Russia is resource rich and cash/population poor. China may well be looking at northeast Russia and not crying too many tears if Russia looks, and is, very weak.
I've poured scorn on the idea of Russia using nuclear weapons to defend territory it has invaded, but if they weren't prepared to use them to defend their internationally recognised borders then there's not much point in having them.
For China, it might be an easier bet than Taiwan, especially in the long-term. Take lessons out of Putin's book and interfere in those areas politically (as some say they are already doing).
But yes, nukes are an issue. But Moscow are well aware that China is also nuclear-capable.
I hope China does neither Russia or Taiwan. Neither is good for the world.
But I reckon what's happened in the last 15 months makes a Taiwanese adventure from China less likely, as it's made the possibility and consequences of failure much more real.
China is absolutely dedicated to reclaiming Taiwan and I suspect that many taiwanese, deep down, are resigned to its happening eventually
I'm not sure that either side would ever want a Chinese on Chinese war.
The Chinese intention is to become so overwhelmingly dominant in the region - eg building the world’s biggest navy (which they have, and which grows apace) - the Taiwanese will peacefully agree to some kind of “unification”, rather than face a terrible war they would almost certainly lose
And the USA will not launch ICBMs to save Taiwan. The Chinese know that
Might work, might not. But I’d wager that’s what they’re aiming for. If that fails Beijing will go for a blockade before bombs
China could just follow the Russian way of war. Just flatten Taiwan with long range demolition, until it ceases to function as an economic unit. Works unless and until Taiwan gets nukes.
As an aside: "TSMC is the world’s largest chip maker and a vital supplier to the United States and other Western nations. It is by far the largest of Taiwan’s chipmakers, which together produce more than 90 percent of the world’s most high-tech chips, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association."
I wonder if they have their own version of the Tizard Mission ready to go - either to trade for more weapons or to try and ensure China is outcompeted in the longer term.
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
That is simply not true, and I speak from vivid personal experience. Plenty of people who are diagnosed on the spectrum live perfectly regular and fulfilling lives, and some have great success. It is called a spectrum for a reason, there is wide variation from one end to the other
I have someone very close to me who is diagnosed ASD and the clinician said “You are high functioning and bright and we used to call you Aspie” and she WANTS to be called that as she feels “Aspie” fits her better. That is her choice
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
3 members of my family worked at various points directly with young people diagnosed. It was quickly apparent which had major issues and which ones were, perhaps, let's say generously diagnosed, even when considering a range. Never mind the online self diagnosis crowd.
Is Elon one of those? I have no idea, maybe he has been diagnosed.
In short, I don't believe China will swing for Taiwan in the next five years. I think the risks are simply too great, and the Taiwanwese too well prepared.
This is a lousy disease. When cancer hits the pancreas, it's hit the jackpot. It's a great neighborhood for cancer: right next to the liver, stomach, lungs, major blood and lymph nodes: basically the equivalent of a large warm flat near major Tube and BR stations with your rent and bills paid. It settles in and breeds lots of little cancers which scatter around the body like billy-o. One of the first places it hits is the liver, and whoops you can't live without one.
We deal with cancer in three ways: chemo, radiotherapy, or resection (amputation). Some new techniques are in vogue (ablation) but that's basically it. With pancreatic cancer it grows faster than you can kill it, and you can't amputate your liver because you die. In theory you can get a transplant but cancer patients don't get transplants, so you die. Every scenario ends with "...so you die"
If you are lucky, you die from a morphine overdose that your kindly GP administers to you in the certain knowledge that everybody looks the other way on this. If you are unlucky it's the bodily equivalent of Hiroshima as everything gets affected and you die from the first major organs to stop working whilst all the others queue up to do the same.
The best you can do is the Iain Banks option: make sure your loved ones are legally sorted, get your affairs tidied up, and get all the Macallan you can get
Russia is resource rich and cash/population poor. China may well be looking at northeast Russia and not crying too many tears if Russia looks, and is, very weak.
I've poured scorn on the idea of Russia using nuclear weapons to defend territory it has invaded, but if they weren't prepared to use them to defend their internationally recognised borders then there's not much point in having them.
For China, it might be an easier bet than Taiwan, especially in the long-term. Take lessons out of Putin's book and interfere in those areas politically (as some say they are already doing).
But yes, nukes are an issue. But Moscow are well aware that China is also nuclear-capable.
I hope China does neither Russia or Taiwan. Neither is good for the world.
But I reckon what's happened in the last 15 months makes a Taiwanese adventure from China less likely, as it's made the possibility and consequences of failure much more real.
China is absolutely dedicated to reclaiming Taiwan and I suspect that many taiwanese, deep down, are resigned to its happening eventually
I'm not sure that either side would ever want a Chinese on Chinese war.
The Chinese intention is to become so overwhelmingly dominant in the region - eg building the world’s biggest navy (which they have, and which grows apace) - the Taiwanese will peacefully agree to some kind of “unification”, rather than face a terrible war they would almost certainly lose
And the USA will not launch ICBMs to save Taiwan. The Chinese know that
Might work, might not. But I’d wager that’s what they’re aiming for. If that fails Beijing will go for a blockade before bombs
China could just follow the Russian way of war. Just flatten Taiwan with long range demolition, until it ceases to function as an economic unit. Works unless and until Taiwan gets nukes.
As an aside: "TSMC is the world’s largest chip maker and a vital supplier to the United States and other Western nations. It is by far the largest of Taiwan’s chipmakers, which together produce more than 90 percent of the world’s most high-tech chips, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association."
Not quite as bad as that. Taiwan has a bit under 60% of the foundry market, and 'most high tech' means a year or two ahead of Samsung. And there are a quite large number of fabs under construction in the US, but that's several years off.
But supply from China would also be interrupted, which would hit the mass market stuff too.
Manufacturing of everything from cars to smartphones would be absolutely trashed.
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
"If you can cope independently in society you haven't got it" - I'm really not sure this is true. I work with someone with autism and have worked with other autistic people in the past. They have all been a little odd - keep eye contact with you for too long, random outbursts of swearing, that sort of thing - but all have managed to hold down a job (particularly coding) and functioned independently. I accept all cases are different, but most that I have encountered manage perfectly well.
Yes, I think I overstated: apologies. I should have said "normally" or similar.
In short, I don't believe China will swing for Taiwan in the next five years. I think the risks are simply too great, and the Taiwanwese too well prepared.
In short, I don't believe China will swing for Taiwan in the next five years. I think the risks are simply too great, and the Taiwanwese too well prepared.
In most of the wars, since the Industrial Revolution at least, the side that started the war lost.
You are assuming rational decision making, based on all the facts, for the common good of all China.
I am reminded of the story about one of the runs of Operation Sealion during the famous Sandhurst war games of the invasion.
The young officer playing Herman Goering was asked what the hell he was doing. His reply was that he was playing Herman Goering as trying to improve the position of Herman Goering in the Nazi hierarchy first, invading Britain second.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivability rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivability rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
Russia is resource rich and cash/population poor. China may well be looking at northeast Russia and not crying too many tears if Russia looks, and is, very weak.
I've poured scorn on the idea of Russia using nuclear weapons to defend territory it has invaded, but if they weren't prepared to use them to defend their internationally recognised borders then there's not much point in having them.
For China, it might be an easier bet than Taiwan, especially in the long-term. Take lessons out of Putin's book and interfere in those areas politically (as some say they are already doing).
But yes, nukes are an issue. But Moscow are well aware that China is also nuclear-capable.
I hope China does neither Russia or Taiwan. Neither is good for the world.
But I reckon what's happened in the last 15 months makes a Taiwanese adventure from China less likely, as it's made the possibility and consequences of failure much more real.
China is absolutely dedicated to reclaiming Taiwan and I suspect that many taiwanese, deep down, are resigned to its happening eventually
While Zelensky was slurping Xi's fragrant balls on the phone he said he was on board with the "One China" policy so he's resigned to it.
I'm genuinely interested in knowing whether that is true or not. Can you point me towards anywhere I can see confirmation of what you say?
Holy fucking shit. NEVER doubt the green t-shirt dialectic of the Beggar King.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy reaffirmed Ukraine's unwavering position on adherence to the "One China" policy and thanked the President of the People’s Republic of China for China's support for Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Everyone agrees on "One China". They just have different definitions of what that means.
Zelensky is clearly morally flexible though - afterall, he appears* to like Johnson**
*I know that is likely actually sincere and apparently with good reason. **Pro-Johnson Francophobes can insert 'Macron' here
The US has a One China policy. The country that sends multiple aircraft carriers, which have nuclear weapons on board, casually round Taiwan, every time Beijing sabre rattles.
China now has a bigger navy than the USA, and the disparity in size is growing not shrinking
Soon America will not be able to send ships around Taiwan
“World's largest Army, Navy: How China has ramped up its defense capabilities”
While that's true in terms of ship numbers, it's also not that big.
The People's Liberation Army Navy (yes, really) has only 260,000 active personnel, against 350,000 in the US Navy. It has two aircraft carriers, but they are both relatively small (similar displacement to the QE ships), with a skijump type launch system, and based on the Russian Kuznetsov class. They are fitting out a third aircraft carrier with a a CATOBAR system.
But right now, they are dramatically less powerful than the US's Nimitz and Ford class carriers.
Will they exceed the size of the US Navy in time? Quite probably. But no means certainly. And it will take time.
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
This is a lousy disease. When cancer hits the pancreas, it's hit the jackpot. It's a great neighborhood for cancer: right next to the liver, stomach, lungs, major blood and lymph nodes: basically the equivalent of a large warm flat near major Tube and BR stations with your rent and bills paid. It settles in and breeds lots of little cancers which scatter around the body like billy-o. One of the first places it hits is the liver, and whoops you can't live without one.
We deal with cancer in three ways: chemo, radiotherapy, or resection (amputation). Some new techniques are in vogue (ablation) but that's basically it. With pancreatic cancer it grows faster than you can kill it, and you can't amputate your liver because you die. In theory you can get a transplant but cancer patients don't get transplants, so you die. Every scenario ends with "...so you die"
If you are lucky, you die from a morphine overdose that your kindly GP administers to you in the certain knowledge that everybody looks the other way on this. If you are unlucky it's the bodily equivalent of Hiroshima as everything gets affected and you die from the first major organs to stop working whilst all the others queue up to do the same.
The best you can do is the Iain Banks option: make sure your loved ones are legally sorted, get your affairs tidied up, and get all the Macallan you can get
Yep:
It sucks. Worse, there are bugger all warning signs.
Or maybe that's better. You live a good life, and then - in a matter of weeks - it's over.
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
That is simply not true, and I speak from vivid personal experience. Plenty of people who are diagnosed on the spectrum live perfectly regular and fulfilling lives, and some have great success. It is called a spectrum for a reason, there is wide variation from one end to the other
I have someone very close to me who is diagnosed ASD and the clinician said “You are high functioning and bright and we used to call you Aspie” and she WANTS to be called that as she feels “Aspie” fits her better. That is her choice
Regarding your first point: fair enough (see my reply to Cookie)
Regarding your second point: OK, but medical categories aren't (or shouldn't be!) thrown around willy-nilly when they no longer exist as diagnoses.
Elon Musk has been ordered to give a deposition in a lawsuit blaming Tesla's driverless technology for a fatal crash after the carmaker suggested his public statements about autopilot could have been deepfaked.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Evette D Pennypacker said she found Tesla's argument for why its billionaire chief executive should not testify “deeply troubling to the court”.
The company had argued that it could not vouch for the authenticity of videotaped interviews which show Mr Musk pushing its driver-assistance technology, saying it is possible some of them were digitally altered.
The judge wrote: “Their position is that because Mr Musk is famous and might be more of a target for deep fakes, his public statements are immune.
“In other words, Mr Musk, and others in his position, can simply say whatever they like in the public domain, then hide behind the potential for their recorded statements being a deep fake to avoid taking ownership of what they did actually say and do.”
I got covid about a month ago (just as the Easter holidays began). I was +ve for a week, but it was followed by a wracking cough, and now that's mostly gone, I'm finding it relatively hard to get running even 10K again.
It's bu**ered my lungs worse than a seagull who's had acquaintance with Dave Lee of Roker Avenue, Sunderland.
I've gone from running marathons to barely being able to run 10K.
Covid turned you back into a normal person? That’s a new one…
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
Absolutely. What upsets me most is when the term is used on here as a casual insult.
When talking about China, Russia, and their future actions, we need to ask: "What do they want?"
These were my semi-literate thoughts during a run:
In the case of democracies, that's hard to answer, as those blooming voters' views are like squeezing a balloon. In non-democracies, it may be a little easier.
In the case of Russia: what do they want? They want to be the stronkiest of the stronk. They want to be a world power, without putting the effort in to be a world power. They want to abuse the rules and cheat.
In the case of China: I've no effing idea what's in Xi's head. He wants China to be great, but to what extent? His country's prosperity depends on exports to a good extent, and any adventurism could lead to that being cut off. And what after gaining Taiwan?
As for the US: they want to remain the big king. And that involves free trade, with a slant to an advantage to them. They will do whatever they can to keep physical trade routes free.
As for Japan: they want access to markets and resources. They remember the strangulation of resources from WWII very well.
As for the rest of the west: they want to be able to trade, and to live well.
This is why South Korea and Taiwan have made themselves very important in the world economy: they have made it so it is hard for the rest of the world to turn their backs if their independence is threatened.
Russia is resource rich and cash/population poor. China may well be looking at northeast Russia and not crying too many tears if Russia looks, and is, very weak.
I've poured scorn on the idea of Russia using nuclear weapons to defend territory it has invaded, but if they weren't prepared to use them to defend their internationally recognised borders then there's not much point in having them.
For China, it might be an easier bet than Taiwan, especially in the long-term. Take lessons out of Putin's book and interfere in those areas politically (as some say they are already doing).
But yes, nukes are an issue. But Moscow are well aware that China is also nuclear-capable.
I hope China does neither Russia or Taiwan. Neither is good for the world.
But I reckon what's happened in the last 15 months makes a Taiwanese adventure from China less likely, as it's made the possibility and consequences of failure much more real.
China is absolutely dedicated to reclaiming Taiwan and I suspect that many taiwanese, deep down, are resigned to its happening eventually
While Zelensky was slurping Xi's fragrant balls on the phone he said he was on board with the "One China" policy so he's resigned to it.
I'm genuinely interested in knowing whether that is true or not. Can you point me towards anywhere I can see confirmation of what you say?
Holy fucking shit. NEVER doubt the green t-shirt dialectic of the Beggar King.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy reaffirmed Ukraine's unwavering position on adherence to the "One China" policy and thanked the President of the People’s Republic of China for China's support for Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Everyone agrees on "One China". They just have different definitions of what that means.
Zelensky is clearly morally flexible though - afterall, he appears* to like Johnson**
*I know that is likely actually sincere and apparently with good reason. **Pro-Johnson Francophobes can insert 'Macron' here
The US has a One China policy. The country that sends multiple aircraft carriers, which have nuclear weapons on board, casually round Taiwan, every time Beijing sabre rattles.
China now has a bigger navy than the USA, and the disparity in size is growing not shrinking
Soon America will not be able to send ships around Taiwan
“World's largest Army, Navy: How China has ramped up its defense capabilities”
While that's true in terms of ship numbers, it's also not that big.
The People's Liberation Army Navy (yes, really) has only 260,000 active personnel, against 350,000 in the US Navy. It has two aircraft carriers, but they are both relatively small (similar displacement to the QE ships), with a skijump type launch system, and based on the Russian Kuznetsov class. They are fitting out a third aircraft carrier with a a CATOBAR system.
But right now, they are dramatically less powerful than the US's Nimitz and Ford class carriers.
Will they exceed the size of the US Navy in time? Quite probably. But no means certainly. And it will take time.
Also, that was the Telegraph having a pop at Biden. As far as Taiwan is concerned, you need also to factor in Japan - who have a number of very capable subs - and S Korea.
I got covid about a month ago (just as the Easter holidays began). I was +ve for a week, but it was followed by a wracking cough, and now that's mostly gone, I'm finding it relatively hard to get running even 10K again.
It's bu**ered my lungs worse than a seagull who's had acquaintance with Dave Lee of Roker Avenue, Sunderland.
I've gone from running marathons to barely being able to run 10K.
Covid turned you back into a normal person? That’s a new one…
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
That is simply not true, and I speak from vivid personal experience. Plenty of people who are diagnosed on the spectrum live perfectly regular and fulfilling lives, and some have great success. It is called a spectrum for a reason, there is wide variation from one end to the other
I have someone very close to me who is diagnosed ASD and the clinician said “You are high functioning and bright and we used to call you Aspie” and she WANTS to be called that as she feels “Aspie” fits her better. That is her choice
The Swedish study says “sex-reassigned transsexual persons of both genders had approximately a three times higher risk of all-cause mortality than controls”.
If we take as given that the other study 2-3X suicide rate is correct, then doing surgery or chemical sterilization on minors gains nothing in reduced mortality.
My position is simply that we should wait until an individual is mature enough to make their own decisions before other adults make permanent, serious physical changes to them.
The counter to my position would be that if we don’t make the changes when they’re a minor, they may never reach adulthood due to suicide. However, that counterargument does not hold water if mortality is essentially unchanged, which it is.
This is a lousy disease. When cancer hits the pancreas, it's hit the jackpot. It's a great neighborhood for cancer: right next to the liver, stomach, lungs, major blood and lymph nodes: basically the equivalent of a large warm flat near major Tube and BR stations with your rent and bills paid. It settles in and breeds lots of little cancers which scatter around the body like billy-o. One of the first places it hits is the liver, and whoops you can't live without one.
We deal with cancer in three ways: chemo, radiotherapy, or resection (amputation). Some new techniques are in vogue (ablation) but that's basically it. With pancreatic cancer it grows faster than you can kill it, and you can't amputate your liver because you die. In theory you can get a transplant but cancer patients don't get transplants, so you die. Every scenario ends with "...so you die"
If you are lucky, you die from a morphine overdose that your kindly GP administers to you in the certain knowledge that everybody looks the other way on this. If you are unlucky it's the bodily equivalent of Hiroshima as everything gets affected and you die from the first major organs to stop working whilst all the others queue up to do the same.
The best you can do is the Iain Banks option: make sure your loved ones are legally sorted, get your affairs tidied up, and get all the Macallan you can get
Yep:
It sucks. Worse, there are bugger all warning signs.
Or maybe that's better. You live a good life, and then - in a matter of weeks - it's over.
A guy who lives across the road just lost his wife to bowel cancer. From first symptoms to the end, just six weeks.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
I agree that people shouldn't self-diagnose. I appear to be on the spectrum and do score quite highly with online tests. But I am not going to try and get diagnosed as I don't see the point. So I don't refer to myself as autistic, self-diagnosed or otherwise.
Wifey IS autistic and has the diagnosis to prove it. As has my eldest. So I agree. "Oh, I'm a self-diagnosed asper" just dilutes the realities of life on the spectrum, even if you are high functioning.
But "if you can cope independently you havent got [autism]" is just profoundly ignorant.
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
At that age, the sediment should be pretty much stuck to the glass. But shaking up the sediment transporting it to the restaurant is still a risk.
Double-decant at home a couple of hours before - i.e decant, wash the bottle, funnel it back into the bottle, stop with a whisky bottle cork or similar.
Use your best corkscrew (a proper spiral, not one with a central core). Not a disaster if the cork breaks - muslin cloth to strain it.
Stand the bottle upright a week before (or now, if less than a week to go!)
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
Nice.
I wouldn't. Because that is a cracking bottle and I personally would have it at home with friends when I was in control.
But I'm sure Hawksmoor will afford it due reverence and decant it properly. Make sure they do it at the table, that said.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivability rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
He ran in 2018 which was a non-Presidential year and 2024 is bound to be polarised. We also do not know who his opponent is.
I would not be putting money on Tester holding the seat but, if you can find the bet and believe this, then you can probably get good odds.
I tend to agree that he will struggle, albeit he also won the seat in 2012 which was against the backdrop of a (relatively) unpopular incumbent Democratic President.
There's a recent poll out, though, that will give him encouragement (and conversely should terrify Manchin).
58% of Montana voters approve of Tester, against only 33% that disapprove: that makes him one of the most popular Senators in the US. By comparison, only 38% of voters in West Virginia approve of Manchin, and 55% disapprove. Which makes him the second most unpopular Senator in the US.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
The actor Jason Watkins and his partner lost a child very young. He appears from time to time to discuss it and raise awareness.
Tragic. As people say no parent expects to bury a child.
The Swedish study says “sex-reassigned transsexual persons of both genders had approximately a three times higher risk of all-cause mortality than controls”.
If we take as given that the other study 2-3X suicide rate is correct, then doing surgery or chemical sterilization on minors gains nothing in reduced mortality.
My position is simply that we should wait until an individual is mature enough to make their own decisions before other adults make permanent, serious physical changes to them.
The counter to my position would be that if we don’t make the changes when they’re a minor, they may never reach adulthood due to suicide. However, that counterargument does not hold water if mortality is essentially unchanged, which it is.
Without knowing the death rates of people who want gender reassignment surgery and don't get it, we can't infer anything about its impact.
Simply, people who get surgery are highly likely to be unhappy with their lives already. That has to be the control group, not the population as a whole.
Elon Musk has been ordered to give a deposition in a lawsuit blaming Tesla's driverless technology for a fatal crash after the carmaker suggested his public statements about autopilot could have been deepfaked.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Evette D Pennypacker said she found Tesla's argument for why its billionaire chief executive should not testify “deeply troubling to the court”.
The company had argued that it could not vouch for the authenticity of videotaped interviews which show Mr Musk pushing its driver-assistance technology, saying it is possible some of them were digitally altered.
The judge wrote: “Their position is that because Mr Musk is famous and might be more of a target for deep fakes, his public statements are immune.
“In other words, Mr Musk, and others in his position, can simply say whatever they like in the public domain, then hide behind the potential for their recorded statements being a deep fake to avoid taking ownership of what they did actually say and do.”
In short, I don't believe China will swing for Taiwan in the next five years. I think the risks are simply too great, and the Taiwanwese too well prepared.
In most of the wars, since the Industrial Revolution at least, the side that started the war lost.
You are assuming rational decision making, based on all the facts, for the common good of all China.
I am reminded of the story about one of the runs of Operation Sealion during the famous Sandhurst war games of the invasion.
The young officer playing Herman Goering was asked what the hell he was doing. His reply was that he was playing Herman Goering as trying to improve the position of Herman Goering in the Nazi hierarchy first, invading Britain second.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I have two friends who lost children. One "naturally" (heart), one unnaturally (murder).
Both then embarked upon extraordinary activities (rowing the atlantic, cycling zillions of miles over the hardest peaks in Europe). It sent them both understandably insane small "i" and I can see why they then decided to put themselves at risk and push themselves physically, my theory being because they felt guilty at surviving and wanted to put themselves in an analagous position whereby death was possible so that they could feel they were somehow "even".
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivability rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Is that your funeral plan?
Kinda
I’ve seen a fair amount of death now. I would rather go out in a blaze of sordid glory age 74 than drag it out to 89 and commodes and everything, but we are of course all different, and will have our own plans
BTW there is a news report today saying that the first really effective Alzheimer’s drugs are just a few years away, for sure. Too late for people in their 70s, sadly, but people in their 50s and 40s might be able to dodge the disease entirely
That will be marvelous and revolutionary. No more dementia!
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I have two friends who lost children. One "naturally" (heart), one unnaturally (murder).
Both then embarked upon extraordinary activities (rowing the atlantic, cycling zillions of miles over the hardest peaks in Europe). It sent them both understandably insane small "i" and I can see why they then decided to put themselves at risk and push themselves physically, my theory being because they felt guilty at surviving and wanted to put themselves in an analagous position whereby death was possible so that they could feel they were somehow "even".
A friend of mine who lost a child told me that if she’d not had other children, she would have committed suicide, for sure. Not just because of the grief (which was insanely hard) but just on the off chance heaven might exist (even tho she’s atheist) and she could be reunited with her daughter
The Swedish study says “sex-reassigned transsexual persons of both genders had approximately a three times higher risk of all-cause mortality than controls”.
If we take as given that the other study 2-3X suicide rate is correct, then doing surgery or chemical sterilization on minors gains nothing in reduced mortality.
My position is simply that we should wait until an individual is mature enough to make their own decisions before other adults make permanent, serious physical changes to them.
The counter to my position would be that if we don’t make the changes when they’re a minor, they may never reach adulthood due to suicide. However, that counterargument does not hold water if mortality is essentially unchanged, which it is.
Without knowing the death rates of people who want gender reassignment surgery and don't get it, we can't infer anything about its impact.
Simply, people who get surgery are highly likely to be unhappy with their lives already. That has to be the control group, not the population as a whole.
Reading the Cass review on the Tavistock what stood out was that people there ignored the multitude of other issues any children might have faced and concentrated on gender identity.
"A fundamentally different service model is needed which is more in line with other paediatric provision, to provide timely and appropriate care for children and young people needing support around their gender identity. This must include support for any other clinical presentations that they may have."
In short, I don't believe China will swing for Taiwan in the next five years. I think the risks are simply too great, and the Taiwanwese too well prepared.
In most of the wars, since the Industrial Revolution at least, the side that started the war lost.
You are assuming rational decision making, based on all the facts, for the common good of all China.
I am reminded of the story about one of the runs of Operation Sealion during the famous Sandhurst war games of the invasion.
The young officer playing Herman Goering was asked what the hell he was doing. His reply was that he was playing Herman Goering as trying to improve the position of Herman Goering in the Nazi hierarchy first, invading Britain second.
That is fascinating, and all too believable.
IIRC everyone playing the game and the umpires said “actually, that is *really*playing the role”
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Deepest Sympathies. I’ve had experience of both and yes, like you, the latter seems far preferable
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
"If you can cope independently in society you haven't got it" - I'm really not sure this is true. I work with someone with autism and have worked with other autistic people in the past. They have all been a little odd - keep eye contact with you for too long, random outbursts of swearing, that sort of thing - but all have managed to hold down a job (particularly coding) and functioned independently. I accept all cases are different, but most that I have encountered manage perfectly well.
It is confusing because they have changed the definition of autism to encompass the whole spectrum of conditions including Asperger's. It is not too long ago that autistic meant a severe handicap. It is further complicated, as you note, by the tendency of tech nerds to self-diagnose, which became fashionable after Bill Gates and now again after Elon Musk.
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
Nice.
I wouldn't. Because that is a cracking bottle and I personally would have it at home with friends when I was in control.
But I'm sure Hawksmoor will afford it due reverence and decant it properly. Make sure they do it at the table, that said.
Good point about decanting at table - didn't think of that.
I may well go for it because it's my brother's 60th birthday dinner.
Plus, I have four other bottles in reserve (bought a case at auction, sold six bottles on to offset the cost, have drunk one which looked like it might have turned - it hadn't, so feeling good).
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
"If you can cope independently in society you haven't got it" - I'm really not sure this is true. I work with someone with autism and have worked with other autistic people in the past. They have all been a little odd - keep eye contact with you for too long, random outbursts of swearing, that sort of thing - but all have managed to hold down a job (particularly coding) and functioned independently. I accept all cases are different, but most that I have encountered manage perfectly well.
It is confusing because they have changed the definition of autism to encompass the whole spectrum of conditions including Asperger's. It is not too long ago that autistic meant a severe handicap. It is further complicated, as you note, by the tendency of tech nerds to self-diagnose, which became fashionable after Bill Gates and now again after Elon Musk.
We have no idea if Musk has self diagnosed. AFAIK he might have been to a proper clinician and got a proper diagnosis. It is not like he can’t afford it
He certainly exhibits all the classic traits of high functioning autism - Asperger’s as was (and as some people still like to call it, as my own clinician made clear)
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
Nice.
I wouldn't. Because that is a cracking bottle and I personally would have it at home with friends when I was in control.
But I'm sure Hawksmoor will afford it due reverence and decant it properly. Make sure they do it at the table, that said.
Good point about decanting at table - didn't think of that.
I may well go for it because it's my brother's 60th birthday dinner.
Plus, I have four other bottles in reserve (bought a case at auction, sold six bottles on to offset the cost, have drunk one which looked like it might have turned - it hadn't, so feeling good).
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
No views on that, but drank a bottle of 1963 just recently in a romantic candle lit dinner for 13 including two dogs and three riotous small children. Couldn't have been better.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Deepest Sympathies. I’ve had experience of both and yes, like you, the latter seems far preferable
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
A learning point, which I’ve been able to share with a few others facing the same, is to forget the bucket list.
The bucket list works fine when you’re not facing the bucket, but when the bucket is right there, not so much.
Those things we did and places we went, chosen as special things to do before you die, all we could think about was the finality of it all, and the imminence of death. So doing those things was no fun at all.
The best days were ordinary holiday days, messing around in a swimming pool or cooking a meal together, when by the end of the day we realised we’d hardly thought about death at all.
Good advice for anyone with someone terminally ill is to forget bucket list ‘special’ things and just try to capture some ordinary shared time when you can forget the bigger picture.
TL;DR: the government’s lies are completely shameless version 592.
I was on strike again today, still somewhat conflicted (esp with two Y13 classes due to sit exams in under a month). I voted against the govt pay offer largely because it was unfunded.
Because energy costs are forecast to fall at a faster rate than previously expected, an average pay rise of 4% is now judged to be affordable for schools.
WTAF?!
So Keegan’s argument is that, because schools whose finances were already absolutely f*cked before energy prices decimated every budget we had, everywhere, now only have to pay somewhat over-the-odds energy prices, they can now afford to expand the 80% or so of their budgets that go on salaries by 4%?
And that fits within the boundaries of what any sane person would describe as a funded pay increase?
I mean, I know we all tell little white lies every so often, but that takes the biscuit. In fact it takes the whole tin, the spare packet in the back of the cupboard for midnight emergencies, the McVitie’s factory down the road*, and the futures options on all cake-adjacent products to be produced until 2134.
*I don’t actually have a McVitie’s factory down the road. Which somehow makes Keegan’s lies even harder to swallow.
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
That is simply not true, and I speak from vivid personal experience. Plenty of people who are diagnosed on the spectrum live perfectly regular and fulfilling lives, and some have great success. It is called a spectrum for a reason, there is wide variation from one end to the other
I have someone very close to me who is diagnosed ASD and the clinician said “You are high functioning and bright and we used to call you Aspie” and she WANTS to be called that as she feels “Aspie” fits her better. That is her choice
Aspergers fell out of fashion when historians found the chap it is named after was cosy with the Nazis to a greater or lesser extent, so I doubt the name will make a comeback.
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
At that age, the sediment should be pretty much stuck to the glass. But shaking up the sediment transporting it to the restaurant is still a risk.
Double-decant at home a couple of hours before - i.e decant, wash the bottle, funnel it back into the bottle, stop with a whisky bottle cork or similar.
Use your best corkscrew (a proper spiral, not one with a central core). Not a disaster if the cork breaks - muslin cloth to strain it.
Stand the bottle upright a week before (or now, if less than a week to go!)
Ah yes, I have a cork-puller* in reserve if the cork is fragile. Maybe I will decant it at home then back into the bottle before taking it to the restaurant - it's an idea.
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
No views on that, but drank a bottle of 1963 just recently in a romantic candle lit dinner for 13 including two dogs and three riotous small children. Couldn't have been better.
I hope you didn't waste any on the children (or the dogs!)
TL;DR: the government’s lies are completely shameless version 592.
I was on strike again today, still somewhat conflicted (esp with two Y13 classes due to sit exams in under a month). I voted against the govt pay offer largely because it was unfunded.
Because energy costs are forecast to fall at a faster rate than previously expected, an average pay rise of 4% is now judged to be affordable for schools.
WTAF?!
So Keegan’s argument is that, because schools whose finances were already absolutely f*cked before energy prices decimated every budget we had, everywhere, now only have to pay somewhat over-the-odds energy prices, they can now afford to expand the 80% or so of their budgets that go on salaries by 4%?
And that fits within the boundaries of what any sane person would describe as a funded pay increase?
I mean, I know we all tell little white lies every so often, but that takes the biscuit. In fact it takes the whole tin, the spare packet in the back of the cupboard for midnight emergencies, the McVitie’s factory down the road*, and the futures options on all cake-adjacent products to be produced until 2134.
*I don’t actually have a McVitie’s factory down the road. Which somehow makes Keegan’s lies even harder to swallow.
Is the thinking here that as the offered pay rise was unfunded you thought it a great idea to hold out for a higher pay rise which will be, er, um, er...unfunded also?
Surely you should be agitating for a lower pay rise.
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
"If you can cope independently in society you haven't got it" - I'm really not sure this is true. I work with someone with autism and have worked with other autistic people in the past. They have all been a little odd - keep eye contact with you for too long, random outbursts of swearing, that sort of thing - but all have managed to hold down a job (particularly coding) and functioned independently. I accept all cases are different, but most that I have encountered manage perfectly well.
It is confusing because they have changed the definition of autism to encompass the whole spectrum of conditions including Asperger's. It is not too long ago that autistic meant a severe handicap. It is further complicated, as you note, by the tendency of tech nerds to self-diagnose, which became fashionable after Bill Gates and now again after Elon Musk.
We have no idea if Musk has self diagnosed. AFAIK he might have been to a proper clinician and got a proper diagnosis. It is not like he can’t afford it
He certainly exhibits all the classic traits of high functioning autism - Asperger’s as was (and as some people still like to call it, as my own clinician made clear)
Sorry, I did not mean to say Musk or Gates had self-diagnosed, but that they made it fashionable amongst people who did self-diagnose.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Deepest Sympathies. I’ve had experience of both and yes, like you, the latter seems far preferable
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
A learning point, which I’ve been able to share with a few others facing the same, is to forget the bucket list.
The bucket list works fine when you’re not facing the bucket, but when the bucket is right there, not so much.
Those things we did and places we went, chosen as special things to do before you die, all we could think about was the finality of it all, and the imminence of death. So doing those things was no fun at all.
The best days were ordinary holiday days, messing around in a swimming pool or cooking a meal together, when by the end of the day we realised we’d hardly thought about death at all.
Good advice for anyone with someone terminally ill is to forget bucket list ‘special’ things and just try to capture some ordinary shared time when you can forget the bigger picture.
i entirely agree. It’s one reason I live life at full tilt. I’ve basically done my bucket list already, and it feels good. Seriously
If they delivered the Grim Reaper Gram tomorrow I could look death in his weaselly eye and say Yeah well fuck it, I’ve had a ton of fun and I do not feel cheated
Of course I wouldn’t mind another decade of fun, that said….
Is this literally the bleakest PB thread in history??!
The Swedish study says “sex-reassigned transsexual persons of both genders had approximately a three times higher risk of all-cause mortality than controls”.
If we take as given that the other study 2-3X suicide rate is correct, then doing surgery or chemical sterilization on minors gains nothing in reduced mortality.
My position is simply that we should wait until an individual is mature enough to make their own decisions before other adults make permanent, serious physical changes to them.
The counter to my position would be that if we don’t make the changes when they’re a minor, they may never reach adulthood due to suicide. However, that counterargument does not hold water if mortality is essentially unchanged, which it is.
The Swedish study says “sex-reassigned transsexual persons of both genders had approximately a three times higher risk of all-cause mortality than controls”.
If we take as given that the other study 2-3X suicide rate is correct, then doing surgery or chemical sterilization on minors gains nothing in reduced mortality.
My position is simply that we should wait until an individual is mature enough to make their own decisions before other adults make permanent, serious physical changes to them.
The counter to my position would be that if we don’t make the changes when they’re a minor, they may never reach adulthood due to suicide. However, that counterargument does not hold water if mortality is essentially unchanged, which it is.
Without knowing the death rates of people who want gender reassignment surgery and don't get it, we can't infer anything about its impact.
Simply, people who get surgery are highly likely to be unhappy with their lives already. That has to be the control group, not the population as a whole.
Reading the Cass review on the Tavistock what stood out was that people there ignored the multitude of other issues any children might have faced and concentrated on gender identity.
"A fundamentally different service model is needed which is more in line with other paediatric provision, to provide timely and appropriate care for children and young people needing support around their gender identity. This must include support for any other clinical presentations that they may have."
I wouldn't disagree with that for a second, but the Swedish study - and which I was specifically referencing - was not on children, but on adults.
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
Nice.
I wouldn't. Because that is a cracking bottle and I personally would have it at home with friends when I was in control.
But I'm sure Hawksmoor will afford it due reverence and decant it properly. Make sure they do it at the table, that said.
Good point about decanting at table - didn't think of that.
I may well go for it because it's my brother's 60th birthday dinner.
Plus, I have four other bottles in reserve (bought a case at auction, sold six bottles on to offset the cost, have drunk one which looked like it might have turned - it hadn't, so feeling good).
Speak to their sommelier - some years ago at another high end place, did that. Also for a birthday. He greeted us, examined the bottle, opened it and decanted it very, very slowly. Treated it like royalty, in short.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Deepest Sympathies. I’ve had experience of both and yes, like you, the latter seems far preferable
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
A learning point, which I’ve been able to share with a few others facing the same, is to forget the bucket list.
The bucket list works fine when you’re not facing the bucket, but when the bucket is right there, not so much.
Those things we did and places we went, chosen as special things to do before you die, all we could think about was the finality of it all, and the imminence of death. So doing those things was no fun at all.
The best days were ordinary holiday days, messing around in a swimming pool or cooking a meal together, when by the end of the day we realised we’d hardly thought about death at all.
Good advice for anyone with someone terminally ill is to forget bucket list ‘special’ things and just try to capture some ordinary shared time when you can forget the bigger picture.
i entirely agree. It’s one reason I live life at full tilt. I’ve basically done my bucket list already, and it feels good. Seriously
If they delivered the Grim Reaper Gram tomorrow I could look death in his weaselly eye and say Yeah well fuck it, I’ve had a ton of fun and I do not feel cheated
Of course I wouldn’t mind another decade of fun, that said….
Is this literally the bleakest PB thread in history??!
Those were the ones with your apocalyptic predictions. Or would have been, had anyone else taken them seriously….
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Deepest Sympathies. I’ve had experience of both and yes, like you, the latter seems far preferable
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
A learning point, which I’ve been able to share with a few others facing the same, is to forget the bucket list.
The bucket list works fine when you’re not facing the bucket, but when the bucket is right there, not so much.
Those things we did and places we went, chosen as special things to do before you die, all we could think about was the finality of it all, and the imminence of death. So doing those things was no fun at all.
The best days were ordinary holiday days, messing around in a swimming pool or cooking a meal together, when by the end of the day we realised we’d hardly thought about death at all.
Good advice for anyone with someone terminally ill is to forget bucket list ‘special’ things and just try to capture some ordinary shared time when you can forget the bigger picture.
i entirely agree. It’s one reason I live life at full tilt. I’ve basically done my bucket list already, and it feels good. Seriously
If they delivered the Grim Reaper Gram tomorrow I could look death in his weaselly eye and say Yeah well fuck it, I’ve had a ton of fun and I do not feel cheated
Of course I wouldn’t mind another decade of fun, that said….
Is this literally the bleakest PB thread in history??!
btw apropos your earlier post, 74 is no age. I would set your sights higher.
The Swedish study says “sex-reassigned transsexual persons of both genders had approximately a three times higher risk of all-cause mortality than controls”.
If we take as given that the other study 2-3X suicide rate is correct, then doing surgery or chemical sterilization on minors gains nothing in reduced mortality.
My position is simply that we should wait until an individual is mature enough to make their own decisions before other adults make permanent, serious physical changes to them.
The counter to my position would be that if we don’t make the changes when they’re a minor, they may never reach adulthood due to suicide. However, that counterargument does not hold water if mortality is essentially unchanged, which it is.
Gosh I'm surprised. I'd have thought he'd have an informed nuanced position on this like he does on most hot button 'culture war' type issues.
To add extra shittiness to it, one of Musk's own kids is trans. And in a move that must really p*ss him off, changed her surname from his to her mum's.
TL;DR: the government’s lies are completely shameless version 592.
I was on strike again today, still somewhat conflicted (esp with two Y13 classes due to sit exams in under a month). I voted against the govt pay offer largely because it was unfunded.
Because energy costs are forecast to fall at a faster rate than previously expected, an average pay rise of 4% is now judged to be affordable for schools.
WTAF?!
So Keegan’s argument is that, because schools whose finances were already absolutely f*cked before energy prices decimated every budget we had, everywhere, now only have to pay somewhat over-the-odds energy prices, they can now afford to expand the 80% or so of their budgets that go on salaries by 4%?
And that fits within the boundaries of what any sane person would describe as a funded pay increase?
I mean, I know we all tell little white lies every so often, but that takes the biscuit. In fact it takes the whole tin, the spare packet in the back of the cupboard for midnight emergencies, the McVitie’s factory down the road*, and the futures options on all cake-adjacent products to be produced until 2134.
*I don’t actually have a McVitie’s factory down the road. Which somehow makes Keegan’s lies even harder to swallow.
The Telegraph is now spinning that teachers' gold-plated pensions should be taken into account.
The 'crucial, highly valuable' perk that striking teachers are keeping quiet about Unions rejected a pay rise and bonus, arguing wages are down 23pc in real terms
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Deepest Sympathies. I’ve had experience of both and yes, like you, the latter seems far preferable
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
A learning point, which I’ve been able to share with a few others facing the same, is to forget the bucket list.
The bucket list works fine when you’re not facing the bucket, but when the bucket is right there, not so much.
Those things we did and places we went, chosen as special things to do before you die, all we could think about was the finality of it all, and the imminence of death. So doing those things was no fun at all.
The best days were ordinary holiday days, messing around in a swimming pool or cooking a meal together, when by the end of the day we realised we’d hardly thought about death at all.
Good advice for anyone with someone terminally ill is to forget bucket list ‘special’ things and just try to capture some ordinary shared time when you can forget the bigger picture.
i entirely agree. It’s one reason I live life at full tilt. I’ve basically done my bucket list already, and it feels good. Seriously
If they delivered the Grim Reaper Gram tomorrow I could look death in his weaselly eye and say Yeah well fuck it, I’ve had a ton of fun and I do not feel cheated
Of course I wouldn’t mind another decade of fun, that said….
Is this literally the bleakest PB thread in history??!
btw apropos your earlier post, 74 is no age. I would set your sights higher.
Given what he’s shared about his lifestyle, I’d say he’s already shooting for the stars…
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
"If you can cope independently in society you haven't got it" - I'm really not sure this is true. I work with someone with autism and have worked with other autistic people in the past. They have all been a little odd - keep eye contact with you for too long, random outbursts of swearing, that sort of thing - but all have managed to hold down a job (particularly coding) and functioned independently. I accept all cases are different, but most that I have encountered manage perfectly well.
It is confusing because they have changed the definition of autism to encompass the whole spectrum of conditions including Asperger's. It is not too long ago that autistic meant a severe handicap. It is further complicated, as you note, by the tendency of tech nerds to self-diagnose, which became fashionable after Bill Gates and now again after Elon Musk.
But Cookie and Leon are right - I have taught a lot of kids with autism and many grow to be able to mask it very well such that by 18 you wouldn’t know unless you had a particular sort of conversation one on one.
Otoh I have previously been a governor of a special school for autism and the other end of the spectrum (non-verbal, often insomniac) can make it almost impossible to function in society.
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
That is simply not true, and I speak from vivid personal experience. Plenty of people who are diagnosed on the spectrum live perfectly regular and fulfilling lives, and some have great success. It is called a spectrum for a reason, there is wide variation from one end to the other
I have someone very close to me who is diagnosed ASD and the clinician said “You are high functioning and bright and we used to call you Aspie” and she WANTS to be called that as she feels “Aspie” fits her better. That is her choice
Aspergers fell out of fashion when historians found the chap it is named after was cosy with the Nazis to a greater or lesser extent, so I doubt the name will make a comeback.
It is making a comeback. People are reclaiming it. I speak from personal experience (or go check ASD forums online). They are reclaiming it probably because it DOES describe a certain place on the spectrum
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Deepest Sympathies. I’ve had experience of both and yes, like you, the latter seems far preferable
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
A learning point, which I’ve been able to share with a few others facing the same, is to forget the bucket list.
The bucket list works fine when you’re not facing the bucket, but when the bucket is right there, not so much.
Those things we did and places we went, chosen as special things to do before you die, all we could think about was the finality of it all, and the imminence of death. So doing those things was no fun at all.
The best days were ordinary holiday days, messing around in a swimming pool or cooking a meal together, when by the end of the day we realised we’d hardly thought about death at all.
Good advice for anyone with someone terminally ill is to forget bucket list ‘special’ things and just try to capture some ordinary shared time when you can forget the bigger picture.
i entirely agree. It’s one reason I live life at full tilt. I’ve basically done my bucket list already, and it feels good. Seriously
If they delivered the Grim Reaper Gram tomorrow I could look death in his weaselly eye and say Yeah well fuck it, I’ve had a ton of fun and I do not feel cheated
Of course I wouldn’t mind another decade of fun, that said….
Is this literally the bleakest PB thread in history??!
Indeed. I felt a bit bad about introducing the triviality of vintage port but had to switch my mind to happier things.
Sympathies to all those who have lost loved ones. Which is pretty much all of us I guess.
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
Nice.
I wouldn't. Because that is a cracking bottle and I personally would have it at home with friends when I was in control.
But I'm sure Hawksmoor will afford it due reverence and decant it properly. Make sure they do it at the table, that said.
Good point about decanting at table - didn't think of that.
I may well go for it because it's my brother's 60th birthday dinner.
Plus, I have four other bottles in reserve (bought a case at auction, sold six bottles on to offset the cost, have drunk one which looked like it might have turned - it hadn't, so feeling good).
Speak to their sommelier - some years ago at another high end place, did that. Also for a birthday. He greeted us, examined the bottle, opened it and decanted it very, very slowly. Treated it like royalty, in short.
Yes the travel is an issue as @carnforth pointed out. Perhaps do it at home. Plus not sure about a muslin cloth actually kitchen paper works (as) well. I mean if you don't have any candles to hand.
The Swedish study says “sex-reassigned transsexual persons of both genders had approximately a three times higher risk of all-cause mortality than controls”.
If we take as given that the other study 2-3X suicide rate is correct, then doing surgery or chemical sterilization on minors gains nothing in reduced mortality.
My position is simply that we should wait until an individual is mature enough to make their own decisions before other adults make permanent, serious physical changes to them.
The counter to my position would be that if we don’t make the changes when they’re a minor, they may never reach adulthood due to suicide. However, that counterargument does not hold water if mortality is essentially unchanged, which it is.
Without knowing the death rates of people who want gender reassignment surgery and don't get it, we can't infer anything about its impact.
Simply, people who get surgery are highly likely to be unhappy with their lives already. That has to be the control group, not the population as a whole.
Reading the Cass review on the Tavistock what stood out was that people there ignored the multitude of other issues any children might have faced and concentrated on gender identity.
"A fundamentally different service model is needed which is more in line with other paediatric provision, to provide timely and appropriate care for children and young people needing support around their gender identity. This must include support for any other clinical presentations that they may have."
I wouldn't disagree with that for a second, but the Swedish study - and which I was specifically referencing - was not on children, but on adults.
Ah. Haven't seen that but your point about the control group as you described it was absolutely right.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Deepest Sympathies. I’ve had experience of both and yes, like you, the latter seems far preferable
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
A learning point, which I’ve been able to share with a few others facing the same, is to forget the bucket list.
The bucket list works fine when you’re not facing the bucket, but when the bucket is right there, not so much.
Those things we did and places we went, chosen as special things to do before you die, all we could think about was the finality of it all, and the imminence of death. So doing those things was no fun at all.
The best days were ordinary holiday days, messing around in a swimming pool or cooking a meal together, when by the end of the day we realised we’d hardly thought about death at all.
Good advice for anyone with someone terminally ill is to forget bucket list ‘special’ things and just try to capture some ordinary shared time when you can forget the bigger picture.
What a powerful post.
I have always imagined, if presented with that terminal-diagnosis situation, that I would want to run through my own bucket list, but your post makes undeniable sense.
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
"If you can cope independently in society you haven't got it" - I'm really not sure this is true. I work with someone with autism and have worked with other autistic people in the past. They have all been a little odd - keep eye contact with you for too long, random outbursts of swearing, that sort of thing - but all have managed to hold down a job (particularly coding) and functioned independently. I accept all cases are different, but most that I have encountered manage perfectly well.
It is confusing because they have changed the definition of autism to encompass the whole spectrum of conditions including Asperger's. It is not too long ago that autistic meant a severe handicap. It is further complicated, as you note, by the tendency of tech nerds to self-diagnose, which became fashionable after Bill Gates and now again after Elon Musk.
But Cookie and Leon are right - I have taught a lot of kids with autism and many grow to be able to mask it very well such that by 18 you wouldn’t know unless you had a particular sort of conversation one on one.
Otoh I have previously been a governor of a special school for autism and the other end of the spectrum (non-verbal, often insomniac) can make it almost impossible to function in society.
When The A-Word came out I remember of the many phone-ins about it one mother sad that such programmes drove her mad. In The A-Word the child was quite non-verbal but a common portrayal of autism is as a savant who can play Grieg's Piano Concerto having heard it once on Morecambe and Wise. The mother said that this was frustrating as the reality can be a child screaming uncontrollably for most of the day and there being no communication at all.
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
Nice.
I wouldn't. Because that is a cracking bottle and I personally would have it at home with friends when I was in control.
But I'm sure Hawksmoor will afford it due reverence and decant it properly. Make sure they do it at the table, that said.
Good point about decanting at table - didn't think of that.
I may well go for it because it's my brother's 60th birthday dinner.
Plus, I have four other bottles in reserve (bought a case at auction, sold six bottles on to offset the cost, have drunk one which looked like it might have turned - it hadn't, so feeling good).
Speak to their sommelier - some years ago at another high end place, did that. Also for a birthday. He greeted us, examined the bottle, opened it and decanted it very, very slowly. Treated it like royalty, in short.
Yes the travel is an issue as @carnforth pointed out. Perhaps do it at home. Plus not sure about a muslin cloth actually kitchen paper works (as) well. I mean if you don't have any candles to hand.
Unbleached coffee filters are best according to the Port Forum.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Deepest Sympathies. I’ve had experience of both and yes, like you, the latter seems far preferable
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
A learning point, which I’ve been able to share with a few others facing the same, is to forget the bucket list.
The bucket list works fine when you’re not facing the bucket, but when the bucket is right there, not so much.
Those things we did and places we went, chosen as special things to do before you die, all we could think about was the finality of it all, and the imminence of death. So doing those things was no fun at all.
The best days were ordinary holiday days, messing around in a swimming pool or cooking a meal together, when by the end of the day we realised we’d hardly thought about death at all.
Good advice for anyone with someone terminally ill is to forget bucket list ‘special’ things and just try to capture some ordinary shared time when you can forget the bigger picture.
i entirely agree. It’s one reason I live life at full tilt. I’ve basically done my bucket list already, and it feels good. Seriously
If they delivered the Grim Reaper Gram tomorrow I could look death in his weaselly eye and say Yeah well fuck it, I’ve had a ton of fun and I do not feel cheated
Of course I wouldn’t mind another decade of fun, that said….
Is this literally the bleakest PB thread in history??!
Indeed. I felt a bit bad about introducing the triviality of vintage port but had to switch my mind to happier things.
Sympathies to all those who have lost loved ones. Which is pretty much all of us I guess.
I remember studying Happy Days at school for A-level. Towards the end of one double english period when we focused on it we, the class, all started laughing and making jokes about nothing in particular (no pun intended) and generally started to misbehave. The English Master was furious, shouting at us to behave. Because he didn't understand that our little minds couldn't cope with 80 minutes of bleak absurdist nihilism.
TL;DR: the government’s lies are completely shameless version 592.
I was on strike again today, still somewhat conflicted (esp with two Y13 classes due to sit exams in under a month). I voted against the govt pay offer largely because it was unfunded.
Because energy costs are forecast to fall at a faster rate than previously expected, an average pay rise of 4% is now judged to be affordable for schools.
WTAF?!
So Keegan’s argument is that, because schools whose finances were already absolutely f*cked before energy prices decimated every budget we had, everywhere, now only have to pay somewhat over-the-odds energy prices, they can now afford to expand the 80% or so of their budgets that go on salaries by 4%?
And that fits within the boundaries of what any sane person would describe as a funded pay increase?
I mean, I know we all tell little white lies every so often, but that takes the biscuit. In fact it takes the whole tin, the spare packet in the back of the cupboard for midnight emergencies, the McVitie’s factory down the road*, and the futures options on all cake-adjacent products to be produced until 2134.
*I don’t actually have a McVitie’s factory down the road. Which somehow makes Keegan’s lies even harder to swallow.
The Telegraph is now spinning that teachers' gold-plated pensions should be taken into account.
The 'crucial, highly valuable' perk that striking teachers are keeping quiet about Unions rejected a pay rise and bonus, arguing wages are down 23pc in real terms
1. One of the things that should do for the government is the endemic... not so much lying as weaseling. Outright lies are easy to spot. The trouble with weasel is you have to dig quite a way down to find the central lie, and life is too short.
2. The government is clearly scrabbling around for spare pennies. (We can't afford to do HS2 properly, or pay permanent pay rises, or anything that isn't to do with pensions.) Do the Conservatives really want to have to go through this until 2029?
3. One of our problems as a country is that, collectively, we've skimped on pension planning for decades. Teacher pensions are reasonably properly funded, and it costs what it costs. Do we really want to pass the buck onto the future there as well?
...But "if you can cope independently you havent got [autism]" is just profoundly ignorant...
Fair point (see my reply to Cookie) but it's usually more polite to say "uniformed" than "ignorant": I was accidentally mistaken, not deliberately.
I can understand you point nonetheless. My eldest son really isn't very confident when it comes to decision making and he has had a diagnosis since aged 4. I fear for how he manages over the next decades.
I really don't understand why every now and again we have this dialogue based on a casual comment from Leon. Leon then proceeds to defend his debatable view with his claimed expertise.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Deepest Sympathies. I’ve had experience of both and yes, like you, the latter seems far preferable
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
A learning point, which I’ve been able to share with a few others facing the same, is to forget the bucket list.
The bucket list works fine when you’re not facing the bucket, but when the bucket is right there, not so much.
Those things we did and places we went, chosen as special things to do before you die, all we could think about was the finality of it all, and the imminence of death. So doing those things was no fun at all.
The best days were ordinary holiday days, messing around in a swimming pool or cooking a meal together, when by the end of the day we realised we’d hardly thought about death at all.
Good advice for anyone with someone terminally ill is to forget bucket list ‘special’ things and just try to capture some ordinary shared time when you can forget the bigger picture.
i entirely agree. It’s one reason I live life at full tilt. I’ve basically done my bucket list already, and it feels good. Seriously
If they delivered the Grim Reaper Gram tomorrow I could look death in his weaselly eye and say Yeah well fuck it, I’ve had a ton of fun and I do not feel cheated
Of course I wouldn’t mind another decade of fun, that said….
Is this literally the bleakest PB thread in history??!
Yep. It's making me cry. I lost a child in an accident 49 years ago and the memories have come flooding back. I'm going to take a break.
Support for Indy might - and probably will - ebb away, once it becomes clear there is no obvious political route to Indy. And that is now becoming clear, with an obdurate Westminster and a collapsing SNP
It used to be thought support for Quebecois independence was solid and growing and bound to win in the end. Look at what actually happened after they lost their referendum
Independence support ain't going away
Not yet, but hope springs eternal. If you could let us know what would turn you Unionist thatd be tremendously helpful.
I cannot see it happening , the UK is bad for Scotland given the size difference it will always suit England so Scotland will never prosper in UK. All infrastructure , is centred in England. No ferries to anywhere , Nearly always need to go via London if flying places , few exceptions nowaday sbut crap compared to similar small countries. weg get HS2 that suits Southern England and on and on and on.
I am fed up with nerdy sociopaths, the clinically shy and the mathematically gifted self-diagnosing as being on the spectrum. Autism is serious and if you can cope independently in society you haven't got it. And as for Asperger's, we really should stop using terms and diseases that were redefined out what, over ten years ago now?
"If you can cope independently in society you haven't got it" - I'm really not sure this is true. I work with someone with autism and have worked with other autistic people in the past. They have all been a little odd - keep eye contact with you for too long, random outbursts of swearing, that sort of thing - but all have managed to hold down a job (particularly coding) and functioned independently. I accept all cases are different, but most that I have encountered manage perfectly well.
It is confusing because they have changed the definition of autism to encompass the whole spectrum of conditions including Asperger's. It is not too long ago that autistic meant a severe handicap. It is further complicated, as you note, by the tendency of tech nerds to self-diagnose, which became fashionable after Bill Gates and now again after Elon Musk.
But Cookie and Leon are right - I have taught a lot of kids with autism and many grow to be able to mask it very well such that by 18 you wouldn’t know unless you had a particular sort of conversation one on one.
Otoh I have previously been a governor of a special school for autism and the other end of the spectrum (non-verbal, often insomniac) can make it almost impossible to function in society.
When The A-Word came out I remember of the many phone-ins about it one mother sad that such programmes drove her mad. In The A-Word the child was quite non-verbal but a common portrayal of autism is as a savant who can play Grieg's Piano Concerto having heard it once on Morecambe and Wise. The mother said that this was frustrating as the reality can be a child screaming uncontrollably for most of the day and there being no communication at all.
At the bad, lowest-functioning end of the spectrum people need care 24/7, pretty much, and they can be entirely mute (or seriously violent)
It makes me wonder if “the spectrum” makes any sense. It’s almost like saying we are all on a “blindness spectrum” from those with 20/20 vision but who can’t see deep into space to those who have no eyes
Hence the recent fierce arguments over the revival of Asperger’s as a valid diagnosis for people who are much more functional, but quirky and socially awkward etc
Support for Indy might - and probably will - ebb away, once it becomes clear there is no obvious political route to Indy. And that is now becoming clear, with an obdurate Westminster and a collapsing SNP
It used to be thought support for Quebecois independence was solid and growing and bound to win in the end. Look at what actually happened after they lost their referendum
Independence support ain't going away
It won't go away, it's always likely to ebb and flow, but at a level around 35-45% (as a ball park under current circumstances). Not enough to settle any arguments one way or another.
Which is not good for Scotland.
It is good for Scotland , we will never prosper under UK.
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
Nice.
I wouldn't. Because that is a cracking bottle and I personally would have it at home with friends when I was in control.
But I'm sure Hawksmoor will afford it due reverence and decant it properly. Make sure they do it at the table, that said.
Good point about decanting at table - didn't think of that.
I may well go for it because it's my brother's 60th birthday dinner.
Plus, I have four other bottles in reserve (bought a case at auction, sold six bottles on to offset the cost, have drunk one which looked like it might have turned - it hadn't, so feeling good).
Speak to their sommelier - some years ago at another high end place, did that. Also for a birthday. He greeted us, examined the bottle, opened it and decanted it very, very slowly. Treated it like royalty, in short.
Yes the travel is an issue as @carnforth pointed out. Perhaps do it at home. Plus not sure about a muslin cloth actually kitchen paper works (as) well. I mean if you don't have any candles to hand.
Unbleached coffee filters are best according to the Port Forum.
Yes they work (folded over so as not to spill because at the top they are v wide). But I am never sure if I've got the right filter.
I have I'm afraid to say a filter and aerator and I use the filter bit when I need to decant anything. Even the 2012s are throwing some kind of a sediment so it is not unused.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
Anything (ie any cancer) you haven't noticed.
And Pancreatic is one of those that give very little notice. Hence the 7% 5 year survivability rate
Pancreatic cancer survivabi thatlity rates haven't changed in 50 years. We have made huge strides in many other cancers but not that one.
We are burying my mother next week. She had pancreatic cancer and died 8 days after diagnosis. Another friend's dad also had it and he died 12 days from diagnosis,
Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and doesn't have clear symptoms. My mother was previously in hospital in October and they rechecked the old scan and that was clear.
8 days. My God
I suppose the only good thing is that she didn't suffer for a prolonged period of time. And I'm pleased that we were there at the end.
My sympathies
My Dad died about 3 weeks back and, in retrospect - tho it sounds daft - he was very lucky. 88 years old, a long rich vivid life, he got stage 3 lung cancer which have him 9 months to say goodbye etc. And it was largely pain free and he died lucid and at home, if you gotta go that’s about as good as it gets, unless you want to drive off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari etc
Sorry to hear that Leon. It must still be very painful. In my case, the irony is my Dad's mother is still going pretty strong at 101. I thought Nan would go before having to worry about my parents (mid 70s)
It is actually much less painful than I feared
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
I lost my partner to cancer in my thirties, a long, sorry saga drawn out over three years with ups and downs and a whole stack of ‘last holidays’. And the long, sorry end in the hospice (who were brilliant) where you effectively die, in terms of being able to sense or communicate, well before your body finally gives up.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Deepest Sympathies. I’ve had experience of both and yes, like you, the latter seems far preferable
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
A learning point, which I’ve been able to share with a few others facing the same, is to forget the bucket list.
The bucket list works fine when you’re not facing the bucket, but when the bucket is right there, not so much.
Those things we did and places we went, chosen as special things to do before you die, all we could think about was the finality of it all, and the imminence of death. So doing those things was no fun at all.
The best days were ordinary holiday days, messing around in a swimming pool or cooking a meal together, when by the end of the day we realised we’d hardly thought about death at all.
Good advice for anyone with someone terminally ill is to forget bucket list ‘special’ things and just try to capture some ordinary shared time when you can forget the bigger picture.
i entirely agree. It’s one reason I live life at full tilt. I’ve basically done my bucket list already, and it feels good. Seriously
If they delivered the Grim Reaper Gram tomorrow I could look death in his weaselly eye and say Yeah well fuck it, I’ve had a ton of fun and I do not feel cheated
Of course I wouldn’t mind another decade of fun, that said….
Is this literally the bleakest PB thread in history??!
Yep. It's making me cry. I lost a child in an accident 49 years ago and the memories have come flooding back. I'm going to take a break.
Ok we need someone to break the mood. Where’s Malcomg? We need the hurling of turnips
O/T Does anyone think it's worth taking a bottle of vintage port to a meal at decent restaurant (Hawksmoor in this case) and asking them to decant and serve it for corkage (£25) or are they likely to f*ck it up?
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
Nice.
I wouldn't. Because that is a cracking bottle and I personally would have it at home with friends when I was in control.
But I'm sure Hawksmoor will afford it due reverence and decant it properly. Make sure they do it at the table, that said.
Good point about decanting at table - didn't think of that.
I may well go for it because it's my brother's 60th birthday dinner.
Plus, I have four other bottles in reserve (bought a case at auction, sold six bottles on to offset the cost, have drunk one which looked like it might have turned - it hadn't, so feeling good).
Speak to their sommelier - some years ago at another high end place, did that. Also for a birthday. He greeted us, examined the bottle, opened it and decanted it very, very slowly. Treated it like royalty, in short.
Even in a fancy-pants restaurant, it will be the highlight of his (the sommelier’s) week, to handle a nice vintage bottle of port for a customer.
The vast majority of diners will stick to the more sensible end of the wine list, or follow the course pairings. It’s the City boys and Skeihks’ sons, who go mad with wine.
Speak to them in advance though, and agree the corkage price.
What kind of cancer kills you in five weeks, from initial diagnosis???
Fuckin ell
My wife, who had a persistent cough, went to A&E and was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer on Sept 4th 2018 and died on Sept 23rd 2018.
What a terrible thing to be confronted with. My deepest sympathies.
Indeed. What a sad list this is. RIP to everyone mentioned here
My late wife had a massive coronary infarction that was missed at the initial PM. After I insisted on it being re checked out to find out why....without going into details it was clear what had happened. ... and the coroners office said I could bury my wife as there had been no foul.play.. I wanted to.punch her lights out... just as well the conversation was over the phone
Just as bad was the obligatory visit from the Old Bill as she died at home and they legally have to check to ensure no foul play.. its a terrible thing to.have to go through. It never leaves you.
This is a lousy disease. When cancer hits the pancreas, it's hit the jackpot. It's a great neighborhood for cancer: right next to the liver, stomach, lungs, major blood and lymph nodes: basically the equivalent of a large warm flat near major Tube and BR stations with your rent and bills paid. It settles in and breeds lots of little cancers which scatter around the body like billy-o. One of the first places it hits is the liver, and whoops you can't live without one.
We deal with cancer in three ways: chemo, radiotherapy, or resection (amputation). Some new techniques are in vogue (ablation) but that's basically it. With pancreatic cancer it grows faster than you can kill it, and you can't amputate your liver because you die. In theory you can get a transplant but cancer patients don't get transplants, so you die. Every scenario ends with "...so you die"
If you are lucky, you die from a morphine overdose that your kindly GP administers to you in the certain knowledge that everybody looks the other way on this. If you are unlucky it's the bodily equivalent of Hiroshima as everything gets affected and you die from the first major organs to stop working whilst all the others queue up to do the same.
The best you can do is the Iain Banks option: make sure your loved ones are legally sorted, get your affairs tidied up, and get all the Macallan you can get
You forgot I-O
The progress we have made in oncology over the last 5 years is remarkable
TL;DR: the government’s lies are completely shameless version 592.
I was on strike again today, still somewhat conflicted (esp with two Y13 classes due to sit exams in under a month). I voted against the govt pay offer largely because it was unfunded.
Because energy costs are forecast to fall at a faster rate than previously expected, an average pay rise of 4% is now judged to be affordable for schools.
WTAF?!
So Keegan’s argument is that, because schools whose finances were already absolutely f*cked before energy prices decimated every budget we had, everywhere, now only have to pay somewhat over-the-odds energy prices, they can now afford to expand the 80% or so of their budgets that go on salaries by 4%?
And that fits within the boundaries of what any sane person would describe as a funded pay increase?
I mean, I know we all tell little white lies every so often, but that takes the biscuit. In fact it takes the whole tin, the spare packet in the back of the cupboard for midnight emergencies, the McVitie’s factory down the road*, and the futures options on all cake-adjacent products to be produced until 2134.
*I don’t actually have a McVitie’s factory down the road. Which somehow makes Keegan’s lies even harder to swallow.
Is the thinking here that as the offered pay rise was unfunded you thought it a great idea to hold out for a higher pay rise which will be, er, um, er...unfunded also?
Surely you should be agitating for a lower pay rise.
TBH I’d take a lower offer if it was funded, even though 4.5% average (which I’d see less of) is already pretty paltry.
That the government thinks it is a good idea to suck more funding out of the school system at the moment (and lie about it) is tricky to defend.
When talking about China, Russia, and their future actions, we need to ask: "What do they want?"
These were my semi-literate thoughts during a run:
In the case of democracies, that's hard to answer, as those blooming voters' views are like squeezing a balloon. In non-democracies, it may be a little easier.
In the case of Russia: what do they want? They want to be the stronkiest of the stronk. They want to be a world power, without putting the effort in to be a world power. They want to abuse the rules and cheat.
In the case of China: I've no effing idea what's in Xi's head. He wants China to be great, but to what extent? His country's prosperity depends on exports to a good extent, and any adventurism could lead to that being cut off. And what after gaining Taiwan?
As for the US: they want to remain the big king. And that involves free trade, with a slant to an advantage to them. They will do whatever they can to keep physical trade routes free.
As for Japan: they want access to markets and resources. They remember the strangulation of resources from WWII very well.
As for the rest of the west: they want to be able to trade, and to live well.
This is why South Korea and Taiwan have made themselves very important in the world economy: they have made it so it is hard for the rest of the world to turn their backs if their independence is threatened.
It’s always about the heartland.
Russia wants to control the Northern European plain and Ukraine
China wants to control all access points to the plain between the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers
Re post highlighting recent April 2023 polling that shows President Joe Biden with 70% support among Democrats versus his announced Democratic challenger Robert F Kennedy, Jr (Emerson)
NOTE that in November 1971, a Gallup Poll found that President Richard Nixon had 70% support among Republicans versus h HIS announced Republican challenger Pete McCloskey.
Comments
I have someone very close to me who is diagnosed ASD and the clinician said “You are high functioning and bright and we used to call you Aspie” and she WANTS to be called that as she feels “Aspie” fits her better. That is her choice
Is Elon one of those? I have no idea, maybe he has been diagnosed.
I wrote a long piece and then lost it.
In short, I don't believe China will swing for Taiwan in the next five years. I think the risks are simply too great, and the Taiwanwese too well prepared.
This is a lousy disease. When cancer hits the pancreas, it's hit the jackpot. It's a great neighborhood for cancer: right next to the liver, stomach, lungs, major blood and lymph nodes: basically the equivalent of a large warm flat near major Tube and BR stations with your rent and bills paid. It settles in and breeds lots of little cancers which scatter around the body like billy-o. One of the first places it hits is the liver, and whoops you can't live without one.
We deal with cancer in three ways: chemo, radiotherapy, or resection (amputation). Some new techniques are in vogue (ablation) but that's basically it. With pancreatic cancer it grows faster than you can kill it, and you can't amputate your liver because you die. In theory you can get a transplant but cancer patients don't get transplants, so you die. Every scenario ends with "...so you die"
If you are lucky, you die from a morphine overdose that your kindly GP administers to you in the certain knowledge that everybody looks the other way on this. If you are unlucky it's the bodily equivalent of Hiroshima as everything gets affected and you die from the first major organs to stop working whilst all the others queue up to do the same.
The best you can do is the Iain Banks option: make sure your loved ones are legally sorted, get your affairs tidied up, and get all the Macallan you can get
Taiwan has a bit under 60% of the foundry market, and 'most high tech' means a year or two ahead of Samsung.
And there are a quite large number of fabs under construction in the US, but that's several years off.
But supply from China would also be interrupted, which would hit the mass market stuff too.
Manufacturing of everything from cars to smartphones would be absolutely trashed.
Intel would make out pretty well.
And I hope you are right.
You are assuming rational decision making, based on all the facts, for the common good of all China.
I am reminded of the story about one of the runs of Operation Sealion during the famous Sandhurst war games of the invasion.
The young officer playing Herman Goering was asked what the hell he was doing. His reply was that he was playing Herman Goering as trying to improve the position of Herman Goering in the Nazi hierarchy first, invading Britain second.
The People's Liberation Army Navy (yes, really) has only 260,000 active personnel, against 350,000 in the US Navy. It has two aircraft carriers, but they are both relatively small (similar displacement to the QE ships), with a skijump type launch system, and based on the Russian Kuznetsov class. They are fitting out a third aircraft carrier with a a CATOBAR system.
But right now, they are dramatically less powerful than the US's Nimitz and Ford class carriers.
Will they exceed the size of the US Navy in time? Quite probably. But no means certainly. And it will take time.
My sympathies to all.
It's 1963 port so I am not wanting to waste it.
It sucks. Worse, there are bugger all warning signs.
Or maybe that's better. You live a good life, and then - in a matter of weeks - it's over.
Regarding your second point: OK, but medical categories aren't (or shouldn't be!) thrown around willy-nilly when they no longer exist as diagnoses.
These were my semi-literate thoughts during a run:
In the case of democracies, that's hard to answer, as those blooming voters' views are like squeezing a balloon. In non-democracies, it may be a little easier.
In the case of Russia: what do they want? They want to be the stronkiest of the stronk. They want to be a world power, without putting the effort in to be a world power. They want to abuse the rules and cheat.
In the case of China: I've no effing idea what's in Xi's head. He wants China to be great, but to what extent? His country's prosperity depends on exports to a good extent, and any adventurism could lead to that being cut off. And what after gaining Taiwan?
As for the US: they want to remain the big king. And that involves free trade, with a slant to an advantage to them. They will do whatever they can to keep physical trade routes free.
As for Japan: they want access to markets and resources. They remember the strangulation of resources from WWII very well.
As for the rest of the west: they want to be able to trade, and to live well.
This is why South Korea and Taiwan have made themselves very important in the world economy: they have made it so it is hard for the rest of the world to turn their backs if their independence is threatened.
As far as Taiwan is concerned, you need also to factor in Japan - who have a number of very capable subs - and S Korea.
The Swedish study says “sex-reassigned transsexual persons of both genders had approximately a three times higher risk of all-cause mortality than controls”.
If we take as given that the other study 2-3X suicide rate is correct, then doing surgery or chemical sterilization on minors gains nothing in reduced mortality.
My position is simply that we should wait until an individual is mature enough to make their own decisions before other adults make permanent, serious physical changes to them.
The counter to my position would be that if we don’t make the changes when they’re a minor, they may never reach adulthood due to suicide. However, that counterargument does not hold water if mortality is essentially unchanged, which it is.
Btw, I regard cisgender as a slur.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1651261302268997634
Breaking up with my lovely young wife in 2020, when we still loved each other, but she wanted kids so yada yada, was far far worse than losing my dad. The break up felt wrong to the point of wickedness and it drove me close to suicidality and grief and loneliness, but my Dad? Maybe the break up hardened me or maybe the death of a man of 88 after a good long rollicking life just isn’t that sad
Occasionally I miss him. I find myself thinking Ooh, I’ll tell Dad that - then I remember he’s gone. And I feel maudlin. But only for a minute or two. It certainly isn’t agonizing grief
My sister lost a child aged 5. Drowned
If you want to see unbearable, intolerable grief: that is it. Just indescribable. If either of my kids died…. God knows
It’s only now, 30 years later, that she is beginning to talk about that death, and what it did to her. Three decades. Finally she can sort of open up, a little
Wifey IS autistic and has the diagnosis to prove it. As has my eldest. So I agree. "Oh, I'm a self-diagnosed asper" just dilutes the realities of life on the spectrum, even if you are high functioning.
But "if you can cope independently you havent got [autism]" is just profoundly ignorant.
Double-decant at home a couple of hours before - i.e decant, wash the bottle, funnel it back into the bottle, stop with a whisky bottle cork or similar.
Use your best corkscrew (a proper spiral, not one with a central core). Not a disaster if the cork breaks - muslin cloth to strain it.
Stand the bottle upright a week before (or now, if less than a week to go!)
I wouldn't. Because that is a cracking bottle and I personally would have it at home with friends when I was in control.
But I'm sure Hawksmoor will afford it due reverence and decant it properly. Make sure they do it at the table, that said.
There's a recent poll out, though, that will give him encouragement (and conversely should terrify Manchin).
58% of Montana voters approve of Tester, against only 33% that disapprove: that makes him one of the most popular Senators in the US. By comparison, only 38% of voters in West Virginia approve of Manchin, and 55% disapprove. Which makes him the second most unpopular Senator in the US.
And I lost a close friend to instant death, cycling through London near Exmouth Market, a witness saw him wobble on his bike and fall off; when the ambulance arrived he was gone already. Just entering retirement and pretty fit - cycled everywhere and played tennis every weekend, but was a smoker and drinker. But no previous medical history at all.
Despite the shock to friends and family of the latter, I’d choose that every time compared to the former.
Tragic. As people say no parent expects to bury a child.
Simply, people who get surgery are highly likely to be unhappy with their lives already. That has to be the control group, not the population as a whole.
Both then embarked upon extraordinary activities (rowing the atlantic, cycling zillions of miles over the hardest peaks in Europe). It sent them both understandably insane small "i" and I can see why they then decided to put themselves at risk and push themselves physically, my theory being because they felt guilty at surviving and wanted to put themselves in an analagous position whereby death was possible so that they could feel they were somehow "even".
I’ve seen a fair amount of death now. I would rather go out in a blaze of sordid glory age 74 than drag it out to 89 and commodes and everything, but we are of course all different, and will have our own plans
BTW there is a news report today saying that the first really effective Alzheimer’s drugs are just a few years away, for sure. Too late for people in their 70s, sadly, but people in their 50s and 40s might be able to dodge the disease entirely
That will be marvelous and revolutionary. No more dementia!
"A fundamentally different service model is needed which is more in line with other paediatric provision, to provide timely and appropriate care for children and young people needing support around their gender identity. This must include support for any other clinical presentations that they may have."
Losing a partner in your 30s is especially cruel. RIP
I may well go for it because it's my brother's 60th birthday dinner.
Plus, I have four other bottles in reserve (bought a case at auction, sold six bottles on to offset the cost, have drunk one which looked like it might have turned - it hadn't, so feeling good).
He certainly exhibits all the classic traits of high functioning autism - Asperger’s as was (and as some people still like to call it, as my own clinician made clear)
The bucket list works fine when you’re not facing the bucket, but when the bucket is right there, not so much.
Those things we did and places we went, chosen as special things to do before you die, all we could think about was the finality of it all, and the imminence of death. So doing those things was no fun at all.
The best days were ordinary holiday days, messing around in a swimming pool or cooking a meal together, when by the end of the day we realised we’d hardly thought about death at all.
Good advice for anyone with someone terminally ill is to forget bucket list ‘special’ things and just try to capture some ordinary shared time when you can forget the bigger picture.
I was on strike again today, still somewhat conflicted (esp with two Y13 classes due to sit exams in under a month). I voted against the govt pay offer largely because it was unfunded.
So I was a bit surprised to hear Keegan saying on the morning news “it was fully funded; we need to do more to get that message out.” Being a credulous chappy (and with a healthy skepticism of the NEU’s ability to play a straight bat), I went in search of an explainer and found this: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/03/28/teacher-strikes-latest-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-teacher-pay-offer/
Because energy costs are forecast to fall at a faster rate than previously expected, an average pay rise of 4% is now judged to be affordable for schools.
WTAF?!
So Keegan’s argument is that, because schools whose finances were already absolutely f*cked before energy prices decimated every budget we had, everywhere, now only have to pay somewhat over-the-odds energy prices, they can now afford to expand the 80% or so of their budgets that go on salaries by 4%?
And that fits within the boundaries of what any sane person would describe as a funded pay increase?
I mean, I know we all tell little white lies every so often, but that takes the biscuit. In fact it takes the whole tin, the spare packet in the back of the cupboard for midnight emergencies, the McVitie’s factory down the road*, and the futures options on all cake-adjacent products to be produced until 2134.
*I don’t actually have a McVitie’s factory down the road. Which somehow makes Keegan’s lies even harder to swallow.
*https://simmerandslice.co.uk/products/vacu-vin-cork-puller
Surely you should be agitating for a lower pay rise.
If they delivered the Grim Reaper Gram tomorrow I could look death in his weaselly eye and say Yeah well fuck it, I’ve had a ton of fun and I do not feel cheated
Of course I wouldn’t mind another decade of fun, that said….
Is this literally the bleakest PB thread in history??!
The 'crucial, highly valuable' perk that striking teachers are keeping quiet about
Unions rejected a pay rise and bonus, arguing wages are down 23pc in real terms
Teachers across England are asking for a 15pc pay rise, despite receiving pension contributions nearly eight times that of the private sector.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/pensions-retirement/news/teachers-pay-strike-public-sector-pension-cost/ (£££)
Otoh I have previously been a governor of a special school for autism and the other end of the spectrum (non-verbal, often insomniac) can make it almost impossible to function in society.
Sympathies to all those who have lost loved ones. Which is pretty much all of us I guess.
What is the definition of happiness?
Grandfather dies… then father dies…. Then son dies…… IN THAT ORDER
I have always imagined, if presented with that terminal-diagnosis situation, that I would want to run through my own bucket list, but your post makes undeniable sense.
1. One of the things that should do for the government is the endemic... not so much lying as weaseling. Outright lies are easy to spot. The trouble with weasel is you have to dig quite a way down to find the central lie, and life is too short.
2. The government is clearly scrabbling around for spare pennies. (We can't afford to do HS2 properly, or pay permanent pay rises, or anything that isn't to do with pensions.) Do the Conservatives really want to have to go through this until 2029?
3. One of our problems as a country is that, collectively, we've skimped on pension planning for decades. Teacher pensions are reasonably properly funded, and it costs what it costs. Do we really want to pass the buck onto the future there as well?
I really don't understand why every now and again we have this dialogue based on a casual comment from Leon. Leon then proceeds to defend his debatable view with his claimed expertise.
It makes me wonder if “the spectrum” makes any sense. It’s almost like saying we are all on a “blindness spectrum” from those with 20/20 vision but who can’t see deep into space to those who have no eyes
Hence the recent fierce arguments over the revival of Asperger’s as a valid diagnosis for people who are much more functional, but quirky and socially awkward etc
I have I'm afraid to say a filter and aerator and I use the filter bit when I need to decant anything. Even the 2012s are throwing some kind of a sediment so it is not unused.
Five weeks later, she was dead.
If they don't pick it up until Stage 4, it can happen pretty quickly, unfortunately.
The vast majority of diners will stick to the more sensible end of the wine list, or follow the course pairings. It’s the City boys and Skeihks’ sons, who go mad with wine.
Speak to them in advance though, and agree the corkage price.
I’d even welcome a chat about Crufts
Just as bad was the obligatory visit from the Old Bill as she died at home and they legally have to check to ensure no foul play.. its a terrible thing to.have to go through. It never leaves you.
The progress we have made in oncology over the last 5 years is remarkable
What a thread. At least we have shared and commiserated. God bless all those who have loved and lost. Which seems to be just about everyone
Later
X
F1 Sprint races, or VAR in football. Maybe even AV vs FPTP elections.
That the government thinks it is a good idea to suck more funding out of the school system at the moment (and lie about it) is tricky to defend.
Russia wants to control the Northern European plain and Ukraine
China wants to control all access points to the plain between the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers
NOTE that in November 1971, a Gallup Poll found that President Richard Nixon had 70% support among Republicans versus h HIS announced Republican challenger Pete McCloskey.