Another day of feeling like crap. Have been ill all month, this latest 2nd round of head cold isn't clearing. Not helped by getting fitful sleep due to coughing, my fatigue levels keep finding exciting new highs
Much how my wife and I felt in August when we had covid
You need to be kind to yourself and rest as much as possible
Just joined the covid club on Tuesday. Not too bad, one really nasty night of shivers. Your point about rest is well made, but tricky with three children, two of whom have also been poorly (we were a bit concerned about number three who is only 4 months old, for a bit, but he's better now).
Glad to have avoided this pre-vaccination. Post vaccination, I'd have to say I've felt worse for longer with other viral infections, but it's still nasty enough.
I was rather proud of being in the non COVID club, but joined the COVID club 2weeks ago after 3 days of partying in Spain at a weddings. I wasn't too ill at all but have a lingering cough.
Annoyingly I was able to get my next jab just as I got covid. Now have to wait a month.
I have seriously wondered if this is Covid. I test negative, I have the same known symptoms of things I have had before, so officially its not Covid.
But - AIUI the overlap between modern Covid and winter snot is significant. And I am struggling to recall a time when I have been this bleugh for this long. My voice going hoarse to the point of barely being able to talk has only ever happened to me once before.
One of the unfortunate legacy effects of Covid is that as soon as one is ill with anything whatsoever, they are immediately asked whether it's Covid and, if it's not, receive little/no sympathy.
Yet Covid wasn't even in my top ten sick spells of my life – flu, gastroenteritis and norovirus were all far worse. I have even had the odd common cold that was worse.
Maybe a test of true normality is when people are poorly, one just wishes them a speedy recovery, rather than urging them to take a covid test or quizzing them on details of their symptoms.
Amongst all the posh sods speaking at the funeral, Liz Truss accent stood out - and I liked it. She’s Yorkshire alright. It’s good that common uneducated people with an accent can get right up the greasy pole in politics, it gives me hope.
What the fuck is this? Jizzy Lizzy has a PPE from Oxford and is a Chartered Accountant. How is that 'uneducated'?
I think you missed yesterday's uber-PB spectacle, whereby Moon and G were overanalysing an imaginary Jizzy lead that might occur at some undefined point in the future
Tbf unless I am missing something, qualifying as a CA presumably counts as 'training' rather than 'education', much as learning to sex chickens and caponising half of them would be.
Anyway, what with all the death talk around, my children asked me the other day what arrangements I had made for my own funeral. I gave them a bit of a hard stare and pointed out that I was really not old at all and that other than wanting a proper Catholic funeral (no dreary mumbling in a crematorium) and a bloody good party after it, my main wish was to have lovely flowers from my garden on my coffin.
Then Husband piped up to point out that money could be saved by using our Berlingo van to transport me. This van is utterly filthy, battered and smelly as it is used for outdoor adventures, moving belongings etc and the dog loves sleeping in it. It is a disgrace to the world of vehicles. I said very firmly that if there was any more talk of transporting me to my Maker in a shitey van, it wouldn't be my funeral we'd be arranging.
Still I have decided to become a bit fitter and lose some weight. My big problem is that I adore pasta, bread and cheese. Which I suppose are now a no-no. Porridge for breakfast for me today.
It is very dreary.
Put some honey in it - I do!
One question, if I may: what if it's winter? No flowers in the garden? (Have learnt, from practical experience as an executor, the risks of making stipulations in wills which might not be practicable whern the time comes...).
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
I think you have to be desperate to work for the Mail surely, there is no other reason you would?
The Mail pays better than any other newspaper. And it gets more visitors than any other equivalent news website in the English language bar the NYT
The Meghan story is designed to be clicked and shared. As has been done on here multiple times. Each time you do it, the Mail gets more money for its online ads. Kerching
On topic. The improvement in the Dems position on the graph does seem to have started after the Roe v Wade overturn on 24th June. My daughters are very attuned to this - they are watching like hawks for any shift in UK politics against women's body rights and will vote accordingly. Is there any decent polling on women's attitudes in the US on this?
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
I think you have to be desperate to work for the Mail surely, there is no other reason you would?
The Mail pays better than any other newspaper. And it gets more visitors than any other equivalent news website in the English language bar the NYT
The Meghan story is designed to be clicked and shared. As has been done on here multiple times. Each time you do it, the Mail gets more money for its online ads. Kerching
Muppets
That's why I and other non muppets screenshot their shite.
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
I think you have to be desperate to work for the Mail surely, there is no other reason you would?
The Mail pays better than any other newspaper. And it gets more visitors than any other equivalent news website in the English language bar the NYT
The Meghan story is designed to be clicked and shared. As has been done on here multiple times. Each time you do it, the Mail gets more money for its online ads. Kerching
Muppets
True, but bank robbery is also lucrative, but most of us wouldn't do it.
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
I think you have to be desperate to work for the Mail surely, there is no other reason you would?
The Mail pays better than any other newspaper. And it gets more visitors than any other equivalent news website in the English language bar the NYT
The Meghan story is designed to be clicked and shared. As has been done on here multiple times. Each time you do it, the Mail gets more money for its online ads. Kerching
Muppets
The NYT is the same with its anti-British rants it prints regularly.
Its pure clickbait, they know it will be shared here both by outraged conservatives, and right on FBPE muppets, and the NYT like the Heil is laughing all the way to the bank.
Best thing to do about such clickbait is to ignore it.
On topic. The improvement in the Dems position on the graph does seem to have started after the Roe v Wade overturn on 24th June. My daughters are very attuned to this - they are watching like hawks for any shift in UK politics against women's body rights and will vote accordingly. Is there any decent polling on women's attitudes in the US on this?
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
I think you have to be desperate to work for the Mail surely, there is no other reason you would?
The Mail pays better than any other newspaper. And it gets more visitors than any other equivalent news website in the English language bar the NYT
The Meghan story is designed to be clicked and shared. As has been done on here multiple times. Each time you do it, the Mail gets more money for its online ads. Kerching
Muppets
That's why I and other non muppets screenshot their shite.
Lol. You’re still talking about “the Mail” so getting people to seek out “the Mail” and thereby generating clicks
Years ago, we had a GP who had a brilliant system. You could make appointments to see him. But for a set period every day you could just turn up and wait to see him. So if there were loads of people in the waiting room, you could wait or come back another day. But if you waited you knew that you would get to see him.
Then he retired.
Why practices don't have something similar, I don't know.
I used to see a GP, a doctor of the old school, who did exactly this and it seemed to work very well. But alas he also retired (and recently passed away and was much mourned).
Now the village where I live has two GP surgeries with three partners per practice and a rotating cast of trainee GPs, usually one or two per practice. So 8-10 GPs for a population of 4500. And it takes 3-6 weeks to get even a phone appointment because all the partners, every single one of them, works part-time.
One partner works two days a week and drives a £70,000 electric Jaguar, which I suspect says all that needs to be said about GP's pay.
I just find it bizarre that the Truss Cabinet think fracking is the answer to everything. It's very unpopular, e.g. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/science/trackers/should-britain-start-extracting-shale-gas It's even more unpopular with the people in affected areas. It's not a sensible long-term solution to energy needs, unless you're a full-on climate change denialist. There's not enough that can come quickly enough to be a sensible short-term solution to the current energy crisis. It reeks of being a Hail Mary pass, as the Americans say.
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
The GPs did nothing for you here and there is huge pressure on A & E. Defund the GPs and get them doing proper doctoring in hospitals.
That's a hell of a thing for which to have to create a business case.
Next time I get some post I'll put the back of the envelope to good use. I think it could fly.
QTWTAIN. He might scrape a tie in the Senate, and hold on to the house by a couple of seats, which would be about as “Triumphant” as Mrs May’s 2017 election. That’s Biden’s best case scenario.
Surely IF dems get a majority in the House (28% chance according to 538), then they are also quite likely to make 1 or 2 net gains in the Senate. Not having to rely on Manchin's vote would be a big deal for Biden.
It seems that the Dems are likely to make a gain or two in the Senate, but holding the House is less likely. If Biden can hold the House and make gains in the Senate, lessening Manchin and Sinema's influence then he will have achieved a triumph. Manchin and Sinema have stymied him a lot.
Anyway, what with all the death talk around, my children asked me the other day what arrangements I had made for my own funeral. I gave them a bit of a hard stare and pointed out that I was really not old at all and that other than wanting a proper Catholic funeral (no dreary mumbling in a crematorium) and a bloody good party after it, my main wish was to have lovely flowers from my garden on my coffin.
Then Husband piped up to point out that money could be saved by using our Berlingo van to transport me. This van is utterly filthy, battered and smelly as it is used for outdoor adventures, moving belongings etc and the dog loves sleeping in it. It is a disgrace to the world of vehicles. I said very firmly that if there was any more talk of transporting me to my Maker in a shitey van, it wouldn't be my funeral we'd be arranging.
Still I have decided to become a bit fitter and lose some weight. My big problem is that I adore pasta, bread and cheese. Which I suppose are now a no-no. Porridge for breakfast for me today.
It is very dreary.
I love porridge. if you are counting calories make with semi-skimmed milk and sprinkle with salt. No sweetener needed.
I may be a bit peculiar. My absolute fave is Kellogg's All-Bran with hot milk. That's it. Trouble is you don't half know it the next day.
I just find it bizarre that the Truss Cabinet think fracking is the answer to everything. It's very unpopular, e.g. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/science/trackers/should-britain-start-extracting-shale-gas It's even more unpopular with the people in affected areas. It's not a sensible long-term solution to energy needs, unless you're a full-on climate change denialist. There's not enough that can come quickly enough to be a sensible short-term solution to the current energy crisis. It reeks of being a Hail Mary pass, as the Americans say.
It's the energy policy equivalent of statue-defending. Soimething to get the Outer Party worked up about.
BTW I'd missed the news that the much-awaited BGS report has been leaked, at least in part. Not much comfort from that, either.
I just find it bizarre that the Truss Cabinet think fracking is the answer to everything. It's very unpopular, e.g. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/science/trackers/should-britain-start-extracting-shale-gas It's even more unpopular with the people in affected areas. It's not a sensible long-term solution to energy needs, unless you're a full-on climate change denialist. There's not enough that can come quickly enough to be a sensible short-term solution to the current energy crisis. It reeks of being a Hail Mary pass, as the Americans say.
I think Truss knows it's not an answer to anything.
But it will look like she is doing everything possible to solve the current crisis while not actually doing anything to solve it (which would be big insulation projects and ramping up solar and wind farms anyway you can).
My biggest beef with phone calls from GP is if you miss it it is literally impossible sometimes to immediately call the GP back.
It will be an automated call system run by the surgery CRM. If there’s no reply it will immediately call the next number on the list, and so on until someone answers. Same as how call centres work.
You clearly think your average British GP's IT system is way way more advanced than it actually is...
I'm sure the one our GP uses is still derived from a DOS based text entry system...
Just yesterday I told my gp practice that one website to which they referred patients had the wrong url, and the right url gives page not found, leading me to suspect the practice no longer subscribed to that service. Fixing it will probably cost too much.
Years ago, we had a GP who had a brilliant system. You could make appointments to see him. But for a set period every day you could just turn up and wait to see him. So if there were loads of people in the waiting room, you could wait or come back another day. But if you waited you knew that you would get to see him.
Then he retired.
Why practices don't have something similar, I don't know.
I used to see a GP, a doctor of the old school, who did exactly this and it seemed to work very well. But alas he also retired (and recently passed away and was much mourned).
Now the village where I live has two GP surgeries with three partners per practice and a rotating cast of trainee GPs, usually one or two per practice. So 8-10 GPs for a population of 4500. And it takes 3-6 weeks to get even a phone appointment because all the partners, every single one of them, works part-time.
One partner works two days a week and drives a £70,000 electric Jaguar, which I suspect says all that needs to be said about GP's pay.
There's a few vets near us. We've moved away from Vets4Pets who operated an appointment system to another local vets who have a system whereby you show up in person and simply wait in the carpark. The wait is often a few hours but noone minds as your pet will be seen. It reminds me of the GP system that seems to have died a death whereby you'd just go to the surgery and wait your turn. I think it's superior.
I just find it bizarre that the Truss Cabinet think fracking is the answer to everything. It's very unpopular, e.g. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/science/trackers/should-britain-start-extracting-shale-gas It's even more unpopular with the people in affected areas. It's not a sensible long-term solution to energy needs, unless you're a full-on climate change denialist. There's not enough that can come quickly enough to be a sensible short-term solution to the current energy crisis. It reeks of being a Hail Mary pass, as the Americans say.
It's an answer to a very specific problem - how to keep right-wing backbenchers, who are unhappy about the government spending many billions subsidising energy for the proles, from staging a revolt.
Allowing fracking in a formal sense mollifies these people, and then, when very little fracking actually occurs over the next year or two, because the geology is wrong and it isn't economic, hopefully it won't matter because the energy crisis will have been solved by other means. And HMG also don't have to face the unpopularity of fracking occurring.
Anyway, what with all the death talk around, my children asked me the other day what arrangements I had made for my own funeral. I gave them a bit of a hard stare and pointed out that I was really not old at all and that other than wanting a proper Catholic funeral (no dreary mumbling in a crematorium) and a bloody good party after it, my main wish was to have lovely flowers from my garden on my coffin.
Then Husband piped up to point out that money could be saved by using our Berlingo van to transport me. This van is utterly filthy, battered and smelly as it is used for outdoor adventures, moving belongings etc and the dog loves sleeping in it. It is a disgrace to the world of vehicles. I said very firmly that if there was any more talk of transporting me to my Maker in a shitey van, it wouldn't be my funeral we'd be arranging.
Still I have decided to become a bit fitter and lose some weight. My big problem is that I adore pasta, bread and cheese. Which I suppose are now a no-no. Porridge for breakfast for me today.
It is very dreary.
On the weight loss question, may I recommend the acquisition of a six month old border collie puppy. Since we adopted ours three months ago my weight has dropped from 94kg to 84kg. I now eat whatever I like and even have to make sure I fill up properly at regular intervals.
As a bonus, you also get holes dug all around the garden (though not necessarily where you want them), your furniture chewed so that it has a fashionably distressed look, and your clothes ripped for you so that you don't have to pay good money to have that look.
Amongst all the posh sods speaking at the funeral, Liz Truss accent stood out - and I liked it. She’s Yorkshire alright. It’s good that common uneducated people with an accent can get right up the greasy pole in politics, it gives me hope.
What the fuck is this? Jizzy Lizzy has a PPE from Oxford and is a Chartered Accountant. How is that 'uneducated'?
Irony? LizT makes great play of having been educated at Dotheboys Hall.
One comment I read after one of her more rubbish speeches - if her Comprehensive managed to get her into Oxford it must have been a lot better than she is making out.
Or her father pulled strings, of course.
But from what I know, which may be completely wrong, it's probably the former.
That in itself raises questions about her integrity, but equally Harold Wilson played the same card most days and he was quite successful.
I went to a secondary school that dropped from seven classes in year 7 to six classes by year 10, because so many kids had been permanently excluded for violence. There would be fights in the corridor to determine who would get to sit next to me in class tests, and poke me with a compass so that I showed my answers.
I still made it to Cambridge, mostly because my Dad had gone to Cambridge, and his Dad was a graduate, and so there was an expectation at home that I would do well at school and go to university. When you told my Dad that you scored 98% on a test he'd want to know how you managed to drop 2%.
I know nothing about the school Liz Truss went to, but it's not implausible to me that she ended up at Oxford on her merits, and despite her school, and without any inappropriate influence.
It would be interesting to know whether the school you went to has improved as a consequence of the inspection regime now in place… what is the name of the school, so I can look it up?
Imagine being called out as a Luddite by Jacob Rees Mogg. 😂
Its very odd. "We've had enough of experts" has become firmly entrenched in political piss-taking. Yesterday we had the boss Cuadrilla say that Fracking would not work in the UK. To back up all those geologists saying the same thing. Yet here comes Jacob insisting his zealotry is correct and the experts wrong.
Not only do you actually have to produce something when you stake your policy on something like this, you have to deal with the massive backlash from punters. If fracking really was our salvation then I could understand the desire to press on. But it isn't...
I just find it bizarre that the Truss Cabinet think fracking is the answer to everything. It's very unpopular, e.g. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/science/trackers/should-britain-start-extracting-shale-gas It's even more unpopular with the people in affected areas. It's not a sensible long-term solution to energy needs, unless you're a full-on climate change denialist. There's not enough that can come quickly enough to be a sensible short-term solution to the current energy crisis. It reeks of being a Hail Mary pass, as the Americans say.
It's an answer to a very specific problem - how to keep right-wing backbenchers, who are unhappy about the government spending many billions subsidising energy for the proles, from staging a revolt.
Allowing fracking in a formal sense mollifies these people, and then, when very little fracking actually occurs over the next year or two, because the geology is wrong and it isn't economic, hopefully it won't matter because the energy crisis will have been solved by other means. And HMG also don't have to face the unpopularity of fracking occurring.
I have considered this as a hypothesis, but the Government doesn't just seem to be going through the motions. They could have removed the ban on fracking, but left all the other rules in place, but, no, they're talking about relaxing some of the rules (how big an earthquake can you cause before you have to stop). Rees-Mogg seems to be a serious believer.
The Right's support for fracking is so embarrassing. It seems driven by green opposition to fracking more than anything else. The other side don't like it, so the Right have to champion it. Truss wants to ban solar panels in farms, but fracking is fine?!!?!?!??!?!?
"New homes to be built with bars in windows to prevent tall people from falling out Developers attack Housing Department over health and safety drive
Housebuilders are being forced to put steel bars across the first floor windows of new homes because civil servants believe that increasingly tall Britons are more likely to topple out and plunge to their deaths...." (£)
"New homes to be built with bars in windows to prevent tall people from falling out Developers attack Housing Department over health and safety drive
Housebuilders are being forced to put steel bars across the first floor windows of new homes because civil servants believe that increasingly tall Britons are more likely to topple out and plunge to their deaths...." (£)
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
"New homes to be built with bars in windows to prevent tall people from falling out Developers attack Housing Department over health and safety drive
Housebuilders are being forced to put steel bars across the first floor windows of new homes because civil servants believe that increasingly tall Britons are more likely to topple out and plunge to their deaths...." (£)
Rees-Mogg coming under attack from Tory MPs over fracking. Veteran backbencher Greg Knight says: “Is he aware the safety of the public is not a currency on which some of us choose to speculate?” ❤️🔥
I just find it bizarre that the Truss Cabinet think fracking is the answer to everything. It's very unpopular, e.g. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/science/trackers/should-britain-start-extracting-shale-gas It's even more unpopular with the people in affected areas. It's not a sensible long-term solution to energy needs, unless you're a full-on climate change denialist. There's not enough that can come quickly enough to be a sensible short-term solution to the current energy crisis. It reeks of being a Hail Mary pass, as the Americans say.
Whereas pushing for tidal lagoons for your power....
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
I think you have to be desperate to work for the Mail surely, there is no other reason you would?
The Mail pays better than any other newspaper. And it gets more visitors than any other equivalent news website in the English language bar the NYT
The Meghan story is designed to be clicked and shared. As has been done on here multiple times. Each time you do it, the Mail gets more money for its online ads. Kerching
Muppets
That's why I and other non muppets screenshot their shite.
This in turn suggests that you personally were so scornful and derisory of the bile-spewing Mail that you... er..... went on to their website so you could carefully and diligently screenshot a webpage of the Mail, and then scrupulously "share it without linking"
The Mail probably makes most of its profit from dimwit lefties like you
There is a whole genre of these ludicrous stories from slower leftwingers. Roger has given us a few. I remember him saying "it has been brought to my attention there is an article in the Mail saying..."
Like he had a team of staff below stairs, paid to go through their 19 copies of the Daily Mail delivered every morning. And then whenever they found an outrageous article they would cut it out with scissors and bring to Roger on a silver tray, so Roger could then claim he "didn't ever buy or read the Mail"
Massive own goal by so-called Trans Activists who have probably done more to harm trans people’s rights than all the so called “TERFs” put together (most of whom are not anti-Trans people).
Judging from the teenagers in my family there is quite the backlash going on even among young people, and any political party that talks more about Trans rights than transport has probably already lost the attention of the voters. Happy to protect minority rights, but some of the demands from some Trans activists go well beyond what is deemed sensible or safe by a fair minded majority,
Another day of feeling like crap. Have been ill all month, this latest 2nd round of head cold isn't clearing. Not helped by getting fitful sleep due to coughing, my fatigue levels keep finding exciting new highs
Much how my wife and I felt in August when we had covid
You need to be kind to yourself and rest as much as possible
Just joined the covid club on Tuesday. Not too bad, one really nasty night of shivers. Your point about rest is well made, but tricky with three children, two of whom have also been poorly (we were a bit concerned about number three who is only 4 months old, for a bit, but he's better now).
Glad to have avoided this pre-vaccination. Post vaccination, I'd have to say I've felt worse for longer with other viral infections, but it's still nasty enough.
I was rather proud of being in the non COVID club, but joined the COVID club 2weeks ago after 3 days of partying in Spain at a weddings. I wasn't too ill at all but have a lingering cough.
Annoyingly I was able to get my next jab just as I got covid. Now have to wait a month.
I have seriously wondered if this is Covid. I test negative, I have the same known symptoms of things I have had before, so officially its not Covid.
But - AIUI the overlap between modern Covid and winter snot is significant. And I am struggling to recall a time when I have been this bleugh for this long. My voice going hoarse to the point of barely being able to talk has only ever happened to me once before.
One of the unfortunate legacy effects of Covid is that as soon as one is ill with anything whatsoever, they are immediately asked whether it's Covid and, if it's not, receive little/no sympathy.
Yet Covid wasn't even in my top ten sick spells of my life – flu, gastroenteritis and norovirus were all far worse. I have even had the odd common cold that was worse.
Maybe a test of true normality is when people are poorly, one just wishes them a speedy recovery, rather than urging them to take a covid test or quizzing them on details of their symptoms.
Get well soon, fella.
yes there are still covid obsessives out there - an overseas student coming to this country the other week aged 21 was freting about not wearing a mask when i met him for a tour of where i live
"New homes to be built with bars in windows to prevent tall people from falling out Developers attack Housing Department over health and safety drive
Housebuilders are being forced to put steel bars across the first floor windows of new homes because civil servants believe that increasingly tall Britons are more likely to topple out and plunge to their deaths...." (£)
Union has become ‘decidedly less popular’ in Scotland, report finds
The British Social Attitudes poll attempts to discover the prevailing feelings in the UK on a number of topics, Scottish independence among them.
… the survey shows the shifting attitudes in Scotland through the years, with support for independence rising from 27% in 1999 to 33% in 2014 – in the weeks ahead of the referendum on Scottish independence – and eventually rising to 52% last year.
The time series also showed a drop in support for devolution as the governing structure in Scotland, from 59% in 1999 to 50% in 2014 and a further drop to just 38% last year.
Support for not having a Scottish Parliament has remained roughly at the same rate, falling from just 10% in 1999 to 8% last year, although the figure peaked at 17% in 2004, the survey suggested.
The authors of the report, who included polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice, pointed to the 2014 referendum and Brexit as factors for the increase in support in the past decade.
They said: “Since 2014 there has been a marked increase in the level of support for independence, and especially so since the EU referendum of 2016, after which leaving the UK became more popular than devolution for the first time.”
“The Union has certainly become decidedly less popular north of the border.”
Interesting perhaps that support for devolution has fallen. Does this mean that Nicola Sturgeon's genius is to deflect blame for any perceived failures of the Scottish Government she leads onto the constitutional question? Is there a paradox that the better the Scottish Government performs, the less need will be seen for independence?
The beauty of the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey and the British Social Attitudes Survey is that they are a very long series of standardised questions, comparable over time. They are academic exercises and are not published with the aim of, for example, selling newspapers. They are serious works, not throwaway snapshots.
What they tell us is that there are long-term societal trends underway. Devolution was incredibly popular in Scotland during the 80s and 90s, in the period culminating in the double ‘Yes’ votes in the September 1997 referendum. But what we have witnessed since is the long, slow decline in that devolution fervour, in favour of full sovereignty. To the stage we have reached now, where independence support has totally eclipsed devolution as the preferred constitutional endpoint.
The status quo ante - abolishing the Scottish Parliament and returning to direct rule from Westminster - is as unpopular as ever, bubbling along below 10%. Which explains why none of the main political parties advocate it.
The decline in support for devolution is primarily a problem for the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats: it is very much their baby. Neither seems to know what to do about the Scottish Question they used to so trumpet. Labour’s standard answer is to mumble something incoherent about ‘Gordon Brown’ every six months or so. If pressed, you might still find a Lib Dem willing to mention the word ‘federalism’, sotto voce. They don’t believe it themselves, so unsurprisingly fail to convince electors.
Yes, I get the independence thing. What puzzles me is that normal politics has remained suspended for more than a decade; it is as if all that mattered down south was Brexit, say, and there was a short while when that was true.
The most vocal pb Scot critic of the SNP is @malcolmg and while he rails against the Scottish Government, his main complaint is that it is not seriously seeking independence.
This is what I mean by Nicola Sturgeon's genius. Even if Scots voters are unhappy with economic or industrial decline, or health, with some areas of Glasgow in particular having low life expectancies, Sturgeon has convinced voters that none of this is due to the Scottish Government's incompetence but is all Westminster's fault so that what is needed is independence. There is not even analysis of which extra powers needed would be gained by independence because, of course, if there were, then they could be acquired through devolution. Again, of course, this mirrors the campaign for (and against) Brexit but that has now faded.
You're right about the failures; they constantly blamed on Westminster. But the successes (no laughing at the back) are also seen as contributing to the case for independence. Illogical but not ineffective. It's not really like Brexit in that regard, more like the EU's traditional 'more Europe' being the solution to any problem.
Brexity Unionists: it’s patronising in the extreme to suggest that people voted for Brexit because they’re naive and were suckered into it by a relentless media campaign and the amplification of anti EU voices by the state broadcaster.
Also Brexity Unionists: large numbers of Scots are naive suckers falling for Scottish government propaganda and the awe inspiring power of a single newspaper.
However I salute your honesty about acknowledging the long term trend, unlike head buriers like HYUFD.
I don't think either of those positions represents my views.
The key thing about fracking is that it is NOT relied upon by the Truss Gov't as the solution to our energy needs seeing as it's probably not going to work. The debate is in a different place to a few years ago when hope of hitting the famed "Bowland shale" was more optimistic.
"New homes to be built with bars in windows to prevent tall people from falling out Developers attack Housing Department over health and safety drive
Housebuilders are being forced to put steel bars across the first floor windows of new homes because civil servants believe that increasingly tall Britons are more likely to topple out and plunge to their deaths...." (£)
Anyway, what with all the death talk around, my children asked me the other day what arrangements I had made for my own funeral. I gave them a bit of a hard stare and pointed out that I was really not old at all and that other than wanting a proper Catholic funeral (no dreary mumbling in a crematorium) and a bloody good party after it, my main wish was to have lovely flowers from my garden on my coffin.
Then Husband piped up to point out that money could be saved by using our Berlingo van to transport me. This van is utterly filthy, battered and smelly as it is used for outdoor adventures, moving belongings etc and the dog loves sleeping in it. It is a disgrace to the world of vehicles. I said very firmly that if there was any more talk of transporting me to my Maker in a shitey van, it wouldn't be my funeral we'd be arranging.
Still I have decided to become a bit fitter and lose some weight. My big problem is that I adore pasta, bread and cheese. Which I suppose are now a no-no. Porridge for breakfast for me today.
It is very dreary.
Good for you with your new health kick. Eggs for breakfast will probably serve your goals better than porridge, and be a lot tastier.
Massive own goal by so-called Trans Activists who have probably done more to harm trans people’s rights than all the so called “TERFs” put together (most of whom are not anti-Trans people).
Judging from the teenagers in my family there is quite the backlash going on even among young people, and any political party that talks more about Trans rights than transport has probably already lost the attention of the voters. Happy to protect minority rights, but some of the demands from some Trans activists go well beyond what is deemed sensible or safe by a fair minded majority,
This is what my actual post-op Trans friend told me a couple of years ago
"This TRA campaign is a disaster for trans people. I hate the radicals"
She had to live for two years as a woman, and all the rest, before she got the op on the NHS. She abhors the notion of self ID
"New homes to be built with bars in windows to prevent tall people from falling out Developers attack Housing Department over health and safety drive
Housebuilders are being forced to put steel bars across the first floor windows of new homes because civil servants believe that increasingly tall Britons are more likely to topple out and plunge to their deaths...." (£)
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Well this is basically my thought.
If fracking isn't viable as some claim, then it won't be done. So it can be legal, but not done, what's the issue with that?
If fracking is viable, then it shouldn't be banned.
We don't need to ban that which isn't viable, just have it legal but undone by choice rather than diktat.
Fracking should be treated like mining and other resource generation - subject to sensible standards, and if we can't economically do it in this country then so be it. But if we can, it should not be forbidden.
Imagine being called out as a Luddite by Jacob Rees Mogg. 😂
Its very odd. "We've had enough of experts" has become firmly entrenched in political piss-taking. Yesterday we had the boss Cuadrilla say that Fracking would not work in the UK. To back up all those geologists saying the same thing. Yet here comes Jacob insisting his zealotry is correct and the experts wrong.
Not only do you actually have to produce something when you stake your policy on something like this, you have to deal with the massive backlash from punters. If fracking really was our salvation then I could understand the desire to press on. But it isn't...
I listened to an engineer actively involved in fracking in the East Midlands on 5 live business this morning and he referred to Cuadrilla boss and said that in Lancashire he was correct, but in the East Midlands the rock strata is very different and there is potential for a huge amount of fracked gas and sold locally on the UK market avoiding the international gas market
I do believe their is a lot of ill-informed nonsense being spoken by many who think they know but do not
However @Richard_Tyndall is well worth listening to and I would be interested in his comments on the East Midlands sites
Fracking won't happen. Some may remember that Cuadrilla tried to explore fracking possibilities in Balcombe, West Sussex, 10 years ago. The protests, both from local residents and from environmental activists, brought it to an end pretty quickly. It's not just the fear of earthquakes etc. - it's also the huge disruption on the roads etc.
Unless I'm mistaken, most fracking potential is in areas served by Tory MPs. It might appeal to them in theory; in practice, when their constituents express their views, they'll back down pretty quickly. And no, a bit of bribery won't help - Balcombe residents would not have said 'go on then' if they'd been offered money off their energy bills.
"New homes to be built with bars in windows to prevent tall people from falling out Developers attack Housing Department over health and safety drive
Housebuilders are being forced to put steel bars across the first floor windows of new homes because civil servants believe that increasingly tall Britons are more likely to topple out and plunge to their deaths...." (£)
C'mon, Liz. Step in and say "stop being so silly".
You don't HAVE to be unpopular. Do some stuff where people say "quite right too."
Yes, the Conservative Government needs to step in and stop the mad health and safety rules being issued by... (checks notes) the Conservative Government.
"New homes to be built with bars in windows to prevent tall people from falling out Developers attack Housing Department over health and safety drive
Housebuilders are being forced to put steel bars across the first floor windows of new homes because civil servants believe that increasingly tall Britons are more likely to topple out and plunge to their deaths...." (£)
Fascinating - and reassuring in a weird way - to see we’re back to the same cyclical debate about Scottish independence after the queens sad death. Even more fascinating is the constant back and forth from those pro Indy just backing the other one up.
PoliticalBetting is back indeed. Just need HFUYD to mention his tanks next
And people involved in aeronautic companies thought that having rockets landing and being reused wouldn't work either.
The market works by different companies and different people having different views as to what does and does not work. All that is not forbidden should be allowed and some firms may find ways to economically achieve what other firms think can't be done.
Set whatever standards are appropriate, same as any other form of mining etc, and let the market do its thing. If its not viable, it won't be done, but there's no reason for it to be forbidden.
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
I think you have to be desperate to work for the Mail surely, there is no other reason you would?
The Mail pays better than any other newspaper. And it gets more visitors than any other equivalent news website in the English language bar the NYT
The Meghan story is designed to be clicked and shared. As has been done on here multiple times. Each time you do it, the Mail gets more money for its online ads. Kerching
Muppets
That's why I and other non muppets screenshot their shite.
This in turn suggests that you personally were so scornful and derisory of the bile-spewing Mail that you... er..... went on to their website so you could carefully and diligently screenshot a webpage of the Mail, and then scrupulously "share it without linking"
The Mail probably makes most of its profit from dimwit lefties like you
There is a whole genre of these ludicrous stories from slower leftwingers. Roger has given us a few. I remember him saying "it has been brought to my attention there is an article in the Mail saying..."
Like he had a team of staff below stairs, paid to go through their 19 copies of the Daily Mail delivered every morning. And then whenever they found an outrageous article they would cut it out with scissors and bring to Roger on a silver tray, so Roger could then claim he "didn't ever buy or read the Mail"
It was a screenshot of a screenshot in a tweet you dimwit.
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Well this is basically my thought.
If fracking isn't viable as some claim, then it won't be done. So it can be legal, but not done, what's the issue with that?
If fracking is viable, then it shouldn't be banned.
We don't need to ban that which isn't viable, just have it legal but undone by choice rather than diktat.
Fracking should be treated like mining and other resource generation - subject to sensible standards, and if we can't economically do it in this country then so be it. But if we can, it should not be forbidden.
That seems like a sensible thing to say, but it's very dependent on what being "subject to sensible standards" means. That's why there's a debate, that's what one needs to address. In particular:
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to climate change?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to the earthquake risk?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to major building projects in rural areas?
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Well this is basically my thought.
If fracking isn't viable as some claim, then it won't be done. So it can be legal, but not done, what's the issue with that?
If fracking is viable, then it shouldn't be banned.
We don't need to ban that which isn't viable, just have it legal but undone by choice rather than diktat.
Fracking should be treated like mining and other resource generation - subject to sensible standards, and if we can't economically do it in this country then so be it. But if we can, it should not be forbidden.
That seems like a sensible thing to say, but it's very dependent on what being "subject to sensible standards" means. That's why there's a debate, that's what one needs to address. In particular:
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to climate change?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to the earthquake risk?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to major building projects in rural areas?
What was particularly revealing about RT's comments a few days ago was that the standards applied to frackers are, in general, only the bog standard generic legal ones - wildly less specific and restrictive than those applied very specifically to the oil and gas industry as a whole. Huge disparity.
Sir John Gieve, who helped set interest rates between 2006 and 2009, predicts the Bank of England will raise interest rates by three quarters of a percentage point.
That’s at the top end of expectations and would be the biggest rise since 1989.
But Gieve, who was a member of the Bank’s rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee just before and during the worst months of the global financial crisis, tells the BBC he expects rates to rise further still.
“I’m expecting interest rates to continue to rise in future meetings and I think the markets are generally expecting interest rates to rise to over 3% by the end of this year,” he says.
Fascinating - and reassuring in a weird way - to see we’re back to the same cyclical debate about Scottish independence after the queens sad death. Even more fascinating is the constant back and forth from those pro Indy just backing the other one up.
PoliticalBetting is back indeed. Just need HFUYD to mention his tanks next
What strikes me is the mismatch between Ireland and GB, the lesson I would draw from NI seceding is Quite right, why have two different nations on one piddling little island?
Fascinating - and reassuring in a weird way - to see we’re back to the same cyclical debate about Scottish independence after the queens sad death. Even more fascinating is the constant back and forth from those pro Indy just backing the other one up.
PoliticalBetting is back indeed. Just need HFUYD to mention his tanks next
If anyone here has tanks, can they please send them to Ukraine where they will be used as intended!
Imagine being called out as a Luddite by Jacob Rees Mogg. 😂
Its very odd. "We've had enough of experts" has become firmly entrenched in political piss-taking. Yesterday we had the boss Cuadrilla say that Fracking would not work in the UK. To back up all those geologists saying the same thing. Yet here comes Jacob insisting his zealotry is correct and the experts wrong.
Not only do you actually have to produce something when you stake your policy on something like this, you have to deal with the massive backlash from punters. If fracking really was our salvation then I could understand the desire to press on. But it isn't...
I listened to an engineer actively involved in fracking in the East Midlands on 5 live business this morning and he referred to Cuadrilla boss and said that in Lancashire he was correct, but in the East Midlands the rock strata is very different and there is potential for a huge amount of fracked gas and sold locally on the UK market avoiding the international gas market
I do believe their is a lot of ill-informed nonsense being spoken by many who think they know but do not
However @Richard_Tyndall is well worth listening to and I would be interested in his comments on the East Midlands sites
I don't want it happening near me in the Midlands. So I guess I am now a NIMBY.
And people involved in aeronautic companies thought that having rockets landing and being reused wouldn't work either.
The market works by different companies and different people having different views as to what does and does not work. All that is not forbidden should be allowed and some firms may find ways to economically achieve what other firms think can't be done.
Set whatever standards are appropriate, same as any other form of mining etc, and let the market do its thing. If its not viable, it won't be done, but there's no reason for it to be forbidden.
But the standards applied to fracking are very different from those applied to the rest of the oil and gas industry - one of the many points which RT made a few days ago. Remarkably so.
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Plenty to worry about if you are a Tory: 1. Fracking put as a headline in the new self-sustainable energy policy. That it is not going to work creates rather large problems, especially when the industry says "this won't work", sneering ministers like Jacob Snooty say something dismissive about them, and then have to explain why industry was right all along 2. Humming and Harring will be massively unpopular locally. Either they only drill in Labour seats, or they will lose drilled Tory seats to whichever party is the alternative. Remember that Davey will be able to do a big "I told you so" on this having been tagged by the Tories as the fool who will be shown to have been right.
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
I think you have to be desperate to work for the Mail surely, there is no other reason you would?
The Mail pays better than any other newspaper. And it gets more visitors than any other equivalent news website in the English language bar the NYT
The Meghan story is designed to be clicked and shared. As has been done on here multiple times. Each time you do it, the Mail gets more money for its online ads. Kerching
Muppets
That's why I and other non muppets screenshot their shite.
This in turn suggests that you personally were so scornful and derisory of the bile-spewing Mail that you... er..... went on to their website so you could carefully and diligently screenshot a webpage of the Mail, and then scrupulously "share it without linking"
The Mail probably makes most of its profit from dimwit lefties like you
There is a whole genre of these ludicrous stories from slower leftwingers. Roger has given us a few. I remember him saying "it has been brought to my attention there is an article in the Mail saying..."
Like he had a team of staff below stairs, paid to go through their 19 copies of the Daily Mail delivered every morning. And then whenever they found an outrageous article they would cut it out with scissors and bring to Roger on a silver tray, so Roger could then claim he "didn't ever buy or read the Mail"
It was a screenshot of a screenshot in a tweet you dimwit.
Ah the old "screenshot of a screenshot in a tweet". OK
Another classic of the genre was also from Roger when he told us, "I was sitting in a cafe in Primrose Hill when I just happened to glance at a copy of the Daily Mail left by someone else"
Cue a long quotation from the Daily Mail which, however, he never reads
We should have a name for you guys. The Definitely Not Daily Mail Readers, No Sir, No Way
As I said I suspect you constitute a large proportion of their profits. But the same goes for people exercised by the Wokiest Guardian articles "building sandcastles is racist" etc etc
They can get me reading. But then I read the Guardian anyway, and don't pretend to deny it like a twat
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Well this is basically my thought.
If fracking isn't viable as some claim, then it won't be done. So it can be legal, but not done, what's the issue with that?
If fracking is viable, then it shouldn't be banned.
We don't need to ban that which isn't viable, just have it legal but undone by choice rather than diktat.
Fracking should be treated like mining and other resource generation - subject to sensible standards, and if we can't economically do it in this country then so be it. But if we can, it should not be forbidden.
That seems like a sensible thing to say, but it's very dependent on what being "subject to sensible standards" means. That's why there's a debate, that's what one needs to address. In particular:
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to climate change?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to the earthquake risk?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to major building projects in rural areas?
Thank you for saying its sensible and yes your questions are sensible too. My answers to your questions would be:
Climate change: Similar rules and regulations should apply to imports etc - if gas can be imported for use, it should be able to be extracted domestically, which reduces our carbon emissions it doesn't increase them.
Earthquake risk: It should have similar standards to alternative developments like seismic activity allowed to take place with regards to mining etc too.
Building projects: It should have similar standards to other forms of development.
Standards shouldn't be lower than they would be for alternatives, but they shouldn't be draconianly higher either.
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Plenty to worry about if you are a Tory: 1. Fracking put as a headline in the new self-sustainable energy policy. That it is not going to work creates rather large problems, especially when the industry says "this won't work", sneering ministers like Jacob Snooty say something dismissive about them, and then have to explain why industry was right all along 2. Humming and Harring will be massively unpopular locally. Either they only drill in Labour seats, or they will lose drilled Tory seats to whichever party is the alternative. Remember that Davey will be able to do a big "I told you so" on this having been tagged by the Tories as the fool who will be shown to have been right.
Some evidence that they are already losing Tory seats to the enemies, becausde of fracking* - e.g. local government, Warton went a week or two back, and another one in a fracking area (I forget the name).
*Correlation, rather than proven causation. But it will not reassure the backbenchers.
Years ago, we had a GP who had a brilliant system. You could make appointments to see him. But for a set period every day you could just turn up and wait to see him. So if there were loads of people in the waiting room, you could wait or come back another day. But if you waited you knew that you would get to see him.
Then he retired.
Why practices don't have something similar, I don't know.
I used to see a GP, a doctor of the old school, who did exactly this and it seemed to work very well. But alas he also retired (and recently passed away and was much mourned).
Now the village where I live has two GP surgeries with three partners per practice and a rotating cast of trainee GPs, usually one or two per practice. So 8-10 GPs for a population of 4500. And it takes 3-6 weeks to get even a phone appointment because all the partners, every single one of them, works part-time.
One partner works two days a week and drives a £70,000 electric Jaguar, which I suspect says all that needs to be said about GP's pay.
They work part time and then retire in their 50s.
Pay them less and they'll work full time until 67.
Fascinating - and reassuring in a weird way - to see we’re back to the same cyclical debate about Scottish independence after the queens sad death. Even more fascinating is the constant back and forth from those pro Indy just backing the other one up.
PoliticalBetting is back indeed. Just need HFUYD to mention his tanks next
What strikes me is the mismatch between Ireland and GB, the lesson I would draw from NI seceding is Quite right, why have two different nations on one piddling little island?
Piddling? Little? Ireland is the 20th largest island in the world. It's bigger than several other islands split across more than one nation (like Hispaniola, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, Timor and of course Hans Island).
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
I think those who have adequate GP and/or A&E provision in their locale find it quite hard to imagine that is their good luck, rather than being universally representative of the system.
Imagine being called out as a Luddite by Jacob Rees Mogg. 😂
Its very odd. "We've had enough of experts" has become firmly entrenched in political piss-taking. Yesterday we had the boss Cuadrilla say that Fracking would not work in the UK. To back up all those geologists saying the same thing. Yet here comes Jacob insisting his zealotry is correct and the experts wrong.
Not only do you actually have to produce something when you stake your policy on something like this, you have to deal with the massive backlash from punters. If fracking really was our salvation then I could understand the desire to press on. But it isn't...
I listened to an engineer actively involved in fracking in the East Midlands on 5 live business this morning and he referred to Cuadrilla boss and said that in Lancashire he was correct, but in the East Midlands the rock strata is very different and there is potential for a huge amount of fracked gas and sold locally on the UK market avoiding the international gas market
I do believe their is a lot of ill-informed nonsense being spoken by many who think they know but do not
However @Richard_Tyndall is well worth listening to and I would be interested in his comments on the East Midlands sites
The Misson site is not that far from me and I thought it was vaguely promising but that was only 15th hand rumours.
We had a conventional gas field locally too which was found when drilling for oil. This was a bit of a surprise to the drillers and there was a massive blowout and fire, which needed Boots & Coots to come over from Texas to put out. Oops!
Good for you with your new health kick. Eggs for breakfast will probably serve your goals better than porridge, and be a lot tastier.
There is an article in The Times this week from a doctor saying if you want to lose weight eat bacon and eggs*
*It is essentially advocating a low carb diet
If bread must be included, two poached eggs on two slices of dry toast from a supermarket sliced loaf is 300 calories, and filling enough. Keep eggs soft so that the yolk is the sauce, and sprinkle plenty of salt on top.
Fascinating - and reassuring in a weird way - to see we’re back to the same cyclical debate about Scottish independence after the queens sad death. Even more fascinating is the constant back and forth from those pro Indy just backing the other one up.
PoliticalBetting is back indeed. Just need HFUYD to mention his tanks next
What strikes me is the mismatch between Ireland and GB, the lesson I would draw from NI seceding is Quite right, why have two different nations on one piddling little island?
Piddling? Little? Ireland is the 20th largest island in the world. It's bigger than several other islands split across more than one nation (like Hispaniola, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, Timor and of course Hans Island).
That's also what I think of all those other islands. And PNG.
Fascinating - and reassuring in a weird way - to see we’re back to the same cyclical debate about Scottish independence after the queens sad death. Even more fascinating is the constant back and forth from those pro Indy just backing the other one up.
PoliticalBetting is back indeed. Just need HFUYD to mention his tanks next
What strikes me is the mismatch between Ireland and GB, the lesson I would draw from NI seceding is Quite right, why have two different nations on one piddling little island?
Anyway, what with all the death talk around, my children asked me the other day what arrangements I had made for my own funeral. I gave them a bit of a hard stare and pointed out that I was really not old at all and that other than wanting a proper Catholic funeral (no dreary mumbling in a crematorium) and a bloody good party after it, my main wish was to have lovely flowers from my garden on my coffin.
Then Husband piped up to point out that money could be saved by using our Berlingo van to transport me. This van is utterly filthy, battered and smelly as it is used for outdoor adventures, moving belongings etc and the dog loves sleeping in it. It is a disgrace to the world of vehicles. I said very firmly that if there was any more talk of transporting me to my Maker in a shitey van, it wouldn't be my funeral we'd be arranging.
Still I have decided to become a bit fitter and lose some weight. My big problem is that I adore pasta, bread and cheese. Which I suppose are now a no-no. Porridge for breakfast for me today.
It is very dreary.
Needn't be - though cutting out carbs is a serious pain. For example, a Caprese salad as a main meal rather than starter isn't dreary, is quite filling, and providing you don't go wild with the olive oil, you can eat quite a lot for not too many calories.
What's behind that Labour-Lib Dem movement, I wonder.
Sampling error, a.k.a. statistical noise.
Yep. A few recent polls showed LDs losing out while Labour stayed still. So there's definitely no concerted Labour-Lib Dem swing.
This pollster is one of the more generous to the Greens. 8% is way higher than most others, and it's been around the 7-8% mark on Ipsos for a while I think. Which all makes for a LLG score of 61%, at the top end of recent polls. Several others are at a more believable 57-58%.
Though even that I think over-estimates the opposition parties. Recent council byelections, even if we discount the Bolton one, do not support a 10% Labour lead over Conservatives nor a 61% left of centre bloc.
Anyway, what with all the death talk around, my children asked me the other day what arrangements I had made for my own funeral. I gave them a bit of a hard stare and pointed out that I was really not old at all and that other than wanting a proper Catholic funeral (no dreary mumbling in a crematorium) and a bloody good party after it, my main wish was to have lovely flowers from my garden on my coffin.
Then Husband piped up to point out that money could be saved by using our Berlingo van to transport me. This van is utterly filthy, battered and smelly as it is used for outdoor adventures, moving belongings etc and the dog loves sleeping in it. It is a disgrace to the world of vehicles. I said very firmly that if there was any more talk of transporting me to my Maker in a shitey van, it wouldn't be my funeral we'd be arranging.
Still I have decided to become a bit fitter and lose some weight. My big problem is that I adore pasta, bread and cheese. Which I suppose are now a no-no. Porridge for breakfast for me today.
It is very dreary.
Put some honey in it - I do!
One question, if I may: what if it's winter? No flowers in the garden? (Have learnt, from practical experience as an executor, the risks of making stipulations in wills which might not be practicable whern the time comes...).
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Well this is basically my thought.
If fracking isn't viable as some claim, then it won't be done. So it can be legal, but not done, what's the issue with that?
If fracking is viable, then it shouldn't be banned.
We don't need to ban that which isn't viable, just have it legal but undone by choice rather than diktat.
Fracking should be treated like mining and other resource generation - subject to sensible standards, and if we can't economically do it in this country then so be it. But if we can, it should not be forbidden.
That seems like a sensible thing to say, but it's very dependent on what being "subject to sensible standards" means. That's why there's a debate, that's what one needs to address. In particular:
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to climate change?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to the earthquake risk?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to major building projects in rural areas?
Thank you for saying its sensible and yes your questions are sensible too. My answers to your questions would be:
Climate change: Similar rules and regulations should apply to imports etc - if gas can be imported for use, it should be able to be extracted domestically, which reduces our carbon emissions it doesn't increase them.
Earthquake risk: It should have similar standards to alternative developments like seismic activity allowed to take place with regards to mining etc too.
Building projects: It should have similar standards to other forms of development.
Standards shouldn't be lower than they would be for alternatives, but they shouldn't be draconianly higher either.
Thanks for a detailed answer that generally avoids actually saying anything.
Climate change: so, what should those standards be? We're meant to be Net Zero in 28 years. It is difficult to see fracking being consistent with that. How should Government implement reaching Net Zero? Is it sensible to say, on one hand, that we've made this commitment, while saying, on the other hand, that we want developers to open fracking wells, that typically run for 20-40 years? Will fracking licenses say, "No fracking past 2050"? The Government has not provided clarity on how it will achieve Net Zero, but that matters for developers of wells.
Earthquake risk: the BGS says the earthquake risk is unpredictable, in a manner that is different from the risks from mining. Do you take a precautionary approach, as with the present rules, or do you wait for a big earthquake and only worry about it after the fact?
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
I think you have to be desperate to work for the Mail surely, there is no other reason you would?
The Mail pays better than any other newspaper. And it gets more visitors than any other equivalent news website in the English language bar the NYT
The Meghan story is designed to be clicked and shared. As has been done on here multiple times. Each time you do it, the Mail gets more money for its online ads. Kerching
Muppets
That's why I and other non muppets screenshot their shite.
This in turn suggests that you personally were so scornful and derisory of the bile-spewing Mail that you... er..... went on to their website so you could carefully and diligently screenshot a webpage of the Mail, and then scrupulously "share it without linking"
The Mail probably makes most of its profit from dimwit lefties like you
There is a whole genre of these ludicrous stories from slower leftwingers. Roger has given us a few. I remember him saying "it has been brought to my attention there is an article in the Mail saying..."
Like he had a team of staff below stairs, paid to go through their 19 copies of the Daily Mail delivered every morning. And then whenever they found an outrageous article they would cut it out with scissors and bring to Roger on a silver tray, so Roger could then claim he "didn't ever buy or read the Mail"
It was a screenshot of a screenshot in a tweet you dimwit.
Ah the old "screenshot of a screenshot in a tweet". OK
Another classic of the genre was also from Roger when he told us, "I was sitting in a cafe in Primrose Hill when I just happened to glance at a copy of the Daily Mail left by someone else"
Cue a long quotation from the Daily Mail which, however, he never reads
We should have a name for you guys. The Definitely Not Daily Mail Readers, No Sir, No Way
As I said I suspect you constitute a large proportion of their profits. But the same goes for people exercised by the Wokiest Guardian articles "building sandcastles is racist" etc etc
They can get me reading. But then I read the Guardian anyway, and don't pretend to deny it like a twat
tl;dr: "I'm too childish to admit I was wrong; have some childish insults instead"
Phone call triage works. If you need to attend in person that usually happens quickly after the phone call. My wife and I have positive experience of email first, receive phone call and then attend in person.
But the phone call isn't until 2 weeks after you are sick
How is that good triage?
You are just being plainly ridiculous
The triage system our practice uses results in a phone call from the practice that day and if not the day after where you are triaged and either the practice nurse, pharmacists, physio or doctor contacts you
It is unfortunate you give the constant impression you actually want everything to fail in a desperate and ill fated hope that somehow will see us re joining the EU
He is not being ridiculous and raises valid questions. On the 3 occasions in the last 2 years when I have needed antibiotics for serious infections which, if left untreated, could have killed me, I could not get even a call from the GP let alone a prescription within the day. And I had already waited hoping the infections would clear up by themselves. I had to go to A&E. A call let alone an appointment within 2 weeks would have been pointless.
How much of the pressure on A&E is because of this? And bear in mind I went to A&E because the 111 helpline told me to. My instinct is to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily.
It is not clear how the Coffey proposals address this sort of problem. A lot of issues need early treatment and a two week wait does nothing for these.
I think those who have adequate GP and/or A&E provision in their locale find it quite hard to imagine that is their good luck, rather than being universally representative of the system.
While the disparity between GP practices has existed for as long as I can remember, it does seem that the abolition of Primary Care Trusts and the replacement by Doctor-run organisations has been a backward step. Thanks to Lansley and Cameron.
"New homes to be built with bars in windows to prevent tall people from falling out Developers attack Housing Department over health and safety drive
Housebuilders are being forced to put steel bars across the first floor windows of new homes because civil servants believe that increasingly tall Britons are more likely to topple out and plunge to their deaths...." (£)
C'mon, Liz. Step in and say "stop being so silly".
You don't HAVE to be unpopular. Do some stuff where people say "quite right too."
Yes, the Conservative Government needs to step in and stop the mad health and safety rules being issued by... (checks notes) the Conservative Government.
What are the chances that this regulation never crossed a minister's desk first? Someone will have thought this up as a measure to potentially save a life, which is of course more important than letting people take decisions for themselves and occasionally earn a Darwin award.
Meghan update. A week is a long time in the holding hands is bad > not holding hands is bad dialectic.
Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to have to write this shit?
I think you have to be desperate to work for the Mail surely, there is no other reason you would?
The Mail pays better than any other newspaper. And it gets more visitors than any other equivalent news website in the English language bar the NYT
The Meghan story is designed to be clicked and shared. As has been done on here multiple times. Each time you do it, the Mail gets more money for its online ads. Kerching
Muppets
That's why I and other non muppets screenshot their shite.
This in turn suggests that you personally were so scornful and derisory of the bile-spewing Mail that you... er..... went on to their website so you could carefully and diligently screenshot a webpage of the Mail, and then scrupulously "share it without linking"
The Mail probably makes most of its profit from dimwit lefties like you
There is a whole genre of these ludicrous stories from slower leftwingers. Roger has given us a few. I remember him saying "it has been brought to my attention there is an article in the Mail saying..."
Like he had a team of staff below stairs, paid to go through their 19 copies of the Daily Mail delivered every morning. And then whenever they found an outrageous article they would cut it out with scissors and bring to Roger on a silver tray, so Roger could then claim he "didn't ever buy or read the Mail"
It was a screenshot of a screenshot in a tweet you dimwit.
Ah the old "screenshot of a screenshot in a tweet". OK
Another classic of the genre was also from Roger when he told us, "I was sitting in a cafe in Primrose Hill when I just happened to glance at a copy of the Daily Mail left by someone else"
Cue a long quotation from the Daily Mail which, however, he never reads
We should have a name for you guys. The Definitely Not Daily Mail Readers, No Sir, No Way
As I said I suspect you constitute a large proportion of their profits. But the same goes for people exercised by the Wokiest Guardian articles "building sandcastles is racist" etc etc
They can get me reading. But then I read the Guardian anyway, and don't pretend to deny it like a twat
Golly, you don't half think in clichés.
If you want to spend the day convincing yourself that I'm forever hanging about a particular website, I'm happy to provide you with a distraction from your Putin engendered poopy pants.
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Well this is basically my thought.
If fracking isn't viable as some claim, then it won't be done. So it can be legal, but not done, what's the issue with that?
If fracking is viable, then it shouldn't be banned.
We don't need to ban that which isn't viable, just have it legal but undone by choice rather than diktat.
Fracking should be treated like mining and other resource generation - subject to sensible standards, and if we can't economically do it in this country then so be it. But if we can, it should not be forbidden.
That seems like a sensible thing to say, but it's very dependent on what being "subject to sensible standards" means. That's why there's a debate, that's what one needs to address. In particular:
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to climate change?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to the earthquake risk?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to major building projects in rural areas?
Thank you for saying its sensible and yes your questions are sensible too. My answers to your questions would be:
Climate change: Similar rules and regulations should apply to imports etc - if gas can be imported for use, it should be able to be extracted domestically, which reduces our carbon emissions it doesn't increase them.
Earthquake risk: It should have similar standards to alternative developments like seismic activity allowed to take place with regards to mining etc too.
Building projects: It should have similar standards to other forms of development.
Standards shouldn't be lower than they would be for alternatives, but they shouldn't be draconianly higher either.
Thanks for a detailed answer that generally avoids actually saying anything.
Climate change: so, what should those standards be? We're meant to be Net Zero in 28 years. It is difficult to see fracking being consistent with that. How should Government implement reaching Net Zero? Is it sensible to say, on one hand, that we've made this commitment, while saying, on the other hand, that we want developers to open fracking wells, that typically run for 20-40 years? Will fracking licenses say, "No fracking past 2050"? The Government has not provided clarity on how it will achieve Net Zero, but that matters for developers of wells.
Earthquake risk: the BGS says the earthquake risk is unpredictable, in a manner that is different from the risks from mining. Do you take a precautionary approach, as with the present rules, or do you wait for a big earthquake and only worry about it after the fact?
There will be demand for gas, although diminishing, between now and 28 years time, and beyond I suspect. Surely it’s better that can be produced within the country rather than relying on unreliable and expensive imports? I don’t see how that is inconsistent with net zero because the alternative simply involves importing it.
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Well this is basically my thought.
If fracking isn't viable as some claim, then it won't be done. So it can be legal, but not done, what's the issue with that?
If fracking is viable, then it shouldn't be banned.
We don't need to ban that which isn't viable, just have it legal but undone by choice rather than diktat.
Fracking should be treated like mining and other resource generation - subject to sensible standards, and if we can't economically do it in this country then so be it. But if we can, it should not be forbidden.
That seems like a sensible thing to say, but it's very dependent on what being "subject to sensible standards" means. That's why there's a debate, that's what one needs to address. In particular:
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to climate change?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to the earthquake risk?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to major building projects in rural areas?
Thank you for saying its sensible and yes your questions are sensible too. My answers to your questions would be:
Climate change: Similar rules and regulations should apply to imports etc - if gas can be imported for use, it should be able to be extracted domestically, which reduces our carbon emissions it doesn't increase them.
Earthquake risk: It should have similar standards to alternative developments like seismic activity allowed to take place with regards to mining etc too.
Building projects: It should have similar standards to other forms of development.
Standards shouldn't be lower than they would be for alternatives, but they shouldn't be draconianly higher either.
Thanks for a detailed answer that generally avoids actually saying anything.
Climate change: so, what should those standards be? We're meant to be Net Zero in 28 years. It is difficult to see fracking being consistent with that. How should Government implement reaching Net Zero? Is it sensible to say, on one hand, that we've made this commitment, while saying, on the other hand, that we want developers to open fracking wells, that typically run for 20-40 years? Will fracking licenses say, "No fracking past 2050"? The Government has not provided clarity on how it will achieve Net Zero, but that matters for developers of wells.
Earthquake risk: the BGS says the earthquake risk is unpredictable, in a manner that is different from the risks from mining. Do you take a precautionary approach, as with the present rules, or do you wait for a big earthquake and only worry about it after the fact?
Climate Change: Net Zero should be reached by reducing demand, not supply. Demand being met by Qatari imports instead of domestically produced gas makes no improvement whatsoever to the climate, demand not existing does make a difference. Net zero doesn't mean zero production even post-2050.
Earthquake risk: If it were up to me, I would predominantly deal with it after the fact, but require firms involved to demonstrate appropriate liability insurance that covers that, if they're proven to cause one. If they're unable to find insurance, then they won't be able to trade, same as any other firm. If they have the relevant insurance to appropriate standards then the liability risk is covered.
Anyway, what with all the death talk around, my children asked me the other day what arrangements I had made for my own funeral. I gave them a bit of a hard stare and pointed out that I was really not old at all and that other than wanting a proper Catholic funeral (no dreary mumbling in a crematorium) and a bloody good party after it, my main wish was to have lovely flowers from my garden on my coffin.
Then Husband piped up to point out that money could be saved by using our Berlingo van to transport me. This van is utterly filthy, battered and smelly as it is used for outdoor adventures, moving belongings etc and the dog loves sleeping in it. It is a disgrace to the world of vehicles. I said very firmly that if there was any more talk of transporting me to my Maker in a shitey van, it wouldn't be my funeral we'd be arranging.
Still I have decided to become a bit fitter and lose some weight. My big problem is that I adore pasta, bread and cheese. Which I suppose are now a no-no. Porridge for breakfast for me today.
It is very dreary.
I love porridge. if you are counting calories make with semi-skimmed milk and sprinkle with salt. No sweetener needed....
For me, berries in the summer and homemade cranberry sauce in the winter. Strawberries are almost calorie free.
Another day of feeling like crap. Have been ill all month, this latest 2nd round of head cold isn't clearing. Not helped by getting fitful sleep due to coughing, my fatigue levels keep finding exciting new highs
Much how my wife and I felt in August when we had covid
You need to be kind to yourself and rest as much as possible
Just joined the covid club on Tuesday. Not too bad, one really nasty night of shivers. Your point about rest is well made, but tricky with three children, two of whom have also been poorly (we were a bit concerned about number three who is only 4 months old, for a bit, but he's better now).
Glad to have avoided this pre-vaccination. Post vaccination, I'd have to say I've felt worse for longer with other viral infections, but it's still nasty enough.
I was rather proud of being in the non COVID club, but joined the COVID club 2weeks ago after 3 days of partying in Spain at a weddings. I wasn't too ill at all but have a lingering cough.
Annoyingly I was able to get my next jab just as I got covid. Now have to wait a month.
I have seriously wondered if this is Covid. I test negative, I have the same known symptoms of things I have had before, so officially its not Covid.
But - AIUI the overlap between modern Covid and winter snot is significant. And I am struggling to recall a time when I have been this bleugh for this long. My voice going hoarse to the point of barely being able to talk has only ever happened to me once before.
One of the unfortunate legacy effects of Covid is that as soon as one is ill with anything whatsoever, they are immediately asked whether it's Covid and, if it's not, receive little/no sympathy.
Yet Covid wasn't even in my top ten sick spells of my life – flu, gastroenteritis and norovirus were all far worse. I have even had the odd common cold that was worse.
Maybe a test of true normality is when people are poorly, one just wishes them a speedy recovery, rather than urging them to take a covid test or quizzing them on details of their symptoms.
Get well soon, fella.
yes there are still covid obsessives out there - an overseas student coming to this country the other week aged 21 was freting about not wearing a mask when i met him for a tour of where i live
It is quite bizarre. I attended a hospital ward the other day where the rule was that one had to wear masks at all times (they handed out masks free, presumably because few brought one with them). I complied 100% with their rules, despite being surprised by them. Yet none of the in-patients wore a mask, and the nurses frequently removed their masks to converse with each other, as did many of the visitors. Presumably the aggregate effect of the masking was nil or close to nil.
Fascinating - and reassuring in a weird way - to see we’re back to the same cyclical debate about Scottish independence after the queens sad death. Even more fascinating is the constant back and forth from those pro Indy just backing the other one up.
PoliticalBetting is back indeed. Just need HFUYD to mention his tanks next
What strikes me is the mismatch between Ireland and GB, the lesson I would draw from NI seceding is Quite right, why have two different nations on one piddling little island?
The island of Timor says hi!
We do tend to exaggerate how small GB and Ireland are, I think, because we compare our land area with a. France, our neighbour, and b. the USA, our younger offspring.
By European standards both GB and Ireland are medium sized. Bigger than most other "proper" countries in the region. GB is bigger than Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, all the former Yugo countries, all the Baltics, Belarus, all the Caucasus countries, Tunisia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon etc etc. Ireland is bigger than several of those too.
Fascinating - and reassuring in a weird way - to see we’re back to the same cyclical debate about Scottish independence after the queens sad death. Even more fascinating is the constant back and forth from those pro Indy just backing the other one up.
PoliticalBetting is back indeed. Just need HFUYD to mention his tanks next
What strikes me is the mismatch between Ireland and GB, the lesson I would draw from NI seceding is Quite right, why have two different nations on one piddling little island?
The island of Timor says hi!
Grr.
Ireland is not some piddling little island, it is the 20th largest island in the world.
Anyway, there is an interesting quiz question about how many islands have de jure or de facto international borders on: I can offer:
Ireland Timor Borneo (which I think is the only island to have two borders on) Hispaniola Tierra del Fuego Cyprus
Comments
Yet Covid wasn't even in my top ten sick spells of my life – flu, gastroenteritis and norovirus were all far worse. I have even had the odd common cold that was worse.
Maybe a test of true normality is when people are poorly, one just wishes them a speedy recovery, rather than urging them to take a covid test or quizzing them on details of their symptoms.
Get well soon, fella.
And then tomorrow afternoon / monday when the full horror of the "not a budget" is digested by the markets...
One question, if I may: what if it's winter? No flowers in the garden? (Have learnt, from practical experience as an executor, the risks of making stipulations in wills which might not be practicable whern the time comes...).
The Meghan story is designed to be clicked and shared. As has been done on here multiple times. Each time you do it, the Mail gets more money for its online ads. Kerching
Muppets
Its pure clickbait, they know it will be shared here both by outraged conservatives, and right on FBPE muppets, and the NYT like the Heil is laughing all the way to the bank.
Best thing to do about such clickbait is to ignore it.
That’s all they want
Now the village where I live has two GP surgeries with three partners per practice and a rotating cast of trainee GPs, usually one or two per practice. So 8-10 GPs for a population of 4500. And it takes 3-6 weeks to get even a phone appointment because all the partners, every single one of them, works part-time.
One partner works two days a week and drives a £70,000 electric Jaguar, which I suspect says all that needs to be said about GP's pay.
I may be a bit peculiar. My absolute fave is Kellogg's All-Bran with hot milk. That's it. Trouble is you don't half know it the next day.
BTW I'd missed the news that the much-awaited BGS report has been leaked, at least in part. Not much comfort from that, either.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/15/liz-truss-to-lift-fracking-ban-despite-little-progress-on-earthquake-risk
But it will look like she is doing everything possible to solve the current crisis while not actually doing anything to solve it (which would be big insulation projects and ramping up solar and wind farms anyway you can).
Allowing fracking in a formal sense mollifies these people, and then, when very little fracking actually occurs over the next year or two, because the geology is wrong and it isn't economic, hopefully it won't matter because the energy crisis will have been solved by other means. And HMG also don't have to face the unpopularity of fracking occurring.
Imagine being called out as a Luddite by Jacob Rees Mogg. 😂
As a bonus, you also get holes dug all around the garden (though not necessarily where you want them), your furniture chewed so that it has a fashionably distressed look, and your clothes ripped for you so that you don't have to pay good money to have that look.
What's not to like.
Not only do you actually have to produce something when you stake your policy on something like this, you have to deal with the massive backlash from punters. If fracking really was our salvation then I could understand the desire to press on. But it isn't...
The Right's support for fracking is so embarrassing. It seems driven by green opposition to fracking more than anything else. The other side don't like it, so the Right have to champion it. Truss wants to ban solar panels in farms, but fracking is fine?!!?!?!??!?!?
Developers attack Housing Department over health and safety drive
Housebuilders are being forced to put steel bars across the first floor windows of new homes because civil servants believe that increasingly tall Britons are more likely to topple out and plunge to their deaths...." (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/09/21/new-homes-built-bars-windows-prevent-tall-people-falling/
https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Royal College of GPs not impressed
“Is he aware the safety of the public is not a currency on which some of us choose to speculate?”
❤️🔥
That Sir Greg Knight burn in full. https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1572893855858688000/video/1
The Mail probably makes most of its profit from dimwit lefties like you
There is a whole genre of these ludicrous stories from slower leftwingers. Roger has given us a few. I remember him saying "it has been brought to my attention there is an article in the Mail saying..."
Like he had a team of staff below stairs, paid to go through their 19 copies of the Daily Mail delivered every morning. And then whenever they found an outrageous article they would cut it out with scissors and bring to Roger on a silver tray, so Roger could then claim he "didn't ever buy or read the Mail"
The debate is in a different place to a few years ago when hope of hitting the famed "Bowland shale" was more optimistic.
Read carefully between the lines and it says "Fuck off you stupid twats".
"This TRA campaign is a disaster for trans people. I hate the radicals"
She had to live for two years as a woman, and all the rest, before she got the op on the NHS. She abhors the notion of self ID
You don't HAVE to be unpopular. Do some stuff where people say "quite right too."
If fracking isn't viable as some claim, then it won't be done. So it can be legal, but not done, what's the issue with that?
If fracking is viable, then it shouldn't be banned.
We don't need to ban that which isn't viable, just have it legal but undone by choice rather than diktat.
Fracking should be treated like mining and other resource generation - subject to sensible standards, and if we can't economically do it in this country then so be it. But if we can, it should not be forbidden.
I do believe their is a lot of ill-informed nonsense being spoken by many who think they know but do not
However @Richard_Tyndall is well worth listening to and I would be interested in his comments on the East Midlands sites
*It is essentially advocating a low carb diet
Unless I'm mistaken, most fracking potential is in areas served by Tory MPs. It might appeal to them in theory; in practice, when their constituents express their views, they'll back down pretty quickly. And no, a bit of bribery won't help - Balcombe residents would not have said 'go on then' if they'd been offered money off their energy bills.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/21/fracking-wont-work-uk-founder-chris-cornelius-cuadrilla
PoliticalBetting is back indeed. Just need HFUYD to mention his tanks next
The market works by different companies and different people having different views as to what does and does not work. All that is not forbidden should be allowed and some firms may find ways to economically achieve what other firms think can't be done.
Set whatever standards are appropriate, same as any other form of mining etc, and let the market do its thing. If its not viable, it won't be done, but there's no reason for it to be forbidden.
There’s not a way back from here
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to climate change?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to the earthquake risk?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to major building projects in rural areas?
Sir John Gieve, who helped set interest rates between 2006 and 2009, predicts the Bank of England will raise interest rates by three quarters of a percentage point.
That’s at the top end of expectations and would be the biggest rise since 1989.
But Gieve, who was a member of the Bank’s rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee just before and during the worst months of the global financial crisis, tells the BBC he expects rates to rise further still.
“I’m expecting interest rates to continue to rise in future meetings and I think the markets are generally expecting interest rates to rise to over 3% by the end of this year,” he says.
1. Fracking put as a headline in the new self-sustainable energy policy. That it is not going to work creates rather large problems, especially when the industry says "this won't work", sneering ministers like Jacob Snooty say something dismissive about them, and then have to explain why industry was right all along
2. Humming and Harring will be massively unpopular locally. Either they only drill in Labour seats, or they will lose drilled Tory seats to whichever party is the alternative. Remember that Davey will be able to do a big "I told you so" on this having been tagged by the Tories as the fool who will be shown to have been right.
Another classic of the genre was also from Roger when he told us, "I was sitting in a cafe in Primrose Hill when I just happened to glance at a copy of the Daily Mail left by someone else"
Cue a long quotation from the Daily Mail which, however, he never reads
We should have a name for you guys. The Definitely Not Daily Mail Readers, No Sir, No Way
As I said I suspect you constitute a large proportion of their profits. But the same goes for people exercised by the Wokiest Guardian articles "building sandcastles is racist" etc etc
They can get me reading. But then I read the Guardian anyway, and don't pretend to deny it like a twat
Climate change: Similar rules and regulations should apply to imports etc - if gas can be imported for use, it should be able to be extracted domestically, which reduces our carbon emissions it doesn't increase them.
Earthquake risk: It should have similar standards to alternative developments like seismic activity allowed to take place with regards to mining etc too.
Building projects: It should have similar standards to other forms of development.
Standards shouldn't be lower than they would be for alternatives, but they shouldn't be draconianly higher either.
*Correlation, rather than proven causation. But it will not reassure the backbenchers.
Pay them less and they'll work full time until 67.
We had a conventional gas field locally too which was found when drilling for oil. This was a bit of a surprise to the drillers and there was a massive blowout and fire, which needed Boots & Coots to come over from Texas to put out. Oops!
These days it is only used as storage.
That couldn’t possibly backfire massively on them, definitely not…
https://nypost.com/2022/09/12/democrats-spend-53m-to-boost-far-right-gop-candidates/
For example, a Caprese salad as a main meal rather than starter isn't dreary, is quite filling, and providing you don't go wild with the olive oil, you can eat quite a lot for not too many calories.
This pollster is one of the more generous to the Greens. 8% is way higher than most others, and it's been around the 7-8% mark on Ipsos for a while I think. Which all makes for a LLG score of 61%, at the top end of recent polls. Several others are at a more believable 57-58%.
Though even that I think over-estimates the opposition parties. Recent council byelections, even if we discount the Bolton one, do not support a 10% Labour lead over Conservatives nor a 61% left of centre bloc.
Climate change: so, what should those standards be? We're meant to be Net Zero in 28 years. It is difficult to see fracking being consistent with that. How should Government implement reaching Net Zero? Is it sensible to say, on one hand, that we've made this commitment, while saying, on the other hand, that we want developers to open fracking wells, that typically run for 20-40 years? Will fracking licenses say, "No fracking past 2050"? The Government has not provided clarity on how it will achieve Net Zero, but that matters for developers of wells.
Earthquake risk: the BGS says the earthquake risk is unpredictable, in a manner that is different from the risks from mining. Do you take a precautionary approach, as with the present rules, or do you wait for a big earthquake and only worry about it after the fact?
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1572825644551245825
as per usual
"The cheapest shale gas in the UK will be LNG imported from the US"
If you want to spend the day convincing yourself that I'm forever hanging about a particular website, I'm happy to provide you with a distraction from your Putin engendered poopy pants.
Earthquake risk: If it were up to me, I would predominantly deal with it after the fact, but require firms involved to demonstrate appropriate liability insurance that covers that, if they're proven to cause one. If they're unable to find insurance, then they won't be able to trade, same as any other firm. If they have the relevant insurance to appropriate standards then the liability risk is covered.
Con -> LD in the Blue Wall
Perhaps?
Strawberries are almost calorie free.
By European standards both GB and Ireland are medium sized. Bigger than most other "proper" countries in the region. GB is bigger than Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, all the former Yugo countries, all the Baltics, Belarus, all the Caucasus countries, Tunisia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon etc etc. Ireland is bigger than several of those too.
Ireland is not some piddling little island, it is the 20th largest island in the world.
Anyway, there is an interesting quiz question about how many islands have de jure or de facto international borders on: I can offer:
Ireland
Timor
Borneo (which I think is the only island to have two borders on)
Hispaniola
Tierra del Fuego
Cyprus
Anyone add any others?