Stocky said:

Cookie said:

TOPPING said:

Leon said:

TOPPING said:

Leon said:

TOPPING said:

When I go on walks, runs, cycles, h*rs*b*ck r*d*ng, etc I am often tempted to listen to podcasts (The Anti-Trans Hate Machine on the one hand; and Gender: A Wider Lens on the other, for example).

However, I invariably don't. In London because I once, rightly, got a bollocking from a black cab driver about wearing headphones and cycling; and otherwise because I like to take in my surroundings. That said, if I had to use a public pool doing length after length, than which I can think of nothing more boring, I might be tempted to listen to something.

Swimming is great physical and mental exercise. I love it. However I also hate it, as it is so numbingly dull. I've ALWAYS wanted to find a genuine waterproof MP3 player. I wonder if @rcs1000 is talking about something like this:


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Swim-Mp3-Players/b?ie=UTF8&node=3589868031

Suddenly you've got music, podcasts, audible books. Superb

The interesting thing about swimming is either you can or you can't. Throughout the years I have prided myself on being, ahem, quite - let's say very fit. All kinds of exercise/activities without breaking too much of a sweat or at least seeing it through while still in control.

But one length of swimming front crawl breathing every three or even two arm raises, or whatever they're called, and I'm fucked. I'm the idiot standing or treading water at the end of the pool after each and every length clawing for air while these 5'2" 15 stone folk happily swim length after length after length like sleek amphibians.

Yes it's unusual. I've seen guys like you - no offense - apparently very athletic, yet absolutely useless at swimming (and also rich and educated so it's not like they never learned). I've no doubt that they'd - like you - would beat me at every single other physical exercise, yet I can power past them in the pool

The particular advantage for me in swimming is that it is kind on the knees. As I advance in years, my knees are the dodgiest bits. They creak, and sometimes cause me pain. Not in a pool

Yes it is super great technique, no doubt about it. I mean before I go into the pool I 2x check my banking app to confirm my net worth but nope, still founder around like a drunk turtle.

Can I also hold my hand up here? I have always been pretty strong, I have stamina, in my heyday I could run 100m in under 12s. But put me in water and I have the grace and athleticism of a cow and the buoyancy of a rock.

Ah you too. It can't be anything to do with buoyancy. Stick a snorkel and mask on me and I'm set for the day but without I'm crap. So it must be something to do with an inability to keep mouth above the waterline I guess.

Selebian said:

Sandpit said:

ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

ONS and OSR are different bodies, although both under UKSA, I believe. The ONS would have no business commenting on statistics not produced by themselves. That is, explicitly, the OSR's role.

On the substantive point, these schemes should aim to be revenue neutral, with e.g. all funds raised ploughed back into transport infrastructure (including supporting transition to compliant vehicles).

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

Leon said:

Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

(Yes, I am aware of the irony)

Idiot.

Use a different browser

Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

(Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).

But they come even when I'm not browsing?

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

HYUFD said:

148grss said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?

I can answer that!

Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.

What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now

What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..

Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.

No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.

Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?

Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.

Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day

He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.

Carnyx said:

WhisperingOracle said:

One person who admittedly did reintroduce quite a lot of Merrie after the rigours of the more Cromwellianite "dissent" was Charles II and the Restoration.

I'm always surprised how few people know he was also actually a descendant of the Medicis, and also actually looked quite obviously Italian.

His lot were a bunch of thugs who did serious harm to people in Scotland at that time. Not very Merrie there. Indeed, it's known as the Killing Time.

OldKingCole said:

Sandpit said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

jamesdoyle said:

Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Sandpit said:

ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

£12.50 a day. All day, every day.

You can get a compliant car for less than that.

Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?

£12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.

The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.

While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?

Political opinions, according to a number of stories this week that follow up from the Farage case.

IIRC the post office and a number of HS banks will give you a basic account, so long as you pass their ‘person’ check (for terrorist lists, sanctions etc). Farage was specifically refused a number of these.

Most of the rapid-sign-up alt-banks are very much aimed at the moderately wealthy, rather than the poor.

Says something about the perception of Farage!

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

HYUFD said:

148grss said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?

I can answer that!

Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.

What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now

What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..

Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.

No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.

Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?

Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.

Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day

He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.

He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.

HYUFD said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

HYUFD said:

148grss said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?

I can answer that!

Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.

What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now

What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..

Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.

No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.

Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?

Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.

Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day

He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.

Yes he was, he so hated high church Anglicanism he abolished the BCP and replaced it with a Directorate of Worship and abolished Bishops too.

The Church of England effectively became Presbyterian under his rule, the fact he didn't like Levellers anarchy doesn't change the fact he was very low church

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

jamesdoyle said:

Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Sandpit said:

ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

£12.50 a day. All day, every day.

You can get a compliant car for less than that.

Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?

£12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.

The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.

While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?

TOPPING said:

Leon said:

I see Caitlin Moran's new book is getting a savaging almost everywhere

This take down in the New Statesman is especially sharp

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2023/07/has-caitlin-moran-met-man

She is bearable. The one I simply don't get is Robert Crampton (actually had to google him so unmemorable are his columns). His are the equivalent of bad stand up: "woke up today and, as an older bloke, thought I'd try to take the bins out two at a time. Well I can tell you taking the bins out two at a time isn't so easy...."

etc

Richard_Tyndall said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

jamesdoyle said:

Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Sandpit said:

ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

£12.50 a day. All day, every day.

You can get a compliant car for less than that.

Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?

£12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.

The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.

While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?

Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.

Nigelb said:

Nigelb said:

rcs1000 said:

@Cookie

You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

And it's true! They are.

The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

* Trees also work.

You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

Some of the maths here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency

Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.

HYUFD said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

HYUFD said:

148grss said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?

I can answer that!

Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.

What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now

What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..

Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.

No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.

Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?

Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.

Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day

He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.

Yes he was, he so hated high church Anglicanism he abolished the BCP and replaced it with a Directorate of Worship and abolished Bishops too.

The Church of England effectively became Presbyterian under his rule, the fact he didn't like Levellers anarchy doesn't change the fact he was very low church

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

Leon said:

Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

(Yes, I am aware of the irony)

Idiot.

Use a different browser

Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

(Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).

I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

(I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)

Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

HYUFD said:

148grss said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?

I can answer that!

Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.

What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now

What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..

Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.

No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.

Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?

Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.

Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day

He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.

He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.

Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...

Sandpit said:

Nigelb said:

Nigelb said:

rcs1000 said:

@Cookie

You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

And it's true! They are.

The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

* Trees also work.

You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

Some of the maths here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency

Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.

Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.

Sandpit said:

Nigelb said:

Nigelb said:

rcs1000 said:

@Cookie

You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

And it's true! They are.

The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

* Trees also work.

You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

Some of the maths here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency

Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.

Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.

OldKingCole said:

HYUFD said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

HYUFD said:

148grss said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?

I can answer that!

Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.

What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now

What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..

Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.

No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.

Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?

Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.

Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day

He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.

Yes he was, he so hated high church Anglicanism he abolished the BCP and replaced it with a Directorate of Worship and abolished Bishops too.

The Church of England effectively became Presbyterian under his rule, the fact he didn't like Levellers anarchy doesn't change the fact he was very low church

The small town where I live was a centre of Low Church attitudes. One of the vicars went on to be a celebrated writer on religious affairs in the 17th C.
Fast forward a few centuries and we had a vicar who was very High Church indeed. Friend of mine who was a retired History academic offered the vicar a talk on his 17th C predecessor.

It was refused not entirely gracefully!

HYUFD said:

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

HYUFD said:

148grss said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?

I can answer that!

Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.

What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now

What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..

Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.

No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.

Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?

Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.

Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day

He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.

He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.

Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...

How can he have been OK with the C of E when he abolished the Book of Common Prayer and Bishops? Without those the Anglican C of E effectively ceased to exist under his rule

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

Leon said:

Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

(Yes, I am aware of the irony)

Idiot.

Use a different browser

Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

(Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).

I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

(I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)

Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?

RobD said:

Leon said:

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

Leon said:

Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

(Yes, I am aware of the irony)

Idiot.

Use a different browser

Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

(Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).

I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

(I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)

Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?

If and when I get another, sure

Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface

You should be able to right click on it and select uninstall.

Sandpit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

jamesdoyle said:

Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Sandpit said:

ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

£12.50 a day. All day, every day.

You can get a compliant car for less than that.

Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?

£12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.

The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.

While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?

Technology and money.

Take Monzo (and some others) are App only, you cannot access your account on a browser;

Some of these people do not have a smartphone to open/access their accounts.

Reality is some of these people cannot even afford a £50 very basic smartphone.

The £50 basic smartphone, will be so many Andriod versions behind, as to be unsupported anyway.

You can still get a basic bank account at the Post Office, right? Is the problem people having insufficient documentation of an address?

Leon said:

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

Leon said:

Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

(Yes, I am aware of the irony)

Idiot.

Use a different browser

Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

(Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).

I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

(I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)

Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?

If and when I get another, sure

Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface

dixiedean said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Benpointer said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

jamesdoyle said:

Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Sandpit said:

ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

£12.50 a day. All day, every day.

You can get a compliant car for less than that.

Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?

£12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.

The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.

While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?

Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.

Anyone on Universal Credit pretty much has to be online, or have a helper who can get online for them.

I think the latter is more likely to be the case given that the Digital Poverty charity are the ones I am quoting to get the 14 million figure (which I must admit very mch surprised me when I first heard it a couple of months ago).

Having someone do the online UC stuff for you once every few months is not the same as having daily or even weekly access to banking

It isn't once every few months.
You get regular to-do lists and all queries, complaints, questions are Online.

HYUFD said:

Just Stop Oil protestors arrested after throwing orange paint and jigsaw pieces on Wimbledon court 18

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/66041547

Sandpit said:

Nigelb said:

Nigelb said:

rcs1000 said:

@Cookie

You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

And it's true! They are.

The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

* Trees also work.

You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

Some of the maths here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency

Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.

Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

HYUFD said:

148grss said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?

I can answer that!

Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.

What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now

What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..

Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.

No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.

Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?

Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.

Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day

He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.

He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.

Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...

How can he have been OK with the C of E when he abolished the Book of Common Prayer and Bishops? Without those the Anglican C of E effectively ceased to exist under his rule

That was political - because of the Divine Right nonsense which the Bishops and the BCP upheld. Just as with the Levellers, it wasn't a religious issue.

Malmesbury said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

I don't know if it's been discussed already today sorry but what do people think of reports Toyota are claiming they can make an affordable solid state battery that has a range of 750 miles and can be charged in ten minutes? https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/toyota-claims-battery-breakthrough-electric-cars

Seems to me to be a case of "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is". Except Toyota are a legitimate company so are they really just trying to blow smoke?

If it's genuine then it seems a real game changer. But if it is, is a big if.

You’ll probably find, if you dig, that they have lab results that indicate they have a battery tech, that if scaled up, would indicate an increase in batter density and charging rate that would support the above figures.

Which would put it about a decade from being in a car.

Toyota are way, way behind in the EV race and badly need something like this.

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

Leon said:

Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

(Yes, I am aware of the irony)

Idiot.

Use a different browser

Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

(Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).

I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

(I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)

Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?

If and when I get another, sure

Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface

Apols for sounding like a stuck record but I have never had a unwanted app install itself since switching to Apple 12 years ago.

OldKingCole said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

HYUFD said:

148grss said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?

I can answer that!

Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.

What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now

What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..

Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.

No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.

Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?

Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.

Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day

He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.

He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.

Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...

How can he have been OK with the C of E when he abolished the Book of Common Prayer and Bishops? Without those the Anglican C of E effectively ceased to exist under his rule

That was political - because of the Divine Right nonsense which the Bishops and the BCP upheld. Just as with the Levellers, it wasn't a religious issue.

Does the BCP still talk about the Divine Right of Sovereigns ?
I thought 1688 and the Glorious Revolution had done for all that!

HYUFD said:

Just Stop Oil protestors arrested after throwing orange paint and jigsaw pieces on Wimbledon court 18

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/66041547

Richard_Tyndall said:

dixiedean said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Benpointer said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

jamesdoyle said:

Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Sandpit said:

ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

£12.50 a day. All day, every day.

You can get a compliant car for less than that.

Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?

£12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.

The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.

While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?

Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.

Anyone on Universal Credit pretty much has to be online, or have a helper who can get online for them.

I think the latter is more likely to be the case given that the Digital Poverty charity are the ones I am quoting to get the 14 million figure (which I must admit very mch surprised me when I first heard it a couple of months ago).

Having someone do the online UC stuff for you once every few months is not the same as having daily or even weekly access to banking

It isn't once every few months.
You get regular to-do lists and all queries, complaints, questions are Online.

Still something that can be dealt with by getting someone else to access for you.

So the question remains, how do 14 million people with limited or no internet access manage to handle online banking?

New Thread

Sandpit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Sandpit said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

jamesdoyle said:

Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Sandpit said:

ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

£12.50 a day. All day, every day.

You can get a compliant car for less than that.

Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?

£12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.

The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.

While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?

Technology and money.

Take Monzo (and some others) are App only, you cannot access your account on a browser;

Some of these people do not have a smartphone to open/access their accounts.

Reality is some of these people cannot even afford a £50 very basic smartphone.

The £50 basic smartphone, will be so many Andriod versions behind, as to be unsupported anyway.

You can still get a basic bank account at the Post Office, right? Is the problem people having insufficient documentation of an address?

The Post Office Basic Account was closed a while back.

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/benefits/problems-with-benefits/what-to-do-now-your-post-office-card-account-is-closing

Dare I ask why? I hate government services as much as most conservatives, but as a fallback for those who have bank accounts shut on them…?

Carnyx said:

OldKingCole said:

HYUFD said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

HYUFD said:

148grss said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?

I can answer that!

Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.

What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now

What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..

Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.

No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.

Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?

Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.

Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day

He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.

Yes he was, he so hated high church Anglicanism he abolished the BCP and replaced it with a Directorate of Worship and abolished Bishops too.

The Church of England effectively became Presbyterian under his rule, the fact he didn't like Levellers anarchy doesn't change the fact he was very low church

The small town where I live was a centre of Low Church attitudes. One of the vicars went on to be a celebrated writer on religious affairs in the 17th C.
Fast forward a few centuries and we had a vicar who was very High Church indeed. Friend of mine who was a retired History academic offered the vicar a talk on his 17th C predecessor.

It was refused not entirely gracefully!

I remember visiting Berwick upon Tweed parish kirk one day and beign fascinated by this Cromwellian build - as I recall, a decent Presbyterian design mucked up by a bad attempt to tart it up with High Church bling. We happened to run into the cassock-wearing incumbent, who very decently gave us a quick tour, but disagreed with my assessment!

Leon said:

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

Benpointer said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

Leon said:

Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

(Yes, I am aware of the irony)

Idiot.

Use a different browser

Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

(Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).

I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

(I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)

Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?

If and when I get another, sure

Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface

Apols for sounding like a stuck record but I have never had a unwanted app install itself since switching to Apple 12 years ago.

There's a guy on Twitter who alleges that the Mails' Allow/Block Notifications box is a fake, and merely by clicking on it - even Block - it then installs a widget on your PC

"Not that I should really expect any better, but the fact that the Daily Mail website displays a fake notification consent box so it can spam you after you click "Block" is particularly deceitful."

https://twitter.com/cpuonfire/status/1637560495489142785?s=20

No idea if that is true

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

I don't know if it's been discussed already today sorry but what do people think of reports Toyota are claiming they can make an affordable solid state battery that has a range of 750 miles and can be charged in ten minutes? https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/toyota-claims-battery-breakthrough-electric-cars

Seems to me to be a case of "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is". Except Toyota are a legitimate company so are they really just trying to blow smoke?

If it's genuine then it seems a real game changer. But if it is, is a big if.

You’ll probably find, if you dig, that they have lab results that indicate they have a battery tech, that if scaled up, would indicate an increase in batter density and charging rate that would support the above figures.

Which would put it about a decade from being in a car.

Toyota are way, way behind in the EV race and badly need something like this.

Iteration usually beats revolution.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Well.

SNP MP Angus MacNeil suspended after he accuses chief whip of 'bullying'

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-mp-angus-macneil-suspended-30396964

Sandpit said:

Nigelb said:

Nigelb said:

rcs1000 said:

@Cookie

You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

And it's true! They are.

The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

* Trees also work.

You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

Some of the maths here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency

Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.

Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.

WhisperingOracle said:

HYUFD said:

Just Stop Oil protestors arrested after throwing orange paint and jigsaw pieces on Wimbledon court 18

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/66041547

Strawberries and cream stopped, mid-mouthful.

The blazer-jacketed quaffing of Pimms stopped and prevented too.

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

I don't know if it's been discussed already today sorry but what do people think of reports Toyota are claiming they can make an affordable solid state battery that has a range of 750 miles and can be charged in ten minutes? https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/toyota-claims-battery-breakthrough-electric-cars

Seems to me to be a case of "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is". Except Toyota are a legitimate company so are they really just trying to blow smoke?

If it's genuine then it seems a real game changer. But if it is, is a big if.

You’ll probably find, if you dig, that they have lab results that indicate they have a battery tech, that if scaled up, would indicate an increase in batter density and charging rate that would support the above figures.

Which would put it about a decade from being in a car.

Toyota are way, way behind in the EV race and badly need something like this.

Iteration usually beats revolution.

HYUFD said:

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Malmesbury said:

HYUFD said:

148grss said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?

I can answer that!

Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.

What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now

What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..

Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.

No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.

Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?

Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.

Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day

He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.

He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.

Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...

How can he have been OK with the C of E when he abolished the Book of Common Prayer and Bishops? Without those the Anglican C of E effectively ceased to exist under his rule.

Cromwell was closer to a Baptist or Presbyterian than Anglican