The Tories look set to lose both June 23rd by-elections – politicalbetting.com

MaxPB said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Eabhal said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican

To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator


“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.

“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/were-liverpool-fans-sexually-assaulted-at-the-stade-de-france-

There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?

No.

Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.

Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France

You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer

Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago

It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.

Echoes of the 2011 riots?

Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about


Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”

A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.


He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.

However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.

His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable

It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections

Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests#Fatalities_and_injuries

Surprised me. This is a drop in the ocean.

and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)

Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]

The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]

The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense

Yes, some of the problems seem to come from the Stade de France changing its crowd management policies, after the terror attacks. Eg there are few if any reports of crowd difficulties before the big attacks of 2015, they all date from after then, when the authorities got paranoid about the wrong people getting in

And of course you’re right that is a bigger story than last weekend, but last weekend is still pretty bloody serious. 1000s of people robbed, attacked and traumatised, and dozens if not hundreds of sexual assaults - with police officers saying they have never witnessed anything on this scale

It looks like the French now have a toxic cocktail of near-impossible crowd management problems in the face of terrorism, and all of this with a stadium surrounded by Islamist migrants, and on top of that they now have the threat of constant Cologne style mass robbery and sexual molestation

This is a French paper speculating that the mess might cost Macron “fifty deputies”

“It will end up costing us 50 deputies like the social VAT of Borloo”, fears a senior officer of the macronie. Darmanin in the middle of the fire lopinion.fr/politique/stad… by @LVigogne @mdeprieck Drawing @MonsieurKak”

https://twitter.com/carovigoureux/status/1532273757016014848?s=21&t=-8JXjXAEBDrJOgaFrO_IOQ

Personally, I would not go to the Stade de France to watch anything, not now. And I would have been happy to do so, before, because I was oblivious, like all of us

They really should not have built that stadium in Paris 93

Yet. Has been noted before. Stratford wasn't ritzy when we built ours there. It was a dump in the 90's.

When I was living in London in the period around 2000, 3 bed semis in decent streets in Stratford for £70k or so were one hot tip from the London Property Guide.

I reckon Catford might be the next gentrification target. I went out for a drink and a meal with a mate there last night. It's really quite ropey but has excellent transport links into central London with two train stations side by side. There's a bizarrely good and cheap Italian restaurant there too - two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of Primitivo for a bit over £50. Catford is the new Peckham - you heard it here first.

No tube station. Areas that don't have tube or overground struggle to gentrify. It's only when the overground was properly revamped that the eastern bit of London where I grew up really started to gentrify. Before that it was a no go area and my parents couldn't leave fast enough when my dad got his chartership and a good job.

kinabalu said:

Farooq said:

kle4 said:

Farooq said:

"No man's land" is surprisingly crowded these days. A good one in six are undecided on keeping the monarchy.
On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.

Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.

.

Really? That sounds a bit dramatic to me, I've never noticed republicans having difficulty getting heard in any context.

Perhaps it's just a perception bias. I was surprised to find that there's as much support as there is for a republic. I thought, much like Casino_Royale, that numbers were small.

Same here. I'm surprised by how much Republican sentiment there is. And once we get post QE2 I'd think it would only grow.

There are 4 categories of people, I'd say.

1. Monarchists.
2. Not fussed but would vote to keep if asked.
3. Not fussed but would vote to scrap if asked.
4. Republicans.

ATM spread approx 25/35/15/25.

So, as per usual, it's about moving that middle ground. If lots of 2s become 3s the pressure will build for a Referendum.

Because you can't just keep ignoring the people.

Farooq said:

Leon said:

malcolmg said:

Leon said:

Casino_Royale said:

Leon said:

Dura_Ace said:

Farooq said:

Republic. Now.

Obviously. Tomorrow is too late.

I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist

Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.

They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.

They will always lose.

Yep

The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn

So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined

Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good

Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.

See, you enjoyed writing that. QED

LOOK. Even the Georgians are celebrating your majestic English Queen 👑👑🥂🥂

Are you staying in a shanty town?

OldKingCole said:

OldKingCole said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

Meanwhile. It is silent out there. Literally no one around. No kids playing. No lawns mowed. No traffic. No pedestrians. Beautiful sunshine. Where's everyone gone?

Watching Trooping the Colour?

Test Match. England bowling. NZ 1-0 AToW.

Yay! 1-1. c Bairstow b Anderson. What idiot left Anderson out of the last tour?

ydoethur said:

Carnyx said:

ydoethur said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

ydoethur said:

MattW said:

I was not expecting this.

Turkey in English is now officially ‘Türkiye’.

Now, where's the Umlaut on my keyboard?

How does one pronounce "iye" - is it like the first part of E-I-E-I-O from Old MacDonald?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/2/un-registers-turkiye-as-new-country-name-for-turkey

Sounds like they got the bird about the English version.

You can listen here, btw.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tur-Türkiye_Cumhuriyeti.ogg

Bit rude to tell them to get stuffed I suppose.

Would definitely be saucy.

I do like seeing the informed and sage opinions on PB.

We all know our onions.

Andy_JS said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Eabhal said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican

To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator


“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.

“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/were-liverpool-fans-sexually-assaulted-at-the-stade-de-france-

There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?

No.

Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.

Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France

You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer

Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago

It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.

Echoes of the 2011 riots?

Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about


Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”

A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.


He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.

However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.

His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable

It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections

Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests#Fatalities_and_injuries

Surprised me. This is a drop in the ocean.

and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)

Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]

The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]

The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense

Yes, some of the problems seem to come from the Stade de France changing its crowd management policies, after the terror attacks. Eg there are few if any reports of crowd difficulties before the big attacks of 2015, they all date from after then, when the authorities got paranoid about the wrong people getting in

And of course you’re right that is a bigger story than last weekend, but last weekend is still pretty bloody serious. 1000s of people robbed, attacked and traumatised, and dozens if not hundreds of sexual assaults - with police officers saying they have never witnessed anything on this scale

It looks like the French now have a toxic cocktail of near-impossible crowd management problems in the face of terrorism, and all of this with a stadium surrounded by Islamist migrants, and on top of that they now have the threat of constant Cologne style mass robbery and sexual molestation

This is a French paper speculating that the mess might cost Macron “fifty deputies”

“It will end up costing us 50 deputies like the social VAT of Borloo”, fears a senior officer of the macronie. Darmanin in the middle of the fire lopinion.fr/politique/stad… by @LVigogne @mdeprieck Drawing @MonsieurKak”

https://twitter.com/carovigoureux/status/1532273757016014848?s=21&t=-8JXjXAEBDrJOgaFrO_IOQ

Personally, I would not go to the Stade de France to watch anything, not now. And I would have been happy to do so, before, because I was oblivious, like all of us

They really should not have built that stadium in Paris 93

Yet. Has been noted before. Stratford wasn't ritzy when we built ours there. It was a dump in the 90's.

When I was living in London in the period around 2000, 3 bed semis in decent streets in Stratford for £70k or so were one hot tip from the London Property Guide.

I reckon Catford might be the next gentrification target. I went out for a drink and a meal with a mate there last night. It's really quite ropey but has excellent transport links into central London with two train stations side by side. There's a bizarrely good and cheap Italian restaurant there too - two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of Primitivo for a bit over £50. Catford is the new Peckham - you heard it here first.

£50 is cheap for that food and drink?

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Eabhal said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican

To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator


“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.

“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/were-liverpool-fans-sexually-assaulted-at-the-stade-de-france-

There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?

No.

Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.

Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France

You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer

Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago

It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.

Echoes of the 2011 riots?

Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about


Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”

A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.


He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.

However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.

His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable

It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections

Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests#Fatalities_and_injuries

Surprised me. This is a drop in the ocean.

and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)

Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]

The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]

The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense

Yes, some of the problems seem to come from the Stade de France changing its crowd management policies, after the terror attacks. Eg there are few if any reports of crowd difficulties before the big attacks of 2015, they all date from after then, when the authorities got paranoid about the wrong people getting in

And of course you’re right that is a bigger story than last weekend, but last weekend is still pretty bloody serious. 1000s of people robbed, attacked and traumatised, and dozens if not hundreds of sexual assaults - with police officers saying they have never witnessed anything on this scale

It looks like the French now have a toxic cocktail of near-impossible crowd management problems in the face of terrorism, and all of this with a stadium surrounded by Islamist migrants, and on top of that they now have the threat of constant Cologne style mass robbery and sexual molestation

This is a French paper speculating that the mess might cost Macron “fifty deputies”

“It will end up costing us 50 deputies like the social VAT of Borloo”, fears a senior officer of the macronie. Darmanin in the middle of the fire lopinion.fr/politique/stad… by @LVigogne @mdeprieck Drawing @MonsieurKak”

https://twitter.com/carovigoureux/status/1532273757016014848?s=21&t=-8JXjXAEBDrJOgaFrO_IOQ

Personally, I would not go to the Stade de France to watch anything, not now. And I would have been happy to do so, before, because I was oblivious, like all of us

They really should not have built that stadium in Paris 93

Yet. Has been noted before. Stratford wasn't ritzy when we built ours there. It was a dump in the 90's.

When I was living in London in the period around 2000, 3 bed semis in decent streets in Stratford for £70k or so were one hot tip from the London Property Guide.

I reckon Catford might be the next gentrification target. I went out for a drink and a meal with a mate there last night. It's really quite ropey but has excellent transport links into central London with two train stations side by side. There's a bizarrely good and cheap Italian restaurant there too - two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of Primitivo for a bit over £50. Catford is the new Peckham - you heard it here first.

No tube station. Areas that don't have tube or overground struggle to gentrify. It's only when the overground was properly revamped that the eastern bit of London where I grew up really started to gentrify. Before that it was a no go area and my parents couldn't leave fast enough when my dad got his chartership and a good job.

Which is strange.
As we are assured the north of England doesn't need better public transport infrastructure to "level up".
I wonder why?

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

boulay said:

Have to say, whatever you think of the monarchy, however cynical you are or down on Britain the Trooping of the Colour is bloody magnificent as a spectacle.

It knocks those big presidential parades such as Red Dquare and the French Bastille parade into a cocked hat - there’s something Victorian about it still so a gentle bit of time travel.

It’s almost, hopefully not being too wanky, a demonstration of an iron fist in a velvet glove by the military rather than the in your face bombast of other parades where they drive the tanks etc etc.

OTOH the horses sort of got outdated in September 1939. And it's not as if the MoD had had the sense to keep some old Churchill tanks for parades. They do those things better in Burma.

A visiting friend, from Iceland, commented that the combination of antique uniforms with modern rifles was an interesting touch.

Most other countries have parade units that carry parade weapons.

I was surprised they didn't keep some SMLEs or No 4s for that, especially as the new SA80 forced some changes to drill. Though apparently even changing to the SLR needed some changes to the drill.

wooliedyed said:

kle4 said:

OldKingCole said:

OldKingCole said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

Meanwhile. It is silent out there. Literally no one around. No kids playing. No lawns mowed. No traffic. No pedestrians. Beautiful sunshine. Where's everyone gone?

Watching Trooping the Colour?

Test Match. England bowling. NZ 1-0 AToW.

Yay! 1-1. c Bairstow b Anderson. What idiot left Anderson out of the last tour?

It never made much sense. Of all the issues we had in the Ashes, Anderson's bowling was not one of the, he had not suddenly become crap. Yes, we need a plan for who could take his place eventually, but if he's still the best we've got in that role you don't swap him out prematurely.

Batting was the problem so they dropped the best opening bowling partnership in history. Typical of Roots inept captaincy run

Casino_Royale said:

boulay said:

Have to say, whatever you think of the monarchy, however cynical you are or down on Britain the Trooping of the Colour is bloody magnificent as a spectacle.

It knocks those big presidential parades such as Red Dquare and the French Bastille parade into a cocked hat - there’s something Victorian about it still so a gentle bit of time travel.

It’s almost, hopefully not being too wanky, a demonstration of an iron fist in a velvet glove by the military rather than the in your face bombast of other parades where they drive the tanks etc etc.

Hear hear.

It also shows the absolute professionalism of the British Army and the extremely high-calibre of its people.

It's a hugely impressive organisation.

kle4 said:

noneoftheabove said:

CarlottaVance said:

MattW said:

I was not expecting this.

Turkey in English is now officially ‘Türkiye’.

Now, where's the Umlaut on my keyboard?

How does one pronounce "iye" - is it like the first part of E-I-E-I-O from Old MacDonald?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/2/un-registers-turkiye-as-new-country-name-for-turkey

Turkish airlines (is it still “Turkish” - ed.?) has a video after the safety demo and before every film promoting the new name…

So should we start parroting the new pronunciation or bury our head in the sands like an ostrich?

I think people will go for a British fudge - we will probably end up spelling it the way they want (albeit without the umlaut) but still mangling the pronounciation.

And that only because the new spelling is not that different, it's not like we refer to Hungary as (looks up wikipedia) Magyarország.

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

boulay said:

Have to say, whatever you think of the monarchy, however cynical you are or down on Britain the Trooping of the Colour is bloody magnificent as a spectacle.

It knocks those big presidential parades such as Red Dquare and the French Bastille parade into a cocked hat - there’s something Victorian about it still so a gentle bit of time travel.

It’s almost, hopefully not being too wanky, a demonstration of an iron fist in a velvet glove by the military rather than the in your face bombast of other parades where they drive the tanks etc etc.

OTOH the horses sort of got outdated in September 1939. And it's not as if the MoD had had the sense to keep some old Churchill tanks for parades. They do those things better in Burma.

A visiting friend, from Iceland, commented that the combination of antique uniforms with modern rifles was an interesting touch.

Most other countries have parade units that carry parade weapons.

I was surprised they didn't keep some SMLEs or No 4s for that, especially as the new SA80 forced some changes to drill. Though apparently even changing to the SLR needed some changes to the drill.

When the SA-8x came in, there was an attempt to keep SLR, IIRC, because a bullpup is rubbish for most drill movements.

The decision to use the standard military rifle for parades was deliberate.

CarlottaVance said:

Ending of FOM obvs…

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/02/asia/singapore-chicken-shortage-malaysia-export-ban-intl-hnk/index.html

Farooq said:

Casino_Royale said:

kinabalu said:

Farooq said:

kle4 said:

Farooq said:

"No man's land" is surprisingly crowded these days. A good one in six are undecided on keeping the monarchy.
On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.

Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.

.

Really? That sounds a bit dramatic to me, I've never noticed republicans having difficulty getting heard in any context.

Perhaps it's just a perception bias. I was surprised to find that there's as much support as there is for a republic. I thought, much like Casino_Royale, that numbers were small.

Same here. I'm surprised by how much Republican sentiment there is. And once we get post QE2 I'd think it would only grow.

There are 4 categories of people, I'd say.

1. Monarchists.
2. Not fussed but would vote to keep if asked.
3. Not fussed but would vote to scrap if asked.
4. Republicans.

ATM spread approx 25/35/15/25.

So, as per usual, it's about moving that middle ground. If lots of 2s become 3s the pressure will build for a Referendum.

Because you can't just keep ignoring the people.

Shame the people keep ignoring you.

Republicanism is growing.
But that's fine you are still in the majority; you have your laurels and you can probably rest for a while. We'll wake you up if anything happens.

MaxPB said:

Andy_JS said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Eabhal said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican

To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator


“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.

“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/were-liverpool-fans-sexually-assaulted-at-the-stade-de-france-

There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?

No.

Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.

Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France

You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer

Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago

It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.

Echoes of the 2011 riots?

Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about


Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”

A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.


He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.

However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.

His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable

It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections

Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests#Fatalities_and_injuries

Surprised me. This is a drop in the ocean.

and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)

Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]

The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]

The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense

Yes, some of the problems seem to come from the Stade de France changing its crowd management policies, after the terror attacks. Eg there are few if any reports of crowd difficulties before the big attacks of 2015, they all date from after then, when the authorities got paranoid about the wrong people getting in

And of course you’re right that is a bigger story than last weekend, but last weekend is still pretty bloody serious. 1000s of people robbed, attacked and traumatised, and dozens if not hundreds of sexual assaults - with police officers saying they have never witnessed anything on this scale

It looks like the French now have a toxic cocktail of near-impossible crowd management problems in the face of terrorism, and all of this with a stadium surrounded by Islamist migrants, and on top of that they now have the threat of constant Cologne style mass robbery and sexual molestation

This is a French paper speculating that the mess might cost Macron “fifty deputies”

“It will end up costing us 50 deputies like the social VAT of Borloo”, fears a senior officer of the macronie. Darmanin in the middle of the fire lopinion.fr/politique/stad… by @LVigogne @mdeprieck Drawing @MonsieurKak”

https://twitter.com/carovigoureux/status/1532273757016014848?s=21&t=-8JXjXAEBDrJOgaFrO_IOQ

Personally, I would not go to the Stade de France to watch anything, not now. And I would have been happy to do so, before, because I was oblivious, like all of us

They really should not have built that stadium in Paris 93

Yet. Has been noted before. Stratford wasn't ritzy when we built ours there. It was a dump in the 90's.

When I was living in London in the period around 2000, 3 bed semis in decent streets in Stratford for £70k or so were one hot tip from the London Property Guide.

I reckon Catford might be the next gentrification target. I went out for a drink and a meal with a mate there last night. It's really quite ropey but has excellent transport links into central London with two train stations side by side. There's a bizarrely good and cheap Italian restaurant there too - two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of Primitivo for a bit over £50. Catford is the new Peckham - you heard it here first.

£50 is cheap for that food and drink?

Very, two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of wine would be £60-70 where I live, the wine would come in at £30 alone.

OldKingCole said:

OldKingCole said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

Meanwhile. It is silent out there. Literally no one around. No kids playing. No lawns mowed. No traffic. No pedestrians. Beautiful sunshine. Where's everyone gone?

Watching Trooping the Colour?

Test Match. England bowling. NZ 1-0 AToW.

Yay! 1-1. c Bairstow b Anderson. What idiot left Anderson out of the last tour?

MattW said:

MaxPB said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Eabhal said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican

To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator


“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.

“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/were-liverpool-fans-sexually-assaulted-at-the-stade-de-france-

There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?

No.

Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.

Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France

You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer

Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago

It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.

Echoes of the 2011 riots?

Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about


Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”

A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.


He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.

However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.

His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable

It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections

Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests#Fatalities_and_injuries

Surprised me. This is a drop in the ocean.

and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)

Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]

The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]

The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense

Yes, some of the problems seem to come from the Stade de France changing its crowd management policies, after the terror attacks. Eg there are few if any reports of crowd difficulties before the big attacks of 2015, they all date from after then, when the authorities got paranoid about the wrong people getting in

And of course you’re right that is a bigger story than last weekend, but last weekend is still pretty bloody serious. 1000s of people robbed, attacked and traumatised, and dozens if not hundreds of sexual assaults - with police officers saying they have never witnessed anything on this scale

It looks like the French now have a toxic cocktail of near-impossible crowd management problems in the face of terrorism, and all of this with a stadium surrounded by Islamist migrants, and on top of that they now have the threat of constant Cologne style mass robbery and sexual molestation

This is a French paper speculating that the mess might cost Macron “fifty deputies”

“It will end up costing us 50 deputies like the social VAT of Borloo”, fears a senior officer of the macronie. Darmanin in the middle of the fire lopinion.fr/politique/stad… by @LVigogne @mdeprieck Drawing @MonsieurKak”

https://twitter.com/carovigoureux/status/1532273757016014848?s=21&t=-8JXjXAEBDrJOgaFrO_IOQ

Personally, I would not go to the Stade de France to watch anything, not now. And I would have been happy to do so, before, because I was oblivious, like all of us

They really should not have built that stadium in Paris 93

Yet. Has been noted before. Stratford wasn't ritzy when we built ours there. It was a dump in the 90's.

When I was living in London in the period around 2000, 3 bed semis in decent streets in Stratford for £70k or so were one hot tip from the London Property Guide.

I reckon Catford might be the next gentrification target. I went out for a drink and a meal with a mate there last night. It's really quite ropey but has excellent transport links into central London with two train stations side by side. There's a bizarrely good and cheap Italian restaurant there too - two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of Primitivo for a bit over £50. Catford is the new Peckham - you heard it here first.

No tube station. Areas that don't have tube or overground struggle to gentrify. It's only when the overground was properly revamped that the eastern bit of London where I grew up really started to gentrify. Before that it was a no go area and my parents couldn't leave fast enough when my dad got his chartership and a good job.

Catford is 30 mins to London Bridge by overground, and has more parkland over the last 10-15 years. Also decent for cycling afaics.

It's on a potential Bakerloo Line Extension. Currently on hold whilst TFL finances climb out of the black hole.

OldKingCole said:

kle4 said:

noneoftheabove said:

CarlottaVance said:

MattW said:

I was not expecting this.

Turkey in English is now officially ‘Türkiye’.

Now, where's the Umlaut on my keyboard?

How does one pronounce "iye" - is it like the first part of E-I-E-I-O from Old MacDonald?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/2/un-registers-turkiye-as-new-country-name-for-turkey

Turkish airlines (is it still “Turkish” - ed.?) has a video after the safety demo and before every film promoting the new name…

So should we start parroting the new pronunciation or bury our head in the sands like an ostrich?

I think people will go for a British fudge - we will probably end up spelling it the way they want (albeit without the umlaut) but still mangling the pronounciation.

And that only because the new spelling is not that different, it's not like we refer to Hungary as (looks up wikipedia) Magyarország.

Did you have to copy and paste that?

SandyRentool said:

Casino_Royale said:

boulay said:

Have to say, whatever you think of the monarchy, however cynical you are or down on Britain the Trooping of the Colour is bloody magnificent as a spectacle.

It knocks those big presidential parades such as Red Dquare and the French Bastille parade into a cocked hat - there’s something Victorian about it still so a gentle bit of time travel.

It’s almost, hopefully not being too wanky, a demonstration of an iron fist in a velvet glove by the military rather than the in your face bombast of other parades where they drive the tanks etc etc.

Hear hear.

It also shows the absolute professionalism of the British Army and the extremely high-calibre of its people.

It's a hugely impressive organisation.

They should be digging in on the Estonian border, not poncing about in London.

MaxPB said:

MattW said:

MaxPB said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Eabhal said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican

To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator


“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.

“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/were-liverpool-fans-sexually-assaulted-at-the-stade-de-france-

There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?

No.

Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.

Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France

You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer

Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago

It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.

Echoes of the 2011 riots?

Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about


Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”

A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.


He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.

However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.

His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable

It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections

Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests#Fatalities_and_injuries

Surprised me. This is a drop in the ocean.

and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)

Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]

The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]

The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense

Yes, some of the problems seem to come from the Stade de France changing its crowd management policies, after the terror attacks. Eg there are few if any reports of crowd difficulties before the big attacks of 2015, they all date from after then, when the authorities got paranoid about the wrong people getting in

And of course you’re right that is a bigger story than last weekend, but last weekend is still pretty bloody serious. 1000s of people robbed, attacked and traumatised, and dozens if not hundreds of sexual assaults - with police officers saying they have never witnessed anything on this scale

It looks like the French now have a toxic cocktail of near-impossible crowd management problems in the face of terrorism, and all of this with a stadium surrounded by Islamist migrants, and on top of that they now have the threat of constant Cologne style mass robbery and sexual molestation

This is a French paper speculating that the mess might cost Macron “fifty deputies”

“It will end up costing us 50 deputies like the social VAT of Borloo”, fears a senior officer of the macronie. Darmanin in the middle of the fire lopinion.fr/politique/stad… by @LVigogne @mdeprieck Drawing @MonsieurKak”

https://twitter.com/carovigoureux/status/1532273757016014848?s=21&t=-8JXjXAEBDrJOgaFrO_IOQ

Personally, I would not go to the Stade de France to watch anything, not now. And I would have been happy to do so, before, because I was oblivious, like all of us

They really should not have built that stadium in Paris 93

Yet. Has been noted before. Stratford wasn't ritzy when we built ours there. It was a dump in the 90's.

When I was living in London in the period around 2000, 3 bed semis in decent streets in Stratford for £70k or so were one hot tip from the London Property Guide.

I reckon Catford might be the next gentrification target. I went out for a drink and a meal with a mate there last night. It's really quite ropey but has excellent transport links into central London with two train stations side by side. There's a bizarrely good and cheap Italian restaurant there too - two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of Primitivo for a bit over £50. Catford is the new Peckham - you heard it here first.

No tube station. Areas that don't have tube or overground struggle to gentrify. It's only when the overground was properly revamped that the eastern bit of London where I grew up really started to gentrify. Before that it was a no go area and my parents couldn't leave fast enough when my dad got his chartership and a good job.

Catford is 30 mins to London Bridge by overground, and has more parkland over the last 10-15 years. Also decent for cycling afaics.

It's on a potential Bakerloo Line Extension. Currently on hold whilst TFL finances climb out of the black hole.

30 mins to London Bridge isn't very good though, there's loads of areas with Thameslink stations which would be preferable if that's the bar. The other downside is that it's right next to the south circular so that's just a whole load of traffic and busy roads.

Leon said:

Farooq said:

Casino_Royale said:

kinabalu said:

Farooq said:

kle4 said:

Farooq said:

"No man's land" is surprisingly crowded these days. A good one in six are undecided on keeping the monarchy.
On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.

Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.

.

Really? That sounds a bit dramatic to me, I've never noticed republicans having difficulty getting heard in any context.

Perhaps it's just a perception bias. I was surprised to find that there's as much support as there is for a republic. I thought, much like Casino_Royale, that numbers were small.

Same here. I'm surprised by how much Republican sentiment there is. And once we get post QE2 I'd think it would only grow.

There are 4 categories of people, I'd say.

1. Monarchists.
2. Not fussed but would vote to keep if asked.
3. Not fussed but would vote to scrap if asked.
4. Republicans.

ATM spread approx 25/35/15/25.

So, as per usual, it's about moving that middle ground. If lots of 2s become 3s the pressure will build for a Referendum.

Because you can't just keep ignoring the people.

Shame the people keep ignoring you.

Republicanism is growing.
But that's fine you are still in the majority; you have your laurels and you can probably rest for a while. We'll wake you up if anything happens.

It's been growing for the last ten years, for sure. But then, it has flourished before - eg when we actually chopped off the king's head, and had a republic. But then we went back to Royalty

The madness of King George was a good time for republicanism, also the invisible period of ageing Victoria, likewise the Abdication, but we've never got as close as Cromwellian times ever since

To put it differently, support for a Republic peaked at 20% in 1993 (then fell back). Must have been Diana times? Right now it is about 25%. So you've gained 5 points in 30 years. At this rate you can expect to get your republic in 150 years time?

Unless, of course, support for a republic falls back again. As it has done for the last four centuries

Eabhal said:

Boris with Carrie

boulay said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

boulay said:

Have to say, whatever you think of the monarchy, however cynical you are or down on Britain the Trooping of the Colour is bloody magnificent as a spectacle.

It knocks those big presidential parades such as Red Dquare and the French Bastille parade into a cocked hat - there’s something Victorian about it still so a gentle bit of time travel.

It’s almost, hopefully not being too wanky, a demonstration of an iron fist in a velvet glove by the military rather than the in your face bombast of other parades where they drive the tanks etc etc.

OTOH the horses sort of got outdated in September 1939. And it's not as if the MoD had had the sense to keep some old Churchill tanks for parades. They do those things better in Burma.

A visiting friend, from Iceland, commented that the combination of antique uniforms with modern rifles was an interesting touch.

Most other countries have parade units that carry parade weapons.

I was surprised they didn't keep some SMLEs or No 4s for that, especially as the new SA80 forced some changes to drill. Though apparently even changing to the SLR needed some changes to the drill.

When the SA-8x came in, there was an attempt to keep SLR, IIRC, because a bullpup is rubbish for most drill movements.

The decision to use the standard military rifle for parades was deliberate.

It’s not a bad very visible reminder to people that these guys are real fighting soldiers. A lot of people don’t realise that and just think they are display teams! Sort of “Red Arrows” on foot…..

TheScreamingEagles said:

It’s just like watching England.

7/3.

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Eabhal said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican

To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator


“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.

“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/were-liverpool-fans-sexually-assaulted-at-the-stade-de-france-

There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?

No.

Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.

Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France

You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer

Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago

It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.

Echoes of the 2011 riots?

Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about


Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”

A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.


He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.

However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.

His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable

It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections

Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests#Fatalities_and_injuries

Surprised me. This is a drop in the ocean.

and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)

Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]

The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]

The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense

Yes, some of the problems seem to come from the Stade de France changing its crowd management policies, after the terror attacks. Eg there are few if any reports of crowd difficulties before the big attacks of 2015, they all date from after then, when the authorities got paranoid about the wrong people getting in

And of course you’re right that is a bigger story than last weekend, but last weekend is still pretty bloody serious. 1000s of people robbed, attacked and traumatised, and dozens if not hundreds of sexual assaults - with police officers saying they have never witnessed anything on this scale

It looks like the French now have a toxic cocktail of near-impossible crowd management problems in the face of terrorism, and all of this with a stadium surrounded by Islamist migrants, and on top of that they now have the threat of constant Cologne style mass robbery and sexual molestation

This is a French paper speculating that the mess might cost Macron “fifty deputies”

“It will end up costing us 50 deputies like the social VAT of Borloo”, fears a senior officer of the macronie. Darmanin in the middle of the fire lopinion.fr/politique/stad… by @LVigogne @mdeprieck Drawing @MonsieurKak”

https://twitter.com/carovigoureux/status/1532273757016014848?s=21&t=-8JXjXAEBDrJOgaFrO_IOQ

Personally, I would not go to the Stade de France to watch anything, not now. And I would have been happy to do so, before, because I was oblivious, like all of us

They really should not have built that stadium in Paris 93

Yet. Has been noted before. Stratford wasn't ritzy when we built ours there. It was a dump in the 90's.

When I was living in London in the period around 2000, 3 bed semis in decent streets in Stratford for £70k or so were one hot tip from the London Property Guide.

I reckon Catford might be the next gentrification target. I went out for a drink and a meal with a mate there last night. It's really quite ropey but has excellent transport links into central London with two train stations side by side. There's a bizarrely good and cheap Italian restaurant there too - two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of Primitivo for a bit over £50. Catford is the new Peckham - you heard it here first.

No tube station. Areas that don't have tube or overground struggle to gentrify. It's only when the overground was properly revamped that the eastern bit of London where I grew up really started to gentrify. Before that it was a no go area and my parents couldn't leave fast enough when my dad got his chartership and a good job.

Which is strange.
As we are assured the north of England doesn't need better public transport infrastructure to "level up".
I wonder why?

It's just a function of pushing up rental and housing prices. What used to cost £600pcm for a 1 bed has become more like £1500pcm so it locks out social tenants entirely and you get under 40s who earn in the higher rate tax bracket who in turn bring with them hipster bars and cafes and other services they like.

So on the one hand, yes it becomes a nicer area but on the other you're pricing out people who have lived there for years and replacing them wholesale with people who can afford the rent.

If I was going to pick areas for gentrification it would be Tottenham. N17 is a shithole but it's got the Victoria line, the new stadium and there's a lot of private money pouring into the area.

I used to live in Tottenham. 2 mins walk from Bruce Grove overground. It was hugely convenient. Had stuff going on, and was massively cheap. I also never saw any bother.
It's got a really poor reputation. But I liked it.

Malmesbury said:

kinabalu said:

So, the Jube is here and the weather playing ball. Turns out the road next to us is having a 'street party'. Found this out just yesterday. I was pretty mortified at first but I guess no harm. Might show my face briefly.

Why are you mortified?

Should I, as an atheist, be upset that the Seventh Day Adventist church round the corner uses impromptu food bank they run outside their church as a proselytizing operation?

Or should I smile at them?

Sandpit said:

boulay said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

boulay said:

Have to say, whatever you think of the monarchy, however cynical you are or down on Britain the Trooping of the Colour is bloody magnificent as a spectacle.

It knocks those big presidential parades such as Red Dquare and the French Bastille parade into a cocked hat - there’s something Victorian about it still so a gentle bit of time travel.

It’s almost, hopefully not being too wanky, a demonstration of an iron fist in a velvet glove by the military rather than the in your face bombast of other parades where they drive the tanks etc etc.

OTOH the horses sort of got outdated in September 1939. And it's not as if the MoD had had the sense to keep some old Churchill tanks for parades. They do those things better in Burma.

A visiting friend, from Iceland, commented that the combination of antique uniforms with modern rifles was an interesting touch.

Most other countries have parade units that carry parade weapons.

I was surprised they didn't keep some SMLEs or No 4s for that, especially as the new SA80 forced some changes to drill. Though apparently even changing to the SLR needed some changes to the drill.

When the SA-8x came in, there was an attempt to keep SLR, IIRC, because a bullpup is rubbish for most drill movements.

The decision to use the standard military rifle for parades was deliberate.

It’s not a bad very visible reminder to people that these guys are real fighting soldiers. A lot of people don’t realise that and just think they are display teams! Sort of “Red Arrows” on foot…..

Just as the Red Arrows are actual military pilots, not just hired to be in the display.

boulay said:

Leon said:

WHY ARE THEY PULLING DOWN THE UNION FLAG??????

Because it’s a fascist symbol of racist imperial evil. Or because they are replacing it with the Royal Standard.

TheScreamingEagles said:

It’s just like watching England.

7/3.

Leon said:

The Royal Standard is a really beautiful flag. It should be compulsory to fly it outside every British home, and in the homes in our sundry possessions, protectorates and The White Dominions, at 4.20pm

Sandpit said:

Hang on, it’s 7/3 in the cricket and England are BOWLING?

That’s a good start to the summer!

kinabalu said:

Malmesbury said:

kinabalu said:

So, the Jube is here and the weather playing ball. Turns out the road next to us is having a 'street party'. Found this out just yesterday. I was pretty mortified at first but I guess no harm. Might show my face briefly.

Why are you mortified?

Should I, as an atheist, be upset that the Seventh Day Adventist church round the corner uses impromptu food bank they run outside their church as a proselytizing operation?

Or should I smile at them?

But this is meant to be the very heart of North London metro left elitism - as reflected in house prices - so it's disappointing.

But as I say, I'll pop over for an hour or so. You have to do things you'd rather not sometimes. It's part of life.

noneoftheabove said:

kinabalu said:

Farooq said:

kle4 said:

Farooq said:

"No man's land" is surprisingly crowded these days. A good one in six are undecided on keeping the monarchy.
On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.

Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.

.

Really? That sounds a bit dramatic to me, I've never noticed republicans having difficulty getting heard in any context.

Perhaps it's just a perception bias. I was surprised to find that there's as much support as there is for a republic. I thought, much like Casino_Royale, that numbers were small.

Same here. I'm surprised by how much Republican sentiment there is. And once we get post QE2 I'd think it would only grow.

There are 4 categories of people, I'd say.

1. Monarchists.
2. Not fussed but would vote to keep if asked.
3. Not fussed but would vote to scrap if asked.
4. Republicans.

ATM spread approx 25/35/15/25.

So, as per usual, it's about moving that middle ground. If lots of 2s become 3s the pressure will build for a Referendum.

Because you can't just keep ignoring the people.

5. Republicans, who wouldn't want to change it whilst Liz is around.

kinabalu said:

Farooq said:

kle4 said:

Farooq said:

"No man's land" is surprisingly crowded these days. A good one in six are undecided on keeping the monarchy.
On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.

Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.

.

Really? That sounds a bit dramatic to me, I've never noticed republicans having difficulty getting heard in any context.

Perhaps it's just a perception bias. I was surprised to find that there's as much support as there is for a republic. I thought, much like Casino_Royale, that numbers were small.

Same here. I'm surprised by how much Republican sentiment there is. And once we get post QE2 I'd think it would only grow.

There are 4 categories of people, I'd say.

1. Monarchists.
2. Not fussed but would vote to keep if asked.
3. Not fussed but would vote to scrap if asked.
4. Republicans.

ATM spread approx 25/35/15/25.

So, as per usual, it's about moving that middle ground. If lots of 2s become 3s the pressure will build for a Referendum.

Because you can't just keep ignoring the people.

kinabalu said:

Farooq said:

kle4 said:

Farooq said:

"No man's land" is surprisingly crowded these days. A good one in six are undecided on keeping the monarchy.
On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.

Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.

.

Really? That sounds a bit dramatic to me, I've never noticed republicans having difficulty getting heard in any context.

Perhaps it's just a perception bias. I was surprised to find that there's as much support as there is for a republic. I thought, much like Casino_Royale, that numbers were small.

Same here. I'm surprised by how much Republican sentiment there is. And once we get post QE2 I'd think it would only grow.

There are 4 categories of people, I'd say.

1. Monarchists.
2. Not fussed but would vote to keep if asked.
3. Not fussed but would vote to scrap if asked.
4. Republicans.

ATM spread approx 25/35/15/25.

So, as per usual, it's about moving that middle ground. If lots of 2s become 3s the pressure will build for a Referendum.

Because you can't just keep ignoring the people.

kle4 said:

ydoethur said:

New Zealand not enjoying this, are they?

I always worry if Williamson is still there.

Sandpit said:

boulay said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

boulay said:

Have to say, whatever you think of the monarchy, however cynical you are or down on Britain the Trooping of the Colour is bloody magnificent as a spectacle.

It knocks those big presidential parades such as Red Dquare and the French Bastille parade into a cocked hat - there’s something Victorian about it still so a gentle bit of time travel.

It’s almost, hopefully not being too wanky, a demonstration of an iron fist in a velvet glove by the military rather than the in your face bombast of other parades where they drive the tanks etc etc.

OTOH the horses sort of got outdated in September 1939. And it's not as if the MoD had had the sense to keep some old Churchill tanks for parades. They do those things better in Burma.

A visiting friend, from Iceland, commented that the combination of antique uniforms with modern rifles was an interesting touch.

Most other countries have parade units that carry parade weapons.

I was surprised they didn't keep some SMLEs or No 4s for that, especially as the new SA80 forced some changes to drill. Though apparently even changing to the SLR needed some changes to the drill.

When the SA-8x came in, there was an attempt to keep SLR, IIRC, because a bullpup is rubbish for most drill movements.

The decision to use the standard military rifle for parades was deliberate.

It’s not a bad very visible reminder to people that these guys are real fighting soldiers. A lot of people don’t realise that and just think they are display teams! Sort of “Red Arrows” on foot…..

Just as the Red Arrows are actual military pilots, not just hired to be in the display.

Carnyx said:

Sandpit said:

boulay said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

boulay said:

Have to say, whatever you think of the monarchy, however cynical you are or down on Britain the Trooping of the Colour is bloody magnificent as a spectacle.

It knocks those big presidential parades such as Red Dquare and the French Bastille parade into a cocked hat - there’s something Victorian about it still so a gentle bit of time travel.

It’s almost, hopefully not being too wanky, a demonstration of an iron fist in a velvet glove by the military rather than the in your face bombast of other parades where they drive the tanks etc etc.

OTOH the horses sort of got outdated in September 1939. And it's not as if the MoD had had the sense to keep some old Churchill tanks for parades. They do those things better in Burma.

A visiting friend, from Iceland, commented that the combination of antique uniforms with modern rifles was an interesting touch.

Most other countries have parade units that carry parade weapons.

I was surprised they didn't keep some SMLEs or No 4s for that, especially as the new SA80 forced some changes to drill. Though apparently even changing to the SLR needed some changes to the drill.

When the SA-8x came in, there was an attempt to keep SLR, IIRC, because a bullpup is rubbish for most drill movements.

The decision to use the standard military rifle for parades was deliberate.

It’s not a bad very visible reminder to people that these guys are real fighting soldiers. A lot of people don’t realise that and just think they are display teams! Sort of “Red Arrows” on foot…..

Just as the Red Arrows are actual military pilots, not just hired to be in the display.

OTOH they are forming an increasing percentage of the shrinking pool of fast jet pilots, and doing it pretty full-time. That is not sustainable, especially as the Hawk is not a front line plane (though that saves on fuel). It's also pretty long in the tooth, a T.1 mark IIRC, so must be needing replacement in a few years?

Leon said:

Quite bored of looking at horses now. Tho Kate looks rather fetching. You still would, if one is allowed to say that on such an occasion

Casino_Royale said:

Whatever your views on the monarchy you could at least show her a bit of respect and some grace.

Sandpit said:

Hang on, it’s 7/3 in the cricket and England are BOWLING?

That’s a good start to the summer!