly.”
The only reason we still have what we have is inertia and a lack of consensus on what to have instead. Rather like the Tory parliamentary party’s view of the PM incidentally.
So what, it must still be the established church. Otherwise by definition the established church returns to the Papacy and to Rome.
Hence in mamy of the non Roman Catholic majority nations of Western Europe like Sweden the Lutheran Church remains the established church.
Plus you end the Church of England as the established church you end the right of residents of the Parish to an automatic church wedding or funeral. Only regular churchgoers would keep that right
?.
Why would the established church return to Rome. Why not just not have an established church? Churches should thrive or not in their own right.
And why shouldn't a church wedding be restricted (if they want) to church goers. If you don't belong to a society/club why should you expect to benefit from it.
Also why does it remove that right? If the church of England wants to provide it to residents of the parish, it can if it wishes.
As by definition the main Christian authority in this country outside of God would automatically be the Pope again as it was before the Reformation if the Monarch ceased to be Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
I personally value our Parish system and the fact everyone can get a Church wedding or funeral even if they rarely go to Church, it is part of what makes England great. Lose that and the Church of England would become more closed off from the community around it. It would of course have to be removed if the Church of England was no longer the established church as it would no longer have any obligation or connection to the community around it except its worshippers and some help for the poor and homeless via Christian charity
"country". Not mine, pal, and I'm as much of a UK subject as you are.
That's part of the problem - there never has been any attempt to spread the coverage in Parliament, or better abolish the C of E's establishment altogether. It's a massively outdated privilege for a small and declining sect.
The purpose of the Establishment of the Church of England is to avoid too much religion getting into the thing.
At least one candidate for Archbishop of Cantebury was rejected, politically, on the basis that he was a bit too much of a God Botherer
But if it was disestablished then it wouldn't matter any more would it? No Bishs in the HoL, and the C of E would be as relevant and as irrelevant as, say, the Congregationalists or the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing).
[edit] So that seems a circular argument - you need establishment ti mitigate the dangerous moral initiatives that might reesult from establishment ...
There is no reason to assume that disestablishing the CoE would mean that the established church would de facto become the Roman Catholic Church. I cannot think of a country even where the majority faith is Roman Catholic and that church is 'established' in the way the CoE is in England. The Irish constitution only requires the state to support freedom of religion. In the USA there is an unestablished Anglcan Church whilst the largest single demonination is RC. Neither are established - the first ammendment to the constitution rules out establishment. And RC canon law precludes clerics occupying positions of civil governance.
Christianity in the USA is divided between the Roman Catholic Church and the evangelical Baptist and Pentecostal churches which dominate.
The US Anglican Church is just a small liberal minority now
It's weird. The CofE's biggest defenders (including me) tend to be staunch conservatives, and I suspect that's true of most of its congregation too.
But its clergy, and those in the Synod, are basically Corbynites and they probably secretly despise those who attend its services.
There was an interesting piece in today's Helsingin Sanomat, which I can no longer find, discussing Finland's possible application for NATO membership. They are ready and willing, but there's a rub - it needs unanimity of existing Nato members and the Finns fear rejection by Turkey. Turkey is of course not currently best pleased with the EU for putting its application there on ice. Also it has an ambiguous attitude towards Russia, not wishing to prod the bear. Sweden would probably not join Nato without Finland.
Zelenskyy publicly giving every EU country marks out of ten for support. Germany, Ireland, Portugal: Could do better. Belgium: Must try harder. Hungary, see me after school
What has become apparent from all these speeches he gives to various parliaments is Zelenskyy is a canny political operator, where he uses well known stereotypes, triumphs and sore sorts in equal measure to both garner plaudits but also enough red meat to local audience to guilt trip them into doing more.
I think he has to be a little careful to be honest. At present he has the support and sympathy of the west. He can get away with pointing out their weakness/failures. He’s fresh and the first leader in a war who has ever had to or had the opportunity to build and use social media as a weapon.
There will be a time possibly soon where if Russia lowers their aims to taking the Donbas and that is the only area of Ukraine under threat and “at war” where some countries will start to think that it’s not the worst situation and start looking at their own economies and will want to reduce or end sanctions to suit.
It’s a lot easier to seriously consider that if they’ve been slagged off and criticised compared to those countries who have been covered with love and praise and are emotionally tied.
I hope countries would see the importance of keeping the pressure on Russia until major change there but as I said if you aren’t careful then the goodwill isn’t as strong for the long run.
Dmitri A. Medvedev, the former Russian president and vice chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said the country was prepared to use nuclear weapons against the United States and Europe if its existence was threatened, the latest instance of nuclear saber-rattling as Russia faces fierce resistance in Ukraine.
NY Times blog
Actually, I don't think that was nuclear saber rattling. That is the whole basis of MAD, is that NW WILL, not might, be used if there is an existential threat.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
I think that's a key issue. There's enough accrued sentiment that it seems best to let her live our her life in peace rather than upset a very old lady. Not entirely rational, but a politically interfering middle-aged chap with a poor reputation for marital stability is a very different kettle of fish when ti comes to people claiming the Divine Right (prop: James VI and I). And remember the very concept of an Established Church, let alone one with the King or Queen as head and the bishops as state employees, was explosive politically from 1540s to the 20th century (and was resolved in part by eradicating the concept, as in Scotland). It's only because of the decline in religion that the insistence of retaining a mediaeval theocracy, complete with legislative seats for the shamans of only one religion out of many, is not still more explosive today.
Rubbish, we had and have an established church to ensure its authority comes from the monarch not the Pope. The Parish system it provides also ensures any Parishioner can get married or buried in their Parish Church.
The Bishops represent less than 5% of a House of Lords which is still completely unelected anyway
Our whole constitutional arrangement centred around the monarch drawing their power from God is outdated:
“Of the 16% of people who define as belonging to the Church of England, 51.9% never attend services and in fact only 10.7% of people who identify with the Church of England report attending church at least weekly.”
The only reason we still have what we have is inertia and a lack of consensus on what to have instead. Rather like the Tory parliamentary party’s view of the PM incidentally.
So what, it must still be the established church. Otherwise by definition the established church returns to the Papacy and to Rome.
Hence in mamy of the non Roman Catholic majority nations of Western Europe like Sweden the Lutheran Church remains the established church.
Plus you end the Church of England as the established church you end the right of residents of the Parish to an automatic church wedding or funeral. Only regular churchgoers would keep that right
?.
Why would the established church return to Rome. Why not just not have an established church? Churches should thrive or not in their own right.
And why shouldn't a church wedding be restricted (if they want) to church goers. If you don't belong to a society/club why should you expect to benefit from it.
Also why does it remove that right? If the church of England wants to provide it to residents of the parish, it can if it wishes.
As by definition the main Christian authority in this country outside of God would automatically be the Pope again as it was before the Reformation if the Monarch ceased to be Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
I personally value our Parish system and the fact everyone can get a Church wedding or funeral even if they rarely go to Church, it is part of what makes England great. Lose that and the Church of England would become more closed off from the community around it. It would of course have to be removed if the Church of England was no longer the established church as it would no longer have any obligation or connection to the community around it except its worshippers and some help for the poor and homeless via Christian charity
"country". Not mine, pal, and I'm as much of a UK subject as you are.
That's part of the problem - there never has been any attempt to spread the coverage in Parliament, or better abolish the C of E's establishment altogether. It's a massively outdated privilege for a small and declining sect.
The purpose of the Establishment of the Church of England is to avoid too much religion getting into the thing.
At least one candidate for Archbishop of Cantebury was rejected, politically, on the basis that he was a bit too much of a God Botherer
But if it was disestablished then it wouldn't matter any more would it? No Bishs in the HoL, and the C of E would be as relevant and as irrelevant as, say, the Congregationalists or the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing).
[edit] So that seems a circular argument - you need establishment ti mitigate the dangerous moral initiatives that might reesult from establishment ...
There is no reason to assume that disestablishing the CoE would mean that the established church would de facto become the Roman Catholic Church. I cannot think of a country even where the majority faith is Roman Catholic and that church is 'established' in the way the CoE is in England. The Irish constitution only requires the state to support freedom of religion. In the USA there is an unestablished Anglcan Church whilst the largest single demonination is RC. Neither are established - the first ammendment to the constitution rules out establishment. And RC canon law precludes clerics occupying positions of civil governance.
Christianity in the USA is divided between the Roman Catholic Church and the evangelical Baptist and Pentecostal churches which dominate.
The US Anglican Church is just a small liberal minority now
It's weird. The CofE's biggest defenders (including me) tend to be staunch conservatives, and I suspect that's true of most of its congregation too.
But its clergy, and those in the Synod, are basically Corbynites and they probably secretly despise those who attend its services.
Maybe one reason why their congregations are down to very low levels in most places.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
say what you like about flsoj, the odd phrase does cut through. They are trapped in piccaninny think. That Land Rover was a serious disaster.
There are plenty of pictures of HMQ in similar vehicles from decades ago, which is why it looks a bit anachronistic now.
But people are rushing to judgment. Whose Land Rover is it anyway? Probably the Jamaican government's. Who made the decision to use it? Etc etc.
As for Harry and Meghan being more sensitive, give me a break. When they went round South Africa they were far too grand to use any of the local vehicles and had their own Land Rover transported over - much as Charles did with his Rolls when he visited Romania a few years ago. Harry can't even be arsed to come back for his grandfather's memorial service and take the opportunity to see his grandmother.
Sure, there is a lot of theatre that goes into a Royal visit, but theatre is there to tell a story. A story where costume, sets and setting all need to align. So which was the more effective story to tell in the modern age?
I think though that the Palace flunkies were appalled by the informality and relaxed nature of Meghan and Harry in South Africa. I suspect that it was that rather than racism that drove the backbiting against her.
So nothing to do with the fact that she was a manipulative bully?
Oh, I think that the Royal Family have long experience of manipulative bullies within the organisation.
Question for you doc. One of my oldest friends has a wife with Covid. She’s had two positive tests and feels fairly bad. Like a modestly nasty cold
Now he’s got symptoms. Sleeping all the time. Sweats. Yet he’s had two negative lft tests.
Is it possible to have symptomatic covid yet consistently test negative?
I’ve told him he’s either faking it, like a sympathetic pregnancy, or he should get a PCR. He’s non amenable to either idea
A relative of mine currently has COVID, has been one of those test-acholic, always taking the damn things every day. Started feeling ill a week ago, doing their usual LFT routine, 3 days in a row after symptoms all negative (and of course all negative before feeling ill). Has an upcoming medical procedure so had to go and get a PCR, was positive.
My hairdresser told similar story last week: felt crap, four days of negative LFT, finally persuaded by son to get PCR, positive.
I could tell many similar stories from my school.
Which begs the fairly obvious question, what was the fricking point of all this LFT obsession?
Because the LFT picks up the level of virus where the person is infectious.
Should someone be non-infectious, having them moving around and interacting is not an issue spread-wise. Picking them up when they are infectious (as per LFT positives) IS very useful.
There was an interesting piece in today's Helsingin Sanomat, which I can no longer find, discussing Finland's possible application for NATO membership. They are ready and willing, but there's a rub - it needs unanimity of existing Nato members and the Finns fear rejection by Turkey. Turkey is of course not currently best pleased with the EU for putting its application there on ice. Also it has an ambiguous attitude towards Russia, not wishing to prod the bear. Sweden would probably not join Nato without Finland.
Interesting point, applying to join and then being rejected would put anyplace in a vulnerable position, especially if you have a boarder with Russia.
Zelenskyy publicly giving every EU country marks out of ten for support. Germany, Ireland, Portugal: Could do better. Belgium: Must try harder. Hungary, see me after school
What has become apparent from all these speeches he gives to various parliaments is Zelenskyy is a canny political operator, where he uses well known stereotypes, triumphs and sore sorts in equal measure to both garner plaudits but also enough red meat to local audience to guilt trip them into doing more.
I think he has to be a little careful to be honest. At present he has the support and sympathy of the west. He can get away with pointing out their weakness/failures. He’s fresh and the first leader in a war who has ever had to or had the opportunity to build and use social media as a weapon.
There will be a time possibly soon where if Russia lowers their aims to taking the Donbas and that is the only area of Ukraine under threat and “at war” where some countries will start to think that it’s not the worst situation and start looking at their own economies and will want to reduce or end sanctions to suit.
It’s a lot easier to seriously consider that if they’ve been slagged off and criticised compared to those countries who have been covered with love and praise and are emotionally tied.
I hope countries would see the importance of keeping the pressure on Russia until major change there but as I said if you aren’t careful then the goodwill isn’t as strong for the long run.
This is where Biden has to take over from Zelenskyy - in reframing this as a titanic and continuous struggle of liberal democracy vs authoritarianism. Biden has made a good start on this.
Zelenskyy publicly giving every EU country marks out of ten for support. Germany, Ireland, Portugal: Could do better. Belgium: Must try harder. Hungary, see me after school
I bet Boris is ruing Brexit now: surely he'd have got top of the class / a credit to his house / the boy all others should aspire to be.
I doubt he'd be PM though.
Is there any downside to this scenario at all?
Er.... Corbyn might be?
We’d have whoever stepped up after Cammo retired, tho
Yeah probably - might well have still been Cameron. All sorts of politicians have foundered somewhat on the passage through the Brexit straits.
Boris has some good qualities, and I'm not sure that anyone else would have managed to get us unstuck from the mire that we found ourselves in a couple of years ago. Nonetheless he has substantial bad points too, and worse still his leadership seems to have encouraged others in the Tory party to behave like children - JRM for example.
I'm relieved that we didn't see a Corbyn government. I think we all know it would have been a bit of a disaster at best.
Zelenskyy publicly giving every EU country marks out of ten for support. Germany, Ireland, Portugal: Could do better. Belgium: Must try harder. Hungary, see me after school
What has become apparent from all these speeches he gives to various parliaments is Zelenskyy is a canny political operator, where he uses well known stereotypes, triumphs and sore sorts in equal measure to both garner plaudits but also enough red meat to local audience to guilt trip them into doing more.
I think he has to be a little careful to be honest. At present he has the support and sympathy of the west. He can get away with pointing out their weakness/failures. He’s fresh and the first leader in a war who has ever had to or had the opportunity to build and use social media as a weapon.
There will be a time possibly soon where if Russia lowers their aims to taking the Donbas and that is the only area of Ukraine under threat and “at war” where some countries will start to think that it’s not the worst situation and start looking at their own economies and will want to reduce or end sanctions to suit.
It’s a lot easier to seriously consider that if they’ve been slagged off and criticised compared to those countries who have been covered with love and praise and are emotionally tied.
I hope countries would see the importance of keeping the pressure on Russia until major change there but as I said if you aren’t careful then the goodwill isn’t as strong for the long run.
This is where Biden has to take over from Zelenskyy - in reframing this as a titanic and continuous struggle of liberal democracy vs authoritarianism. Biden has made a good start on this.
I think this is right. Zelensky is thanking, begging, chiding, shaming, anything he can to get attention and support and he has to do that, but as things become a grind he can only encourage so much and it will be on external leaders to demonstrate if they actually give a damn or if they really just want a quiet life, whatever its cost.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
say what you like about flsoj, the odd phrase does cut through. They are trapped in piccaninny think. That Land Rover was a serious disaster.
There are plenty of pictures of HMQ in similar vehicles from decades ago, which is why it looks a bit anachronistic now.
But people are rushing to judgment. Whose Land Rover is it anyway? Probably the Jamaican government's. Who made the decision to use it? Etc etc.
As for Harry and Meghan being more sensitive, give me a break. When they went round South Africa they were far too grand to use any of the local vehicles and had their own Land Rover transported over - much as Charles did with his Rolls when he visited Romania a few years ago. Harry can't even be arsed to come back for his grandfather's memorial service and take the opportunity to see his grandmother.
Sure, there is a lot of theatre that goes into a Royal visit, but theatre is there to tell a story. A story where costume, sets and setting all need to align. So which was the more effective story to tell in the modern age?
I think though that the Palace flunkies were appalled by the informality and relaxed nature of Meghan and Harry in South Africa. I suspect that it was that rather than racism that drove the backbiting against her.
So nothing to do with the fact that she was a manipulative bully?
Oh, I think that the Royal Family have long experience of manipulative bullies within the organisation.
Question for you doc. One of my oldest friends has a wife with Covid. She’s had two positive tests and feels fairly bad. Like a modestly nasty cold
Now he’s got symptoms. Sleeping all the time. Sweats. Yet he’s had two negative lft tests.
Is it possible to have symptomatic covid yet consistently test negative?
I’ve told him he’s either faking it, like a sympathetic pregnancy, or he should get a PCR. He’s non amenable to either idea
As I understand it, yes. It's the flipside of the invisible damage issue that some people had back before the vaccines.
Virus stages:
- Virus gets into you. Very low level, you are not infectious yet. PCR goes positive at some point between here and the third stage - Virus starts eating its way into your cells, taking them over to reproduce itself (kind of like a very mini Alien) - Viral load increases, you become infectious, LFT goes positive
The immune system is what gives you symptoms as it swings into gear. If it doesn't recognise the thing (due to being immune-naive) and reacts slowly, the virus can get chewing away at you and spreading silently for quite a while. This is where an oximeter can come in handy, as it registers the loss of lung capacity.
If the immune system recognises the thing really quickly (vaccinated, boosted, strong immune system, low initial viral load), it can get traction very early. Symptoms kick in as it goes and this can be before the virus has chomped away enough to spread sufficiently to be discernibly infectious to others (so no positive LFT). Sometimes it'll get infectious enough before being swept up (so you'll still get a positive LFT in time - just a couple or three or four days after symptoms begin). On occasion, the immune system will hold it down so well that it never spreads enough to become infectious and you have covid and recover without ever triggering an LFT.
Symptoms don't just come from the immune system's response - although many do. The virus also hijacks the cell's apparatus to produce a number of proteins, some of which do damage to the body, which damage also produces symptoms. If this were not the case, immune deficient people would have nothing to fear from the virus.
True; it's oversimplified to some extent. Many of the symptoms are caused by the immune response (and these are usually the ones that people are feeling when they get symptoms significantly prior to LFT positives)
And eventually those with delayed or missing immune response will feel something as the virus chomps away - the damage from the parts no longer working as they should and producing incorrect proteins will cause a noticeable effect, but this could be delayed (thus the silent damage that can get picked up by an oximeter - when the virus eats away at the cells in the lungs but without triggering enough of an immune response for symptoms from the immune response - lung action can fall dangerously low before the body realises enough)
Pickford Stones Coady Guéhi Walker-Peters Henderson Gallagher Shaw Foden Mount Kane
Seems a bit of a wasted opportunity to pick T-Rex arms in goal as usual and also not give Bellingham a start. We know exactly what Pickford and Henderson give you (and what their limitations are).
Zelenskyy publicly giving every EU country marks out of ten for support. Germany, Ireland, Portugal: Could do better. Belgium: Must try harder. Hungary, see me after school
What has become apparent from all these speeches he gives to various parliaments is Zelenskyy is a canny political operator, where he uses well known stereotypes, triumphs and sore sorts in equal measure to both garner plaudits but also enough red meat to local audience to guilt trip them into doing more.
I think he has to be a little careful to be honest. At present he has the support and sympathy of the west. He can get away with pointing out their weakness/failures. He’s fresh and the first leader in a war who has ever had to or had the opportunity to build and use social media as a weapon.
There will be a time possibly soon where if Russia lowers their aims to taking the Donbas and that is the only area of Ukraine under threat and “at war” where some countries will start to think that it’s not the worst situation and start looking at their own economies and will want to reduce or end sanctions to suit.
It’s a lot easier to seriously consider that if they’ve been slagged off and criticised compared to those countries who have been covered with love and praise and are emotionally tied.
I hope countries would see the importance of keeping the pressure on Russia until major change there but as I said if you aren’t careful then the goodwill isn’t as strong for the long run.
This is where Biden has to take over from Zelenskyy - in reframing this as a titanic and continuous struggle of liberal democracy vs authoritarianism. Biden has made a good start on this.
I think, for want of a better analogy, it’s like a friend loses his job, home, wife and kids leave. Friends support him and those that can help financially and try and mediate with the wife.
The friend is saying that nothing else will do except for getting his job back, getting his home back and getting his wife back and all the friends agree.
The friend starts criticising certain friends who can’t help as much or who maybe find that the cost of helping is affecting their own funds for their family etc.
Eventually with the help of the friends he gets a new job and rents a flat. There will be friends who keep trying to help - talking to the ex wife, mediating, continued financial support to get them back where they were but the friends who he slagged off start to think, there were problems in the marriage anyway and it’s bad but could be much worse - he’s got a job and a home and I can’t keep spending the holiday money on this ungrateful sod……
This also then causes ructions in the wider group of friends between those who want to go the whole hog and those who say “ok enough now”.
Zelenskyy publicly giving every EU country marks out of ten for support. Germany, Ireland, Portugal: Could do better. Belgium: Must try harder. Hungary, see me after school
What has become apparent from all these speeches he gives to various parliaments is Zelenskyy is a canny political operator, where he uses well known stereotypes, triumphs and sore sorts in equal measure to both garner plaudits but also enough red meat to local audience to guilt trip them into doing more.
I think he has to be a little careful to be honest. At present he has the support and sympathy of the west. He can get away with pointing out their weakness/failures. He’s fresh and the first leader in a war who has ever had to or had the opportunity to build and use social media as a weapon.
There will be a time possibly soon where if Russia lowers their aims to taking the Donbas and that is the only area of Ukraine under threat and “at war” where some countries will start to think that it’s not the worst situation and start looking at their own economies and will want to reduce or end sanctions to suit.
It’s a lot easier to seriously consider that if they’ve been slagged off and criticised compared to those countries who have been covered with love and praise and are emotionally tied.
I hope countries would see the importance of keeping the pressure on Russia until major change there but as I said if you aren’t careful then the goodwill isn’t as strong for the long run.
This is where Biden has to take over from Zelenskyy - in reframing this as a titanic and continuous struggle of liberal democracy vs authoritarianism. Biden has made a good start on this.
I think, for want of a better analogy, it’s like a friend loses his job, home, wife and kids leave. Friends support him and those that can help financially and try and mediate with the wife.
The friend is saying that nothing else will do except for getting his job back, getting his home back and getting his wife back and all the friends agree.
The friend starts criticising certain friends who can’t help as much or who maybe find that the cost of helping is affecting their own funds for their family etc.
Eventually with the help of the friends he gets a new job and rents a flat. There will be friends who keep trying to help - talking to the ex wife, mediating, continued financial support to get them back where they were but the friends who he slagged off start to think, there were problems in the marriage anyway and it’s bad but could be much worse - he’s got a job and a home and I can’t keep spending the holiday money on this ungrateful sod……
This also then causes ructions in the wider group of friends between those who want to go the whole hog and those who say “ok enough now”.
That is a very poor analogy for the armed invasion of a country.
Pickford Stones Coady Guéhi Walker-Peters Henderson Gallagher Shaw Foden Mount Kane
Seems a bit of a wasted opportunity to pick T-Rex arms in goal as usual and also not give Bellingham a start. We know exactly what Pickford and Henderson give you (and what their limitations are).
Southgate made the point that it’s important to have experienced players to help the new players get used to it. Switzerland are no mugs.
Afternoon all! Was appalled to see Saudi back on the F1 calendar and glad to see that its an absolute farce. Missiles plural blow up an oil dept just 6 miles away. Houthi Rebels responsible, team bosses not happy, drivers meet all night and decide not to race, bosses and Saudi ministers come in and explain they are safe at the track and may not be safe if they leave. So the drivers decide to race.
This can't happen again. No succour to the head choppers.
Zelenskyy publicly giving every EU country marks out of ten for support. Germany, Ireland, Portugal: Could do better. Belgium: Must try harder. Hungary, see me after school
What has become apparent from all these speeches he gives to various parliaments is Zelenskyy is a canny political operator, where he uses well known stereotypes, triumphs and sore sorts in equal measure to both garner plaudits but also enough red meat to local audience to guilt trip them into doing more.
I think he has to be a little careful to be honest. At present he has the support and sympathy of the west. He can get away with pointing out their weakness/failures. He’s fresh and the first leader in a war who has ever had to or had the opportunity to build and use social media as a weapon.
There will be a time possibly soon where if Russia lowers their aims to taking the Donbas and that is the only area of Ukraine under threat and “at war” where some countries will start to think that it’s not the worst situation and start looking at their own economies and will want to reduce or end sanctions to suit.
It’s a lot easier to seriously consider that if they’ve been slagged off and criticised compared to those countries who have been covered with love and praise and are emotionally tied.
I hope countries would see the importance of keeping the pressure on Russia until major change there but as I said if you aren’t careful then the goodwill isn’t as strong for the long run.
This is where Biden has to take over from Zelenskyy - in reframing this as a titanic and continuous struggle of liberal democracy vs authoritarianism. Biden has made a good start on this.
I think, for want of a better analogy, it’s like a friend loses his job, home, wife and kids leave. Friends support him and those that can help financially and try and mediate with the wife.
The friend is saying that nothing else will do except for getting his job back, getting his home back and getting his wife back and all the friends agree.
The friend starts criticising certain friends who can’t help as much or who maybe find that the cost of helping is affecting their own funds for their family etc.
Eventually with the help of the friends he gets a new job and rents a flat. There will be friends who keep trying to help - talking to the ex wife, mediating, continued financial support to get them back where they were but the friends who he slagged off start to think, there were problems in the marriage anyway and it’s bad but could be much worse - he’s got a job and a home and I can’t keep spending the holiday money on this ungrateful sod……
This also then causes ructions in the wider group of friends between those who want to go the whole hog and those who say “ok enough now”.
That is a very poor analogy for the armed invasion of a country.
It was more about human nature that people don’t like getting criticised when they are trying to help and so it’s not a good long term strategy but I apologise for writing such a poor analogy, as I said - “for want of a better analogy”. I will happily shut up and leave it to those who know much better…..
Zelenskyy publicly giving every EU country marks out of ten for support. Germany, Ireland, Portugal: Could do better. Belgium: Must try harder. Hungary, see me after school
What has become apparent from all these speeches he gives to various parliaments is Zelenskyy is a canny political operator, where he uses well known stereotypes, triumphs and sore sorts in equal measure to both garner plaudits but also enough red meat to local audience to guilt trip them into doing more.
I think he has to be a little careful to be honest. At present he has the support and sympathy of the west. He can get away with pointing out their weakness/failures. He’s fresh and the first leader in a war who has ever had to or had the opportunity to build and use social media as a weapon.
There will be a time possibly soon where if Russia lowers their aims to taking the Donbas and that is the only area of Ukraine under threat and “at war” where some countries will start to think that it’s not the worst situation and start looking at their own economies and will want to reduce or end sanctions to suit.
It’s a lot easier to seriously consider that if they’ve been slagged off and criticised compared to those countries who have been covered with love and praise and are emotionally tied.
I hope countries would see the importance of keeping the pressure on Russia until major change there but as I said if you aren’t careful then the goodwill isn’t as strong for the long run.
This is where Biden has to take over from Zelenskyy - in reframing this as a titanic and continuous struggle of liberal democracy vs authoritarianism. Biden has made a good start on this.
I think this is right. Zelensky is thanking, begging, chiding, shaming, anything he can to get attention and support and he has to do that, but as things become a grind he can only encourage so much and it will be on external leaders to demonstrate if they actually give a damn or if they really just want a quiet life, whatever its cost.
How does he engineer a win though? It's clearly intolerable that the Russians should be seen to achieve any major gains. Even a cease-fire now would find Ukraine with flattened cities and the Russians looking smug. If I was him I'd be hoping that the Russians really are stupid enough to engage with NATO.
However there are other routes - the Russian armed forces must surely spot that they're being misused, the Western nations can surely be persuaded that sanctions stay in the long term, and the people of the world aren't going to forgive Putin's regime - especially if China and India allow a fair portrayal of events.
Pickford Stones Coady Guéhi Walker-Peters Henderson Gallagher Shaw Foden Mount Kane
Seems a bit of a wasted opportunity to pick T-Rex arms in goal as usual and also not give Bellingham a start. We know exactly what Pickford and Henderson give you (and what their limitations are).
Southgate made the point that it’s important to have experienced players to help the new players get used to it. Switzerland are no mugs.
Pope is experienced campaigner so I don't think there is any issue there. I think I might have liked to see Rice / Bellingham rather than Henderson / Gallagher as the former is a real potential central midfield for England at the WC. Also, I don't understand the attraction of Coady at all. Lets see if White can actually do it.
All these old churches that the Church of England looks after. They stole them from the Catholic Church, didn't they?
Depends how you define 'old'. Rather a lot postdate 1534, or 1558 if you go by Elizabeth of England's reign. And most of the proceeds of the wider privatization went into the pockets of the aristocracy. Rather like you know who today.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
I think that's a key issue. There's enough accrued sentiment that it seems best to let her live our her life in peace rather than upset a very old lady. Not entirely rational, but a politically interfering middle-aged chap with a poor reputation for marital stability is a very different kettle of fish when ti comes to people claiming the Divine Right (prop: James VI and I). And remember the very concept of an Established Church, let alone one with the King or Queen as head and the bishops as state employees, was explosive politically from 1540s to the 20th century (and was resolved in part by eradicating the concept, as in Scotland). It's only because of the decline in religion that the insistence of retaining a mediaeval theocracy, complete with legislative seats for the shamans of only one religion out of many, is not still more explosive today.
Rubbish, we had and have an established church to ensure its authority comes from the monarch not the Pope. The Parish system it provides also ensures any Parishioner can get married or buried in their Parish Church.
The Bishops represent less than 5% of a House of Lords which is still completely unelected anyway
Our whole constitutional arrangement centred around the monarch drawing their power from God is outdated:
“Of the 16% of people who define as belonging to the Church of England, 51.9% never attend services and in fact only 10.7% of people who identify with the Church of England report attending church at least weekly.”
The only reason we still have what we have is inertia and a lack of consensus on what to have instead. Rather like the Tory parliamentary party’s view of the PM incidentally.
So what, it must still be the established church. Otherwise by definition the established church returns to the Papacy and to Rome.
Hence in mamy of the non Roman Catholic majority nations of Western Europe like Sweden the Lutheran Church remains the established church.
Plus you end the Church of England as the established church you end the right of residents of the Parish to an automatic church wedding or funeral. Only regular churchgoers would keep that right
?.
Why would the established church return to Rome. Why not just not have an established church? Churches should thrive or not in their own right.
And why shouldn't a church wedding be restricted (if they want) to church goers. If you don't belong to a society/club why should you expect to benefit from it.
Also why does it remove that right? If the church of England wants to provide it to residents of the parish, it can if it wishes.
As by definition the main Christian authority in this country outside of God would automatically be the Pope again as it was before the Reformation if the Monarch ceased to be Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
I personally value our Parish system and the fact everyone can get a Church wedding or funeral even if they rarely go to Church, it is part of what makes England great. Lose that and the Church of England would become more closed off from the community around it. It would of course have to be removed if the Church of England was no longer the established church as it would no longer have any obligation or connection to the community around it except its worshippers and some help for the poor and homeless via Christian charity
"country". Not mine, pal, and I'm as much of a UK subject as you are.
That's part of the problem - there never has been any attempt to spread the coverage in Parliament, or better abolish the C of E's establishment altogether. It's a massively outdated privilege for a small and declining sect.
The purpose of the Establishment of the Church of England is to avoid too much religion getting into the thing.
At least one candidate for Archbishop of Cantebury was rejected, politically, on the basis that he was a bit too much of a God Botherer
But if it was disestablished then it wouldn't matter any more would it? No Bishs in the HoL, and the C of E would be as relevant and as irrelevant as, say, the Congregationalists or the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing).
[edit] So that seems a circular argument - you need establishment ti mitigate the dangerous moral initiatives that might reesult from establishment ...
There is no reason to assume that disestablishing the CoE would mean that the established church would de facto become the Roman Catholic Church. I cannot think of a country even where the majority faith is Roman Catholic and that church is 'established' in the way the CoE is in England. The Irish constitution only requires the state to support freedom of religion. In the USA there is an unestablished Anglcan Church whilst the largest single demonination is RC. Neither are established - the first ammendment to the constitution rules out establishment. And RC canon law precludes clerics occupying positions of civil governance.
Christianity in the USA is divided between the Roman Catholic Church and the evangelical Baptist and Pentecostal churches which dominate.
The US Anglican Church is just a small liberal minority now
It's weird. The CofE's biggest defenders (including me) tend to be staunch conservatives, and I suspect that's true of most of its congregation too.
But its clergy, and those in the Synod, are basically Corbynites and they probably secretly despise those who attend its services.
Most are not Conservatives but nor are they Corbynites either with a few exceptions. Most Church of England clergy are liberal really whether Starmer Labour or LD, evangelical clergy in the Church of England tend to be more conservative and High clergy Anglo Catholics are more traditional Tories.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
say what you like about flsoj, the odd phrase does cut through. They are trapped in piccaninny think. That Land Rover was a serious disaster.
There are plenty of pictures of HMQ in similar vehicles from decades ago, which is why it looks a bit anachronistic now.
But people are rushing to judgment. Whose Land Rover is it anyway? Probably the Jamaican government's. Who made the decision to use it? Etc etc.
As for Harry and Meghan being more sensitive, give me a break. When they went round South Africa they were far too grand to use any of the local vehicles and had their own Land Rover transported over - much as Charles did with his Rolls when he visited Romania a few years ago. Harry can't even be arsed to come back for his grandfather's memorial service and take the opportunity to see his grandmother.
Sure, there is a lot of theatre that goes into a Royal visit, but theatre is there to tell a story. A story where costume, sets and setting all need to align. So which was the more effective story to tell in the modern age?
I think though that the Palace flunkies were appalled by the informality and relaxed nature of Meghan and Harry in South Africa. I suspect that it was that rather than racism that drove the backbiting against her.
So nothing to do with the fact that she was a manipulative bully?
Oh, I think that the Royal Family have long experience of manipulative bullies within the organisation.
Question for you doc. One of my oldest friends has a wife with Covid. She’s had two positive tests and feels fairly bad. Like a modestly nasty cold
Now he’s got symptoms. Sleeping all the time. Sweats. Yet he’s had two negative lft tests.
Is it possible to have symptomatic covid yet consistently test negative?
I’ve told him he’s either faking it, like a sympathetic pregnancy, or he should get a PCR. He’s non amenable to either idea
A relative of mine currently has COVID, has been one of those test-acholic, always taking the damn things every day. Started feeling ill a week ago, doing their usual LFT routine, 3 days in a row after symptoms all negative (and of course all negative before feeling ill). Has an upcoming medical procedure so had to go and get a PCR, was positive.
My hairdresser told similar story last week: felt crap, four days of negative LFT, finally persuaded by son to get PCR, positive.
I could tell many similar stories from my school.
Which begs the fairly obvious question, what was the fricking point of all this LFT obsession?
No point now. Previously it was useful when suppression was possible as positive lateral flow indicated infectiousnous far better than PCR which can be positive way after you cease being a hazard to others. Problem is some are addicted to them, and for them the end of the free drug is going to be an issue.
Also, were we not told right from the start that LFT is only for symptomless testing and that if you have symptoms, you should take a PCR test?
The medical testing people hated the lateral flow tests because not accurate enough. For them, missing a positive is a no no. So they did them down at the start. If they had been embraced they would have been useful at times. Now omicron has destroyed their utility, and vaccines have moved the severity to just a bit less than flu, albeit with a lot of it about, so too many deaths to be ‘happy’ for the time being.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
I think that's a key issue. There's enough accrued sentiment that it seems best to let her live our her life in peace rather than upset a very old lady. Not entirely rational, but a politically interfering middle-aged chap with a poor reputation for marital stability is a very different kettle of fish when ti comes to people claiming the Divine Right (prop: James VI and I). And remember the very concept of an Established Church, let alone one with the King or Queen as head and the bishops as state employees, was explosive politically from 1540s to the 20th century (and was resolved in part by eradicating the concept, as in Scotland). It's only because of the decline in religion that the insistence of retaining a mediaeval theocracy, complete with legislative seats for the shamans of only one religion out of many, is not still more explosive today.
Rubbish, we had and have an established church to ensure its authority comes from the monarch not the Pope. The Parish system it provides also ensures any Parishioner can get married or buried in their Parish Church.
The Bishops represent less than 5% of a House of Lords which is still completely unelected anyway
Our whole constitutional arrangement centred around the monarch drawing their power from God is outdated:
“Of the 16% of people who define as belonging to the Church of England, 51.9% never attend services and in fact only 10.7% of people who identify with the Church of England report attending church at least weekly.”
The only reason we still have what we have is inertia and a lack of consensus on what to have instead. Rather like the Tory parliamentary party’s view of the PM incidentally.
So what, it must still be the established church. Otherwise by definition the established church returns to the Papacy and to Rome.
Hence in mamy of the non Roman Catholic majority nations of Western Europe like Sweden the Lutheran Church remains the established church.
Plus you end the Church of England as the established church you end the right of residents of the Parish to an automatic church wedding or funeral. Only regular churchgoers would keep that right
?.
Why would the established church return to Rome. Why not just not have an established church? Churches should thrive or not in their own right.
And why shouldn't a church wedding be restricted (if they want) to church goers. If you don't belong to a society/club why should you expect to benefit from it.
Also why does it remove that right? If the church of England wants to provide it to residents of the parish, it can if it wishes.
As by definition the main Christian authority in this country outside of God would automatically be the Pope again as it was before the Reformation if the Monarch ceased to be Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
I personally value our Parish system and the fact everyone can get a Church wedding or funeral even if they rarely go to Church, it is part of what makes England great. Lose that and the Church of England would become more closed off from the community around it. It would of course have to be removed if the Church of England was no longer the established church as it would no longer have any obligation or connection to the community around it except its worshippers and some help for the poor and homeless via Christian charity
"country". Not mine, pal, and I'm as much of a UK subject as you are.
That's part of the problem - there never has been any attempt to spread the coverage in Parliament, or better abolish the C of E's establishment altogether. It's a massively outdated privilege for a small and declining sect.
The purpose of the Establishment of the Church of England is to avoid too much religion getting into the thing.
At least one candidate for Archbishop of Cantebury was rejected, politically, on the basis that he was a bit too much of a God Botherer
But if it was disestablished then it wouldn't matter any more would it? No Bishs in the HoL, and the C of E would be as relevant and as irrelevant as, say, the Congregationalists or the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing).
[edit] So that seems a circular argument - you need establishment ti mitigate the dangerous moral initiatives that might reesult from establishment ...
There is no reason to assume that disestablishing the CoE would mean that the established church would de facto become the Roman Catholic Church. I cannot think of a country even where the majority faith is Roman Catholic and that church is 'established' in the way the CoE is in England. The Irish constitution only requires the state to support freedom of religion. In the USA there is an unestablished Anglcan Church whilst the largest single demonination is RC. Neither are established - the first ammendment to the constitution rules out establishment. And RC canon law precludes clerics occupying positions of civil governance.
Christianity in the USA is divided between the Roman Catholic Church and the evangelical Baptist and Pentecostal churches which dominate.
The US Anglican Church is just a small liberal minority now
It's weird. The CofE's biggest defenders (including me) tend to be staunch conservatives, and I suspect that's true of most of its congregation too.
But its clergy, and those in the Synod, are basically Corbynites and they probably secretly despise those who attend its services.
Most are not Conservatives but nor are they Corbynites either with a few exceptions. Most Church of England clergy are liberal really whether Starmer Labour or LD, evangelical clergy in the Church of England tend to be more conservative and High clergy Anglo Catholics are more traditional Tories.
All these old churches that the Church of England looks after. They stole them from the Catholic Church, didn't they?
Depends how you define 'old'. Rather a lot postdate 1534, or 1558 if you go by Elizabeth of England's reign. And most of the proceeds of the wider privatization went into the pockets of the aristocracy. Rather like you know who today.
There are almost no churches that date from before 1534 in unaltered form.
Zelenskyy publicly giving every EU country marks out of ten for support. Germany, Ireland, Portugal: Could do better. Belgium: Must try harder. Hungary, see me after school
What has become apparent from all these speeches he gives to various parliaments is Zelenskyy is a canny political operator, where he uses well known stereotypes, triumphs and sore sorts in equal measure to both garner plaudits but also enough red meat to local audience to guilt trip them into doing more.
I think he has to be a little careful to be honest. At present he has the support and sympathy of the west. He can get away with pointing out their weakness/failures. He’s fresh and the first leader in a war who has ever had to or had the opportunity to build and use social media as a weapon.
There will be a time possibly soon where if Russia lowers their aims to taking the Donbas and that is the only area of Ukraine under threat and “at war” where some countries will start to think that it’s not the worst situation and start looking at their own economies and will want to reduce or end sanctions to suit.
It’s a lot easier to seriously consider that if they’ve been slagged off and criticised compared to those countries who have been covered with love and praise and are emotionally tied.
I hope countries would see the importance of keeping the pressure on Russia until major change there but as I said if you aren’t careful then the goodwill isn’t as strong for the long run.
This is where Biden has to take over from Zelenskyy - in reframing this as a titanic and continuous struggle of liberal democracy vs authoritarianism. Biden has made a good start on this.
I think, for want of a better analogy, it’s like a friend loses his job, home, wife and kids leave. Friends support him and those that can help financially and try and mediate with the wife.
The friend is saying that nothing else will do except for getting his job back, getting his home back and getting his wife back and all the friends agree.
The friend starts criticising certain friends who can’t help as much or who maybe find that the cost of helping is affecting their own funds for their family etc.
Eventually with the help of the friends he gets a new job and rents a flat. There will be friends who keep trying to help - talking to the ex wife, mediating, continued financial support to get them back where they were but the friends who he slagged off start to think, there were problems in the marriage anyway and it’s bad but could be much worse - he’s got a job and a home and I can’t keep spending the holiday money on this ungrateful sod……
This also then causes ructions in the wider group of friends between those who want to go the whole hog and those who say “ok enough now”.
That is a very poor analogy for the armed invasion of a country.
It was more about human nature that people don’t like getting criticised when they are trying to help and so it’s not a good long term strategy but I apologise for writing such a poor analogy, as I said - “for want of a better analogy”. I will happily shut up and leave it to those who know much better…..
I appreciate that - but the analogy fails to capture the collective security element. Every European country has an interest in keeping Putin at the very least contained; for some it is existential.
Zelenskyy publicly giving every EU country marks out of ten for support. Germany, Ireland, Portugal: Could do better. Belgium: Must try harder. Hungary, see me after school
I bet Boris is ruing Brexit now: surely he'd have got top of the class / a credit to his house / the boy all others should aspire to be.
I doubt he'd be PM though.
Is there any downside to this scenario at all?
Er.... Corbyn might be?
We’d have whoever stepped up after Cammo retired, tho
Yeah probably - might well have still been Cameron. All sorts of politicians have foundered somewhat on the passage through the Brexit straits.
Boris has some good qualities, and I'm not sure that anyone else would have managed to get us unstuck from the mire that we found ourselves in a couple of years ago. Nonetheless he has substantial bad points too, and worse still his leadership seems to have encouraged others in the Tory party to behave like children - JRM for example.
I'm relieved that we didn't see a Corbyn government. I think we all know it would have been a bit of a disaster at best.
Total bollox, debatable whether the fat oaf is any better than Corbyn would have been. Hard to be worses than absolutely rotten to the core , lying toerag and general wrong un.
Afternoon all! Was appalled to see Saudi back on the F1 calendar and glad to see that its an absolute farce. Missiles plural blow up an oil dept just 6 miles away. Houthi Rebels responsible, team bosses not happy, drivers meet all night and decide not to race, bosses and Saudi ministers come in and explain they are safe at the track and may not be safe if they leave. So the drivers decide to race.
This can't happen again. No succour to the head choppers.
Agreed, but… Hamilton’s comments both this week and last were appreciated by those on the sharp end of the repressive regimes. It’s not an argument in favour of a Saudi GP, which I’d be very happy to see disappear from the calendar, but it’s something.
Zelenskyy publicly giving every EU country marks out of ten for support. Germany, Ireland, Portugal: Could do better. Belgium: Must try harder. Hungary, see me after school
I bet Boris is ruing Brexit now: surely he'd have got top of the class / a credit to his house / the boy all others should aspire to be.
I doubt he'd be PM though.
Is there any downside to this scenario at all?
Er.... Corbyn might be?
We’d have whoever stepped up after Cammo retired, tho
Yeah probably - might well have still been Cameron. All sorts of politicians have foundered somewhat on the passage through the Brexit straits.
Boris has some good qualities, and I'm not sure that anyone else would have managed to get us unstuck from the mire that we found ourselves in a couple of years ago. Nonetheless he has substantial bad points too, and worse still his leadership seems to have encouraged others in the Tory party to behave like children - JRM for example.
I'm relieved that we didn't see a Corbyn government. I think we all know it would have been a bit of a disaster at best.
We don't know that at all but the chimera of a Corbyn government is used to comfort Conservative supporters appalled at what the actual Prime Minister has done.
Dmitri A. Medvedev, the former Russian president and vice chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said the country was prepared to use nuclear weapons against the United States and Europe if its existence was threatened, the latest instance of nuclear saber-rattling as Russia faces fierce resistance in Ukraine.
NY Times blog
Actually, I don't think that was nuclear saber rattling. That is the whole basis of MAD, is that NW WILL, not might, be used if there is an existential threat.
It qualifies as sabre-rattling if a Russian military defeat in Ukraine is defined as being an existential threat to Russia, which is what has been suggested multiple times by Putin and others.
I want to see Russia completely defeated in Ukraine and forced back to the 2014 borders, but the message the Russians are suggesting is that would be an existential threat to them, to which they'd respond with nuclear weapons, so don't support Ukraine too strongly.
You and I might define an existential non-nuclear threat to Russia to be a NATO armoured advance on Moscow, but if they say it's a Ukrainian advance on Sevastapol how sure can we be that is a bluff, and do we hold back some support for Ukraine to avoid the risk of calling that bluff?
I really don't know, but I think that's the message Russia is trying to send.
V lightweight, and shorter range than the NLAW, but modern, not ex Soviet kit, and useful.
I'd imagine the Germans are very good at weapons. All the best movie and lighting gear is German. Precision made and used all over the world. Arriflex are quite simply the best
Small, lightweight, simple, cheap. Doesn't sound like Arriflex.
The 'cheap' obviously not! But their heads cameras lenses are beautifully made. The Mercedes-Benz of cameras! Everything is where you'd want it to be. Outside of Germany companies are using Arri gear that's fifty and sixty years old. Still working perfectly.The joy of working in Germany is you get the very latest including some incredible bits that no one else has thought of
Some of the German Zeiss lenses from the 1950s are incredible. A whole load of other mid-sized companies, in the typical cottage-industry precision genius the germans had, and still have, too, from the same period of the 1950s to the 70s - Schacht, Voigtlander, obviously Leica.
My first camera was a voigtlander. I don't think they exist anymore but I've picked up a few Leica's on the way. Zeiss lenses obviously. Still the best. They just do things so well. The Americans make some good movie stuff now particularly Panavision and Weaver Steadman heads are popular but the best precision gear and lenses are definitely German
Dmitri A. Medvedev, the former Russian president and vice chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said the country was prepared to use nuclear weapons against the United States and Europe if its existence was threatened, the latest instance of nuclear saber-rattling as Russia faces fierce resistance in Ukraine.
NY Times blog
Actually, I don't think that was nuclear saber rattling. That is the whole basis of MAD, is that NW WILL, not might, be used if there is an existential threat.
It qualifies as sabre-rattling if a Russian military defeat in Ukraine is defined as being an existential threat to Russia, which is what has been suggested multiple times by Putin and others.
I want to see Russia completely defeated in Ukraine and forced back to the 2014 borders, but the message the Russians are suggesting is that would be an existential threat to them, to which they'd respond with nuclear weapons, so don't support Ukraine too strongly.
You and I might define an existential non-nuclear threat to Russia to be a NATO armoured advance on Moscow, but if they say it's a Ukrainian advance on Sevastapol how sure can we be that is a bluff, and do we hold back some support for Ukraine to avoid the risk of calling that bluff?
I really don't know, but I think that's the message Russia is trying to send.
I think that's right. A signal to the West that if things go to a point Russia cannot claim a win (even just holding on to Donbas and Crimea) then that itself is too much. Its plausible unfortunately.
Brilliant detail in the Economist’s coverage of THAT rally in Moscow
Putin was, apparently, wearing a ‘Lora Piano’ coat, made in Italy. Price: $14,000
Tommy Hilfiger gilet, go fuck yourself.
When I watched that rally, I actually remember thinking, omg Putin is now a full on Fascist leader…. but that really is quite a nice coat. Worked well with the rollneck jumper, too
Which leaves the really important question a begging, what shoes? I'm guessing Gucci or perhaps Ferragamo.
Prada.
The Devil wears Prada.
I have done a quick bit of research and Vlad apparently goes for Ferragamo (kudos to me) and John Lobb. His suits are Brioni (which just to aftertime I would have gone for) and a shadowy tailor to the Kremlin called Tigorico; the latter charge c.$5000 per suit.
Divvie, PB style correspondent with his finger on the sartorial pulse of depraved tyrants.
He use same tailor as use TUD, sounds like you are a bit of a dapper dandy.
Aye, one needs to put on a bit of style doon the Calton.
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Entertainment selection was still spotty and I'm still shocked that in flight WiFi is a paid extra for club class (as is advanced seating, which we paid for to get two together), only included for first.
I'd say that BA have definitely improved the product since I last flew pre-COVID, but it was so far behind the competition at that point the only way was up
Special mention to the BA cabin crew and absolutely brilliant flight crew. We ran into the worst ever turbulence I've experienced (and I fly a lot, so bad that they paused cabin service and at times you could see the crew looking a bit nervous) and the flight crew kept us well informed, told us how long they expected it to last and to keep calm if it felt as though the plane was falling because it wouldn't be. I think it's the crew that really sets BA apart from other airlines still, the product itself doesn't compare but the staff are still incredible. The true BA resource.
But its clergy, and those in the Synod, are basically Corbynites and they probably secretly despise those who attend its services.
Sweden would probably not join Nato without Finland.
There will be a time possibly soon where if Russia lowers their aims to taking the Donbas and that is the only area of Ukraine under threat and “at war” where some countries will start to think that it’s not the worst situation and start looking at their own economies and will want to reduce or end sanctions to suit.
It’s a lot easier to seriously consider that if they’ve been slagged off and criticised compared to those countries who have been covered with love and praise and are emotionally tied.
I hope countries would see the importance of keeping the pressure on Russia until major change there but as I said if you aren’t careful then the goodwill isn’t as strong for the long run.
Should someone be non-infectious, having them moving around and interacting is not an issue spread-wise. Picking them up when they are infectious (as per LFT positives) IS very useful.
Boris has some good qualities, and I'm not sure that anyone else would have managed to get us unstuck from the mire that we found ourselves in a couple of years ago. Nonetheless he has substantial bad points too, and worse still his leadership seems to have encouraged others in the Tory party to behave like children - JRM for example.
I'm relieved that we didn't see a Corbyn government. I think we all know it would have been a bit of a disaster at best.
And eventually those with delayed or missing immune response will feel something as the virus chomps away - the damage from the parts no longer working as they should and producing incorrect proteins will cause a noticeable effect, but this could be delayed (thus the silent damage that can get picked up by an oximeter - when the virus eats away at the cells in the lungs but without triggering enough of an immune response for symptoms from the immune response - lung action can fall dangerously low before the body realises enough)
Stones
Coady
Guéhi
Walker-Peters
Henderson
Gallagher
Shaw
Foden
Mount
Kane
Seems a bit of a wasted opportunity to pick T-Rex arms in goal as usual and also not give Bellingham a start. We know exactly what Pickford and Henderson give you (and what their limitations are).
The friend is saying that nothing else will do except for getting his job back, getting his home back and getting his wife back and all the friends agree.
The friend starts criticising certain friends who can’t help as much or who maybe find that the cost of helping is affecting their own funds for their family etc.
Eventually with the help of the friends he gets a new job and rents a flat. There will be friends who keep trying to help - talking to the ex wife, mediating, continued financial support to get them back where they were but the friends who he slagged off start to think, there were problems in the marriage anyway and it’s bad but could be much worse - he’s got a job and a home and I can’t keep spending the holiday money on this ungrateful sod……
This also then causes ructions in the wider group of friends between those who want to go the whole hog and those who say “ok enough now”.
This can't happen again. No succour to the head choppers.
However there are other routes - the Russian armed forces must surely spot that they're being misused, the Western nations can surely be persuaded that sanctions stay in the long term, and the people of the world aren't going to forgive Putin's regime - especially if China and India allow a fair portrayal of events.
Most of the congregation of the Church of England normally vote Conservative, though Blair did win a plurality of Anglicans in 1997. Interestingly 2019 was the first time ever the Conservatives won the votes of most Roman Catholics
https://theconversation.com/britains-changing-religious-vote-why-catholics-are-leaving-labour-and-conservatives-are-hoovering-up-christian-support-157922
Now omicron has destroyed their utility, and vaccines have moved the severity to just a bit less than flu, albeit with a lot of it about, so too many deaths to be ‘happy’ for the time being.
Hamilton’s comments both this week and last were appreciated by those on the sharp end of the repressive regimes.
It’s not an argument in favour of a Saudi GP, which I’d be very happy to see disappear from the calendar, but it’s something.
I want to see Russia completely defeated in Ukraine and forced back to the 2014 borders, but the message the Russians are suggesting is that would be an existential threat to them, to which they'd respond with nuclear weapons, so don't support Ukraine too strongly.
You and I might define an existential non-nuclear threat to Russia to be a NATO armoured advance on Moscow, but if they say it's a Ukrainian advance on Sevastapol how sure can we be that is a bluff, and do we hold back some support for Ukraine to avoid the risk of calling that bluff?
I really don't know, but I think that's the message Russia is trying to send.