I have just been in a card shop, in which I have seen - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
It gets worse than that, Asda have a range that includes "Happy Valentines Day from the dog".
Buying your pet something is weird, buying yourself something and saying it came from the pet is even worse.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
It gets worse than that, Asda have a range that includes "Happy Valentines Day from the dog".
Buying your pet something is weird, buying yourself something and saying it came from the pet is even worse.
There is a serious chance the Guardian will disappear. That’s an enormous change in our media ecosystem
And much as I despise their woke politics and “x and x is racist” journalism-by-numbers that would be a sad loss for UK media
People don't want to pay for news, and lots of people will give out for free 'news' untethered by inconvenient facts or opinions. I'm surprised we still have any professionals left.
Soon, there won’t be many left
A few massive brands will survive and devour the others
The NYT, the Mail, who else? The FT does ok
Perhaps one of Times and Telegraph
I used to think the guardian was solid but now they look to be in desperate trouble
The sun is the one red top which will survive
All the others will go, mirror, star, express, all the Scottish papers. Most US papers etc
- If the Tories get to within about 7 points on average polling they go straight away. It won't happen.
- If they recover a little in Spring, to within 15 points, but the party is still fractious, the push-pull of going may still determine a May election
- Any recovery to within 15 up to late April still gives the push-pull effect, discontent about May LE results would be spiked by the campaign for an early June election.
- If we get to September, we start looking more in terms of timing considerations rather than polling considerations. Are plots still afoot, can we afford the Tory conference, can we go under the shadow of the US election, what about Christmas. I tend to disregard where King Charles is in all this, feeling there are ways and means to do all the protocol stuff whenever required and that CHOGM is something of a red herring.
My view is quite simple. A government this far behind will always go the distance, if it is able to do so. December election then a massive odds-on favourite.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
It gets worse than that, Asda have a range that includes "Happy Valentines Day from the dog".
Buying your pet something is weird, buying yourself something and saying it came from the pet is even worse.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Two options:
1. It’s a joke about what to buy your favourite pussy today. 2. There’s enough unmarried mad cat women with money to spend, that card makers now see them as a demographic.
There are dozens of others, you are being insanely restrictive
The Golden Age of TV (let's hope it hasn't ended) has produced maybe 100 fantastic shows
Remember The Killing, the Danish version?
OMFG. Just absolutely compelling. not merely some of the greatest TV drama, some of the greatest drama of any form I have ever watched. You could not take your eyes off it, even tho it was bitterly harrowing. What a show
Squid Game Chernobyl Vikings
&c &c
I loved the Killing but we did not get all of it, the sub-titles gave us a couple of sentences when it was clear a lot more was going on. The same with The Bridge - there was a sustained joke in that about the way Swedes and Danes speak that was totally inaccessible to non-Danish/Swedish natives. So, these were probably even better than we thought. Chernobyl was brilliant too. I thought we were talking about multi-series examples, not one or two. But it is true I don't watch a whole heap of telly.
I speak Danish and Swedish so was able to follow them both. An issue with the subtitltes is that they were sexed up - the detectives would say something like "What exactly do you mean?" and the subtitle would say "What the fuck do you mean?" The subtitler defended the changes by saying that British audiences would think that police who don't swear were implausible, which is a bit depressing if true,
Danish actually doesn't have sexual swear words, though young Danes borrow the English words - Danish doesn't get much rougher than "shit" and "devil". Whether that relates to the famous and long-standing Danish tolerance of sexual behaviour is an interesting question - maybe if you think that most kinds of sex are just a great part of life, then saying "fuck" in a negative sense is a bit pointless?
But yes, great series anyway!
Korean is a bit like that (although they do have "fuck" etc). Because it's a language based around formality, something like "are you mad" can be swearing.
Russian appears to be the only language as good as English for swearing.
Czech perhaps, judging from The Good Soldier Svejk.
All the slavic languages have a rich vocabulary of filth, and the structure of the verbs allows the expression of concepts which are not only physically challenging, but baroque in their intensity.
In Estonian, by contrast, it is quite hard to swear at all...
Mum swears at me all the time in the Malayalam language, especially when I read PB at the dinner table
You need to leave home and find yourself a wife.
Then she can swear at you for spending too much time on PB. And Rail Forums too.
The idea Labour is using anti-Semitism to win Muslim votes is nutty, we've really fallen down the beergate hole.
That’s not the charge
The charge is they are willing to -*tolerate* anti-semitism as the price of those votes
The moderate end of Labour tolerate it, or sweep it under the carpet. The left wing element bask in their anti-Semitism as a badge of honour and actively encourage it.
Remarkable how the extreme right is now getting away with the assertion that any criticism of Israel amounts to anti-Semitism.
Vladimir Putin must be wishing he could have pulled a trick like that.
The extreme right do and say all sorts of bad and stupid things. That kind of whataboutery doesn't let the Labour Party off the hook. The most vociferous Labour Party members on the subject claim their criticism is about the state of Israel, which is perfectly OK if it were limited to that, but for many who like to attack "Zionism" it is just code for their racist hatred of Jews and the stereotypical association of Jewry with global capitalism.
Yep, that's true. And on the right it's the Soros references that give the game away.
Anti-Semitism is everywhere, but your argument seems to be "oh look we have found some examples in the Tory Party, so that means it is OK in the Labour Party". Shame you take this view. Labour has a MASSIVE problem with this. Starmer has not yet sorted it, by a long way
Regardless what some media outlets say, regardless what Labours political opponents say, can we agree on PB - we currently have zero evidence Azhar Ali has said anything antisemitic?
Again:
Mr Ali, blaming "people in the media from certain Jewish quarters" for the suspension of Andy McDonald from the Labour Party.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
It gets worse than that, Asda have a range that includes "Happy Valentines Day from the dog".
Buying your pet something is weird, buying yourself something and saying it came from the pet is even worse.
Can that be found in the Bestiality card section?
Shocked at the state of your mind, and that of the others too.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Two options:
1. It’s a joke about what to buy your favourite pussy today. 2. There’s enough unmarried mad cat women with money to spend, that card makers now see them as a demographic.
Indeed. But surely even the maddest of mad cat women recognise that their cats can't read and derive no value from a card. I'm fond of my cats. I sometimes buy them things. But only ever things I think they will like - i.e. cat treats or cat toys. What the bloody hell is a cat, even the most cherished, going to do with a card? It even comes with an envelope for it to be unable to open. Utter madness.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
There is an advert on ITV which mentions, among other anniversaries to be remembered ‘your cat’s birthday’!
I can’t remember what product is being promoted, but if I find out what is, I definitely won’t buy it!
There are dozens of others, you are being insanely restrictive
The Golden Age of TV (let's hope it hasn't ended) has produced maybe 100 fantastic shows
Remember The Killing, the Danish version?
OMFG. Just absolutely compelling. not merely some of the greatest TV drama, some of the greatest drama of any form I have ever watched. You could not take your eyes off it, even tho it was bitterly harrowing. What a show
Squid Game Chernobyl Vikings
&c &c
I loved the Killing but we did not get all of it, the sub-titles gave us a couple of sentences when it was clear a lot more was going on. The same with The Bridge - there was a sustained joke in that about the way Swedes and Danes speak that was totally inaccessible to non-Danish/Swedish natives. So, these were probably even better than we thought. Chernobyl was brilliant too. I thought we were talking about multi-series examples, not one or two. But it is true I don't watch a whole heap of telly.
I speak Danish and Swedish so was able to follow them both. An issue with the subtitltes is that they were sexed up - the detectives would say something like "What exactly do you mean?" and the subtitle would say "What the fuck do you mean?" The subtitler defended the changes by saying that British audiences would think that police who don't swear were implausible, which is a bit depressing if true,
Danish actually doesn't have sexual swear words, though young Danes borrow the English words - Danish doesn't get much rougher than "shit" and "devil". Whether that relates to the famous and long-standing Danish tolerance of sexual behaviour is an interesting question - maybe if you think that most kinds of sex are just a great part of life, then saying "fuck" in a negative sense is a bit pointless?
But yes, great series anyway!
Korean is a bit like that (although they do have "fuck" etc). Because it's a language based around formality, something like "are you mad" can be swearing.
Russian appears to be the only language as good as English for swearing.
Czech perhaps, judging from The Good Soldier Svejk.
All the slavic languages have a rich vocabulary of filth, and the structure of the verbs allows the expression of concepts which are not only physically challenging, but baroque in their intensity.
In Estonian, by contrast, it is quite hard to swear at all...
Mum swears at me all the time in the Malayalam language, especially when I read PB at the dinner table
You need to leave home and find yourself a wife.
Then she can swear at you for spending too much time on PB. And Rail Forums too.
More importantly, she can tell your mother off, for telling you off.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Two options:
1. It’s a joke about what to buy your favourite pussy today. 2. There’s enough unmarried mad cat women with money to spend, that card makers now see them as a demographic.
I’m posting too much on PB and I’m probably not making coherent sense as lambing season is now playing with my sleep pattern, I’m probably over tired as even when asleep it’s on my mind to wake up so I wake up quickly and so not getting long sleep. I’ve been bottle feeding lambs every day for a week. I’ve got plenty of sheep now all bagged up round the back, and a few that don’t seem to be but are pawing a lot and lying around like trying to say something. Don’t look like I’ll be staying up for this weeks by elections. 🥱 I’ll need to be more awake and coherent than this to be posting here.
There are dozens of others, you are being insanely restrictive
The Golden Age of TV (let's hope it hasn't ended) has produced maybe 100 fantastic shows
Remember The Killing, the Danish version?
OMFG. Just absolutely compelling. not merely some of the greatest TV drama, some of the greatest drama of any form I have ever watched. You could not take your eyes off it, even tho it was bitterly harrowing. What a show
Squid Game Chernobyl Vikings
&c &c
I loved the Killing but we did not get all of it, the sub-titles gave us a couple of sentences when it was clear a lot more was going on. The same with The Bridge - there was a sustained joke in that about the way Swedes and Danes speak that was totally inaccessible to non-Danish/Swedish natives. So, these were probably even better than we thought. Chernobyl was brilliant too. I thought we were talking about multi-series examples, not one or two. But it is true I don't watch a whole heap of telly.
I speak Danish and Swedish so was able to follow them both. An issue with the subtitltes is that they were sexed up - the detectives would say something like "What exactly do you mean?" and the subtitle would say "What the fuck do you mean?" The subtitler defended the changes by saying that British audiences would think that police who don't swear were implausible, which is a bit depressing if true,
Danish actually doesn't have sexual swear words, though young Danes borrow the English words - Danish doesn't get much rougher than "shit" and "devil". Whether that relates to the famous and long-standing Danish tolerance of sexual behaviour is an interesting question - maybe if you think that most kinds of sex are just a great part of life, then saying "fuck" in a negative sense is a bit pointless?
But yes, great series anyway!
Korean is a bit like that (although they do have "fuck" etc). Because it's a language based around formality, something like "are you mad" can be swearing.
Russian appears to be the only language as good as English for swearing.
Czech perhaps, judging from The Good Soldier Svejk.
All the slavic languages have a rich vocabulary of filth, and the structure of the verbs allows the expression of concepts which are not only physically challenging, but baroque in their intensity.
In Estonian, by contrast, it is quite hard to swear at all...
Mum swears at me all the time in the Malayalam language, especially when I read PB at the dinner table
You need to leave home and find yourself a wife.
Then she can swear at you for spending too much time on PB. And Rail Forums too.
There is a serious chance the Guardian will disappear. That’s an enormous change in our media ecosystem
And much as I despise their woke politics and “x and x is racist” journalism-by-numbers that would be a sad loss for UK media
Just about the only way to do it, is to get back an old-fashioned print media advertising team to do their online advertising. With high-profile static ads, hosted themselves, and forcefully ditching all the online tracking bollocks that makes free-to-read news online almost impossible without extensive blocking software.
There is a serious chance the Guardian will disappear. That’s an enormous change in our media ecosystem
And much as I despise their woke politics and “x and x is racist” journalism-by-numbers that would be a sad loss for UK media
I would miss The Observer a lot more than I'd miss The Guardian. The latter sold its soul to Owen Jones and is now paying the price. It has some good columnists and one or two stellar reporters (who could all easily go elsewhere), but its overall output is abysmal. The Observer is so much better but online its content gets lumped in with the Guardian's so gets missed. If the FT had decent sports coverage it would be unmatchable, IMO.
I have just been in a card shop, in which I have seen - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Two options:
1. It’s a joke about what to buy your favourite pussy today. 2. There’s enough unmarried mad cat women with money to spend, that card makers now see them as a demographic.
There used to be a whole industry making ducking stools for them.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Two options:
1. It’s a joke about what to buy your favourite pussy today. 2. There’s enough unmarried mad cat women with money to spend, that card makers now see them as a demographic.
Taylor Swift fits the bill perfectly. Not sure how many cats she has though, so don't know how many she would buy.
There is a serious chance the Guardian will disappear. That’s an enormous change in our media ecosystem
And much as I despise their woke politics and “x and x is racist” journalism-by-numbers that would be a sad loss for UK media
I would miss The Observer a lot more than I'd miss The Guardian. The latter sold its soul to Owen Jones and is now paying the price. It has some good columnists and one or two stellar reporters (who could all easily go elsewhere), but its overall output is abysmal. The Observer is so much better but online its content gets lumped in with the Guardian's so gets missed. If the FT had decent sports coverage it would be unmatchable, IMO.
I would be very sad to see the Guardian go. After the massive deterioration in quality of journalism at the Telegraph over the last couple of decades I consider the Guardian and the Times the only two remaining newspapers of note either online or in physical copy. In spite of the fact that the Guardian has its left wing bias I still consider it an essential read.
There is somethig seriously wrong with much of the British media. Compare the depth and breadth of news covered by France 24 or Al Jazeera with the poor offerings from the BBC or Sky. British journalism - with some notable exceptions - is in a parlous state these days.
There is a serious chance the Guardian will disappear. That’s an enormous change in our media ecosystem
And much as I despise their woke politics and “x and x is racist” journalism-by-numbers that would be a sad loss for UK media
I would miss The Observer a lot more than I'd miss The Guardian. The latter sold its soul to Owen Jones and is now paying the price. It has some good columnists and one or two stellar reporters (who could all easily go elsewhere), but its overall output is abysmal. The Observer is so much better but online its content gets lumped in with the Guardian's so gets missed. If the FT had decent sports coverage it would be unmatchable, IMO.
The Guardian is increasingly shit. No getting round it
There are only so many variations of “mountains are racist” or “mortgages are racist” and they’ve tried them all
Meanwhile which of their columnists is a must read? Stewart Lee has stopped being funny (last time I checked). Jones rants. Toynbee should retire. Marina Hyde has lost her edge - weirdly, when the Tories are such a target
I only really read jay Rayner with pleasure. If it went behind a paywall no way would I pay for it
I can get vague soft left bbc news from the bbc and foreign reportage from the much superior NYT (which also has better sports and cooking etc) and I pay 50 CENTS a week for the NYT
It doesn’t look good. They need a total revolution. Go behind a paywall and hire the best left wing writers and pray that top quality sells
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Yes but I have to say we have a cat now (not ours but spends half the day with us) and I'm smitten. Very surprising since I've never had affection for animals but there you go, this cat has cracked me. I'm particularly struck by its two personalities. Inside it's cute, playful, a pet, but when it gets outside it's all change. Then it becomes like a proper Big Cat, just smaller. It stalks, can stay motionless for a long time then switch in a split second to lightening movement, it moves with such grace and fluidity, such awareness for its surroundings, can leap in one go from ground level to the top of a thin 5 foot fence and stick there perfectly balanced. Amazing. I mean, Simone Biles eat your heart out. And observing this, which I do, you realize this is one impressive creature, not just a pet at all, it's deserving of enormous respect.
I’m not sure I get this argument about dramas that “have no likeable characters”
It can be an issue if you like to have someone to root for, but it can also be a pleasure to watch an entire cast of delicious villains
Succession is the prime example. Not a single heroic or virtuous character. Yet - for me - some of the best tv drama of the decade so far
In fact it wouid have been ridiculous if they’d suddenly introduced someone “nice”. Totally jarring
The problem with Ozark was that the characters were irksome, rather than not likeable.
Indeed
It occurs to me you can get away with entirely odious characters as long as they are entertainingly so - eg if they are mesmerisingly devious or cruelly funny
That’s how Succession got away with it
You've got to have some reason to care.
The Eight Deadly Words are: "I don't care what happens to these people."
A similar process can happen when something is just unrelentingly bleak. With no emotional peaks or troughs a story and characters are just tedious. But hack writers think sad equals emotionally powerful.
Even Schindlers List found a few moments of humour to break things up.
I used to know a rather unpleasant individual who would argue that Schindler's List *is* a comedy.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
What I found rather disturbing was going into a card shop the other day and seeing Valentine's cards for Mum and Dad!
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Yes but I have to say we have a cat now (not ours but spends half the day with us) and I'm smitten. Very surprising since I've never had affection for animals but there you go, this cat has cracked me. I'm particularly struck by its two personalities. Inside it's cute, playful, a pet, but when it gets outside it's all change. Then it becomes like a proper Big Cat, just smaller. It stalks, can stay motionless for a long time then switch in a split second to lightening movement, it moves with such grace and fluidity, such awareness for its surroundings, can leap in one go from ground level to the top of a 5 foot fence and just stick there perfectly balanced. Amazing. I mean, Simone Biles eat your heart out. And observing this, which I do, you realize this is one impressive creature, not just a pet at all, it's deserving of enormous respect.
Quite. Should be exterminated. Like what the neighbours' cats do to our garden birds.
I have just been in a card shop, in which I have seen - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
The Guardian is also a victim of its own lefty infighting and the trans wars. They’ve chased away many of their own superior female writers - Hadley freeman, Tanya gold, Suzanne moore, for wrongthink
Julie burchill can still write brilliantly. She regularly does it in the spectator. Why isn’t she on the guardian? Because she is spiky and unpredictable and sometimes not woke at all
The guardian needs people like her. Surprise the readers. Challenge the consensus. But they don’t dare so it is all lamentably predictable
There is a serious chance the Guardian will disappear. That’s an enormous change in our media ecosystem
And much as I despise their woke politics and “x and x is racist” journalism-by-numbers that would be a sad loss for UK media
I would miss The Observer a lot more than I'd miss The Guardian. The latter sold its soul to Owen Jones and is now paying the price. It has some good columnists and one or two stellar reporters (who could all easily go elsewhere), but its overall output is abysmal. The Observer is so much better but online its content gets lumped in with the Guardian's so gets missed. If the FT had decent sports coverage it would be unmatchable, IMO.
The Guardian is increasingly shit. No getting round it
There are only so many variations of “mountains are racist” or “mortgages are racist” and they’ve tried them all
Meanwhile which of their columnists is a must read? Stewart Lee has stopped being funny (last time I checked). Jones rants. Toynbee should retire. Marina Hyde has lost her edge - weirdly, when the Tories are such a target
I only really read jay Rayner with pleasure. If it went behind a paywall no way would I pay for it
I can get vague soft left bbc news from the bbc and foreign reportage from the much superior NYT (which also has better sports and cooking etc) and I pay 50 CENTS a week for the NYT
It doesn’t look good. They need a total revolution. Go behind a paywall and hire the best left wing writers and pray that top quality sells
Stewart Lee and Jay Rayner are both The Observer. Rawnsley too.
I think Rafael Behr, James Harris, Pippa Crear and Rafael Behr are all very good. Marina Hyde is very good when she is good, samey when she is not. She needs a decent target.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Yes but I have to say we have a cat now (not ours but spends half the day with us) and I'm smitten. Very surprising since I've never had affection for animals but there you go, this cat has cracked me. I'm particularly struck by its two personalities. Inside it's cute, playful, a pet, but when it gets outside it's all change. Then it becomes like a proper Big Cat, just smaller. It stalks, can stay motionless for a long time then switch in a split second to lightening movement, it moves with such grace and fluidity, such awareness for its surroundings, can leap in one go from ground level to the top of a thin 5 foot fence and stick there perfectly balanced. Amazing. I mean, Simone Biles eat your heart out. And observing this, which I do, you realize this is one impressive creature, not just a pet at all, it's deserving of enormous respect.
A cat is just a very beautiful creature. And I think you have captured their appeal - the fact that they walk the boundary between tame and wild. I love our cat unconditionally, he is perfect.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Yes but I have to say we have a cat now (not ours but spends half the day with us) and I'm smitten. Very surprising since I've never had affection for animals but there you go, this cat has cracked me. I'm particularly struck by its two personalities. Inside it's cute, playful, a pet, but when it gets outside it's all change. Then it becomes like a proper Big Cat, just smaller. It stalks, can stay motionless for a long time then switch in a split second to lightening movement, it moves with such grace and fluidity, such awareness for its surroundings, can leap in one go from ground level to the top of a thin 5 foot fence and stick there perfectly balanced. Amazing. I mean, Simone Biles eat your heart out. And observing this, which I do, you realize this is one impressive creature, not just a pet at all, it's deserving of enormous respect.
A cat is just a very beautiful creature. And I think you have captured their appeal - the fact that they walk the boundary between tame and wild. I love our cat unconditionally, he is perfect.
Effing bird killing garden pooping hooligans! (although also not )
There is a serious chance the Guardian will disappear. That’s an enormous change in our media ecosystem
And much as I despise their woke politics and “x and x is racist” journalism-by-numbers that would be a sad loss for UK media
There is zero chance that The Guardian will disappear. Their parent company's accounts [Scott Trust Limited] last year included about £1.2 bn of financial investments. That would last them for decades, even if they carry on making large losses on the newspapers. The investments are in global investment funds.
I’m not sure I get this argument about dramas that “have no likeable characters”
It can be an issue if you like to have someone to root for, but it can also be a pleasure to watch an entire cast of delicious villains
Succession is the prime example. Not a single heroic or virtuous character. Yet - for me - some of the best tv drama of the decade so far
In fact it wouid have been ridiculous if they’d suddenly introduced someone “nice”. Totally jarring
Good writers are able to confuse the reader or viewer by encouraging him/her to like despicable characters. An outstanding example is Arthur Shelby in Peaky Blinders.
Yes. If only Trump/MAGA were a boxset drama I might be able to get into it.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Yes but I have to say we have a cat now (not ours but spends half the day with us) and I'm smitten. Very surprising since I've never had affection for animals but there you go, this cat has cracked me. I'm particularly struck by its two personalities. Inside it's cute, playful, a pet, but when it gets outside it's all change. Then it becomes like a proper Big Cat, just smaller. It stalks, can stay motionless for a long time then switch in a split second to lightening movement, it moves with such grace and fluidity, such awareness for its surroundings, can leap in one go from ground level to the top of a 5 foot fence and just stick there perfectly balanced. Amazing. I mean, Simone Biles eat your heart out. And observing this, which I do, you realize this is one impressive creature, not just a pet at all, it's deserving of enormous respect.
Quite. Should be exterminated. Like what the neighbours' cats do to our garden birds.
Please stop! Just you saying that (about this cat) is making me tear up.
There is a serious chance the Guardian will disappear. That’s an enormous change in our media ecosystem
And much as I despise their woke politics and “x and x is racist” journalism-by-numbers that would be a sad loss for UK media
There is zero chance that The Guardian will disappear. Their parent company's accounts [Scott Trust Limited] last year included about £1.2 bn of financial investments. That would last them for decades, even if they carry on making large losses on the newspapers. The investments are in global investment funds.
I used to believe that. Not any more
They are making massive losses and now the editor is suggesting big lay offs. Why make big lay offs if you have the full backing of a trust with £1bn to throw around?
More lay offs means a worse product which means fewer readers which means bigger losses, and on it goes
So the trust seems content to let the guardian slowly die
I’m not sure I get this argument about dramas that “have no likeable characters”
It can be an issue if you like to have someone to root for, but it can also be a pleasure to watch an entire cast of delicious villains
Succession is the prime example. Not a single heroic or virtuous character. Yet - for me - some of the best tv drama of the decade so far
In fact it wouid have been ridiculous if they’d suddenly introduced someone “nice”. Totally jarring
The problem with Ozark was that the characters were irksome, rather than not likeable.
Indeed
It occurs to me you can get away with entirely odious characters as long as they are entertainingly so - eg if they are mesmerisingly devious or cruelly funny
That’s how Succession got away with it
That's part of it but Succession also got you to care about the characters, because each of them had some facet of goodness or at least something to admire or pity them for. The whole family dynamic was such a cruel disaster for everyone stuck inside it, you always found yourself rooting for one of them at any time. I'm not sure it will ever be bettered.
The Guardian is also a victim of its own lefty infighting and the trans wars. They’ve chased away many of their own superior female writers - Hadley freeman, Tanya gold, Suzanne moore, for wrongthink
Julie burchill can still write brilliantly. She regularly does it in the spectator. Why isn’t she on the guardian? Because she is spiky and unpredictable and sometimes not woke at all
The guardian needs people like her. Surprise the readers. Challenge the consensus. But they don’t dare so it is all lamentably predictable
Has Burchill been even vaguely Leftist in years? These days her output is purely a Littlejohn tribute act minus his occasional polish. I can't see the Guardian employing her, except perhaps as the token Tory all the readers would just skip.
There is a serious chance the Guardian will disappear. That’s an enormous change in our media ecosystem
And much as I despise their woke politics and “x and x is racist” journalism-by-numbers that would be a sad loss for UK media
I would miss The Observer a lot more than I'd miss The Guardian. The latter sold its soul to Owen Jones and is now paying the price. It has some good columnists and one or two stellar reporters (who could all easily go elsewhere), but its overall output is abysmal. The Observer is so much better but online its content gets lumped in with the Guardian's so gets missed. If the FT had decent sports coverage it would be unmatchable, IMO.
The Guardian is increasingly shit. No getting round it
There are only so many variations of “mountains are racist” or “mortgages are racist” and they’ve tried them all
Meanwhile which of their columnists is a must read? Stewart Lee has stopped being funny (last time I checked). Jones rants. Toynbee should retire. Marina Hyde has lost her edge - weirdly, when the Tories are such a target
I only really read jay Rayner with pleasure. If it went behind a paywall no way would I pay for it
I can get vague soft left bbc news from the bbc and foreign reportage from the much superior NYT (which also has better sports and cooking etc) and I pay 50 CENTS a week for the NYT
It doesn’t look good. They need a total revolution. Go behind a paywall and hire the best left wing writers and pray that top quality sells
Stewart Lee and Jay Rayner are both The Observer. Rawnsley too.
I think Rafael Behr, James Harris, Pippa Crear and Rafael Behr are all very good. Marina Hyde is very good when she is good, samey when she is not. She needs a decent target.
Rafael behr writes the same Brexit article every week. He’s done it again today. Harris has lost his edge. Crear is forgettable. Hyde seems bored or has given up
I’m not sure I get this argument about dramas that “have no likeable characters”
It can be an issue if you like to have someone to root for, but it can also be a pleasure to watch an entire cast of delicious villains
Succession is the prime example. Not a single heroic or virtuous character. Yet - for me - some of the best tv drama of the decade so far
In fact it wouid have been ridiculous if they’d suddenly introduced someone “nice”. Totally jarring
Good writers are able to confuse the reader or viewer by encouraging him/her to like despicable characters. An outstanding example is Arthur Shelby in Peaky Blinders.
Yes. If only Trump/MAGA were a boxset drama I might be able to get into it.
No, Trump isn't an interesting character. He's incredibly basic.
There is a serious chance the Guardian will disappear. That’s an enormous change in our media ecosystem
And much as I despise their woke politics and “x and x is racist” journalism-by-numbers that would be a sad loss for UK media
I would miss The Observer a lot more than I'd miss The Guardian. The latter sold its soul to Owen Jones and is now paying the price. It has some good columnists and one or two stellar reporters (who could all easily go elsewhere), but its overall output is abysmal. The Observer is so much better but online its content gets lumped in with the Guardian's so gets missed. If the FT had decent sports coverage it would be unmatchable, IMO.
The Guardian is increasingly shit. No getting round it
There are only so many variations of “mountains are racist” or “mortgages are racist” and they’ve tried them all
Meanwhile which of their columnists is a must read? Stewart Lee has stopped being funny (last time I checked). Jones rants. Toynbee should retire. Marina Hyde has lost her edge - weirdly, when the Tories are such a target
I only really read jay Rayner with pleasure. If it went behind a paywall no way would I pay for it
I can get vague soft left bbc news from the bbc and foreign reportage from the much superior NYT (which also has better sports and cooking etc) and I pay 50 CENTS a week for the NYT
It doesn’t look good. They need a total revolution. Go behind a paywall and hire the best left wing writers and pray that top quality sells
Stewart Lee and Jay Rayner are both The Observer. Rawnsley too.
I think Rafael Behr, James Harris, Pippa Crear and Rafael Behr are all very good. Marina Hyde is very good when she is good, samey when she is not. She needs a decent target.
I'm enjoying the debate about the change to the tax treatment of double cab pickup trucks. Essentially townies don't like the people who drive them in town and think its great. Those of us in the sticks realise its a disaster.
"Just pay the tax" says one - £7k a year? Or "separate business and non-business use". How do you do that when your business is where you live? And separating business and non business use means driving scores of additional miles to swap vehicles which means less work done at more cost.
I assume the HMRC / Treasury people have never been to the countryside.
Nigel Farage has been condemned by the UK’s main Jewish groups and MPs for repeatedly using language and themes associated with far-right antisemitic conspiracy theories, something for which he has been previously criticised.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said Farage’s airing of claims about plots to undermine national governments, and his references to Goldman Sachs and the financier George Soros, showed he was seeking to “trade in dog whistles”.
The Brexit party leader, who has been criticised for agreeing to interviews with openly antisemitic US media personalities, was also condemned by the MPs who co-chair the all-party group against antisemitism.
And yet any number of Tories are happy to share platforms with him and invite him to join their party.
I have long believed him to be a fascist. Looks like one, behaves like one and probably smells like one. Judge a man by the company he keeps my dear old mum used to say. Trump.
Yep - but a lot of very prominent Tories are very happy to be seen in his company and to invite him to join their party. Antisemitism is not just a Labour problem, though it absolutely is a Labour problem.
So you are equating media speculation about unnamed “senior Tories” wanting Farage to join their party with documented antisemitism in Labour.
The crisis in Labour seems to be, KS investigating it quickly and getting rid of muppets quickly. Can somebody explain the problem?
The problem is that one of Starmer's main achievements is the purging of people with views such as those that the two candidates have espoused. Moving the party on from the Corbyn era. And yet many have the suspicion, brilliantly captured with the Narnia imagery, that behind the thin crust the issues remain. That may or may not be fair. Starmer has acted reasonably quickly for sure, but damage will have been done.
Assuming we don't see a flood of more examples, this will die back down and the by-election wins will smooth the waters. But don't dismiss it as no problem - there clearly is.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Yes but I have to say we have a cat now (not ours but spends half the day with us) and I'm smitten. Very surprising since I've never had affection for animals but there you go, this cat has cracked me. I'm particularly struck by its two personalities. Inside it's cute, playful, a pet, but when it gets outside it's all change. Then it becomes like a proper Big Cat, just smaller. It stalks, can stay motionless for a long time then switch in a split second to lightening movement, it moves with such grace and fluidity, such awareness for its surroundings, can leap in one go from ground level to the top of a thin 5 foot fence and stick there perfectly balanced. Amazing. I mean, Simone Biles eat your heart out. And observing this, which I do, you realize this is one impressive creature, not just a pet at all, it's deserving of enormous respect.
Looks like @kinabalu might be banged up shortly. On Radio 4 yesterday there was discussion on a potential new law covering pet theft and the enticing of animals away from their homes. It seemed pretty sensible for dogs, but to excuse the pun it seemed barking mad as far as cats were concerned. A barrister was ranting about it pointing out that cats often picked other homes and those otherwise innocent people could fall foul of the new law if it comes about.
Nigel Farage has been condemned by the UK’s main Jewish groups and MPs for repeatedly using language and themes associated with far-right antisemitic conspiracy theories, something for which he has been previously criticised.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said Farage’s airing of claims about plots to undermine national governments, and his references to Goldman Sachs and the financier George Soros, showed he was seeking to “trade in dog whistles”.
The Brexit party leader, who has been criticised for agreeing to interviews with openly antisemitic US media personalities, was also condemned by the MPs who co-chair the all-party group against antisemitism.
And yet any number of Tories are happy to share platforms with him and invite him to join their party.
The paranoid right obsession with Soros - particularly in the context of the numous billionaire "unelected globalists shaping the public’s lives" who finance their own favoured schemes - is barely explicable without looking in the direction of antisemitism.
There is an element of *what* he finances - Open Democracy is seen as antithetical to what they believe in. But the fact that he is Jewish just adds another layer.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
Yes but I have to say we have a cat now (not ours but spends half the day with us) and I'm smitten. Very surprising since I've never had affection for animals but there you go, this cat has cracked me. I'm particularly struck by its two personalities. Inside it's cute, playful, a pet, but when it gets outside it's all change. Then it becomes like a proper Big Cat, just smaller. It stalks, can stay motionless for a long time then switch in a split second to lightening movement, it moves with such grace and fluidity, such awareness for its surroundings, can leap in one go from ground level to the top of a thin 5 foot fence and stick there perfectly balanced. Amazing. I mean, Simone Biles eat your heart out. And observing this, which I do, you realize this is one impressive creature, not just a pet at all, it's deserving of enormous respect.
Looks like @kinabalu might be banged up shortly. On Radio 4 yesterday there was discussion on a potential new law covering pet theft and the enticing of animals away from their homes. It seemed pretty sensible for dogs, but to excuse the pun it seemed barking mad as far as cats were concerned. A barrister was ranting about it pointing out that cats often picked other homes and those otherwise innocent people could fall foul of the new law if it comes about.
The Guardian is also a victim of its own lefty infighting and the trans wars. They’ve chased away many of their own superior female writers - Hadley freeman, Tanya gold, Suzanne moore, for wrongthink
Julie burchill can still write brilliantly. She regularly does it in the spectator. Why isn’t she on the guardian? Because she is spiky and unpredictable and sometimes not woke at all
The guardian needs people like her. Surprise the readers. Challenge the consensus. But they don’t dare so it is all lamentably predictable
Has Burchill been even vaguely Leftist in years? These days her output is purely a Littlejohn tribute act minus his occasional polish. I can't see the Guardian employing her, except perhaps as the token Tory all the readers would just skip.
Nope. Joolz has never been left-wing by any description, and hasn't been for nearly forty years. She can only pretend to be because she went to a comprehensive, which is enough for her employers. She's been dining off her Communist father and echt-shocking love of Communist iconography for her entire career, in the same way that @Leon pretends to admire Hugo Boss SS stuff. Her shtick is simple: find a target that pleases her employer and attack it, which she has done with unapologetic gusto her entire working life. Her brief period at the Guardian was a surprise (as she acknowleged in her - very first? - column for them) and didn't last long. It's no surprise if she has ended up at The Spectator.
Saying Julie Burchill is left wing is like saying Rod Liddle is anything other than a shambolic oozing couch-sleeping drooling wreck who never wipes his arse: obviously silly and easily disprovable from observation.
There is a serious chance the Guardian will disappear. That’s an enormous change in our media ecosystem
And much as I despise their woke politics and “x and x is racist” journalism-by-numbers that would be a sad loss for UK media
I would miss The Observer a lot more than I'd miss The Guardian. The latter sold its soul to Owen Jones and is now paying the price. It has some good columnists and one or two stellar reporters (who could all easily go elsewhere), but its overall output is abysmal. The Observer is so much better but online its content gets lumped in with the Guardian's so gets missed. If the FT had decent sports coverage it would be unmatchable, IMO.
The Guardian is increasingly shit. No getting round it
There are only so many variations of “mountains are racist” or “mortgages are racist” and they’ve tried them all
Meanwhile which of their columnists is a must read? Stewart Lee has stopped being funny (last time I checked). Jones rants. Toynbee should retire. Marina Hyde has lost her edge - weirdly, when the Tories are such a target
I only really read jay Rayner with pleasure. If it went behind a paywall no way would I pay for it
I can get vague soft left bbc news from the bbc and foreign reportage from the much superior NYT (which also has better sports and cooking etc) and I pay 50 CENTS a week for the NYT
It doesn’t look good. They need a total revolution. Go behind a paywall and hire the best left wing writers and pray that top quality sells
Stewart Lee and Jay Rayner are both The Observer. Rawnsley too.
I think Rafael Behr, James Harris, Pippa Crear and Rafael Behr are all very good. Marina Hyde is very good when she is good, samey when she is not. She needs a decent target.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
What I found rather disturbing was going into a card shop the other day and seeing Valentine's cards for Mum and Dad!
Freud would be having a field day.
Yes; I also saw daughter, son, granddaughter, grandson and 'work husband' - the latter struck me as a minefield!
I’m not sure I get this argument about dramas that “have no likeable characters”
It can be an issue if you like to have someone to root for, but it can also be a pleasure to watch an entire cast of delicious villains
Succession is the prime example. Not a single heroic or virtuous character. Yet - for me - some of the best tv drama of the decade so far
In fact it wouid have been ridiculous if they’d suddenly introduced someone “nice”. Totally jarring
Good writers are able to confuse the reader or viewer by encouraging him/her to like despicable characters. An outstanding example is Arthur Shelby in Peaky Blinders.
Yes. If only Trump/MAGA were a boxset drama I might be able to get into it.
No, Trump isn't an interesting character. He's incredibly basic.
He's fascinatingly awful as a guest character, but he's totally one dimensional so tough to build a whole series around.
And he started off wacky so the standard process is escalation over time doesn't work.
I’m not sure I get this argument about dramas that “have no likeable characters”
It can be an issue if you like to have someone to root for, but it can also be a pleasure to watch an entire cast of delicious villains
Succession is the prime example. Not a single heroic or virtuous character. Yet - for me - some of the best tv drama of the decade so far
In fact it wouid have been ridiculous if they’d suddenly introduced someone “nice”. Totally jarring
Good writers are able to confuse the reader or viewer by encouraging him/her to like despicable characters. An outstanding example is Arthur Shelby in Peaky Blinders.
Yes. If only Trump/MAGA were a boxset drama I might be able to get into it.
No, Trump isn't an interesting character. He's incredibly basic.
He's fascinatingly awful as a guest character, but he's totally one dimensional so tough to build a whole series around.
And he started off wacky so the standard process is escalation over time doesn't work.
If it were a boxset, we'd need to start with the origin story; make that tragic enough and even monsters can be humanised.
Blooming hard work to do for The Donald, though not impossible.
I have just been in a card shop, in which there was - among other exercabilia - a card saying 'Happy Valentine's Day to my cat'. In a world riven by division - Gaza, Brexit, Trans, woke - here is something we can, I'm sure, fully unite around. Buying a Valentine's Day card for your cat - no matter how much you love your cat - is insane.
It gets worse than that, Asda have a range that includes "Happy Valentines Day from the dog".
Buying your pet something is weird, buying yourself something and saying it came from the pet is even worse.
At least a human can derive some pleasure from a card, and the sentiments contained therein. A cat's not going to get anything from a piece of cardboard with some indecipherable squiggles on it, unless it's laced with catnip.
Comments
Buying your pet something is weird, buying yourself something and saying it came from the pet is even worse.
NHS nurses being investigated for ‘industrial-scale’ qualifications fraud
Scam involves more than 700 healthcare workers who used proxies to pass test in Nigeria enabling them to work in the UK
A few massive brands will survive and devour the others
The NYT, the Mail, who else? The FT does ok
Perhaps one of Times and Telegraph
I used to think the guardian was solid but now they look to be in desperate trouble
The sun is the one red top which will survive
All the others will go, mirror, star, express, all the Scottish papers. Most US papers etc
1. It’s a joke about what to buy your favourite pussy today.
2. There’s enough unmarried mad cat women with money to spend, that card makers now see them as a demographic.
Then she can swear at you for spending too much time on PB. And Rail Forums too.
Mr Ali, blaming "people in the media from certain Jewish quarters" for the suspension of Andy McDonald from the Labour Party.
Any fule kno it's for Furries.
I'm fond of my cats. I sometimes buy them things. But only ever things I think they will like - i.e. cat treats or cat toys. What the bloody hell is a cat, even the most cherished, going to do with a card? It even comes with an envelope for it to be unable to open. Utter madness.
I can’t remember what product is being promoted, but if I find out what is, I definitely won’t buy it!
Because that will be your wife's job.
📈12pt Labour lead - lowest since June '23
🌹Lab 41 (-5)
🌳Con 29 (+2)
🔶LD 11 (+1)
➡️Reform 8 (-1)
🌍Green 3 (=)
🎗️SNP 3 (+1)
⬜️Other 4 (=)
2,224 UK adults, 9-11 February
(chg 26-28 January)
https://twitter.com/Savanta_UK/status/1757687248730861707
There is somethig seriously wrong with much of the British media. Compare the depth and breadth of news covered by France 24 or Al Jazeera with the poor offerings from the BBC or Sky. British journalism - with some notable exceptions - is in a parlous state these days.
There are only so many variations of “mountains are racist” or “mortgages are racist” and they’ve tried them all
Meanwhile which of their columnists is a must read? Stewart Lee has stopped being funny (last time I checked). Jones rants. Toynbee should retire.
Marina Hyde has lost her edge - weirdly, when the Tories are such a target
I only really read jay Rayner with pleasure. If it went behind a paywall no way would I pay for it
I can get vague soft left bbc news from the bbc and foreign reportage from the much superior NYT (which also has better sports and cooking etc) and I pay 50 CENTS a week for the NYT
It doesn’t look good. They need a total revolution. Go behind a paywall and hire the best left wing writers and pray that top quality sells
The problem is "cheap labour"
Strangely, as you try and squeeze the price down, quality will fall off.
Amazing! Who Knew!
Freud would be having a field day.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
I believe you.”, like so many in this country, are a good man.
Julie burchill can still write brilliantly. She regularly does it in the spectator. Why isn’t she on the guardian? Because she is spiky and unpredictable and sometimes not woke at all
The guardian needs people like her. Surprise the readers. Challenge the consensus. But they don’t dare so it is all lamentably predictable
I think Rafael Behr, James Harris, Pippa Crear and Rafael Behr are all very good. Marina Hyde is very good when she is good, samey when she is not. She needs a decent target.
NEW THREAD
They are making massive losses and now the editor is suggesting big lay offs. Why make big lay offs if you have the full backing of a trust with £1bn to throw around?
More lay offs means a worse product which means fewer readers which means bigger losses, and on it goes
So the trust seems content to let the guardian slowly die
"Just pay the tax" says one - £7k a year? Or "separate business and non-business use". How do you do that when your business is where you live? And separating business and non business use means driving scores of additional miles to swap vehicles which means less work done at more cost.
I assume the HMRC / Treasury people have never been to the countryside.
Righty-ho
Assuming we don't see a flood of more examples, this will die back down and the by-election wins will smooth the waters. But don't dismiss it as no problem - there clearly is.
Saying Julie Burchill is left wing is like saying Rod Liddle is anything other than a shambolic oozing couch-sleeping drooling wreck who never wipes his arse: obviously silly and easily disprovable from observation.
And he started off wacky so the standard process is escalation over time doesn't work.
Blooming hard work to do for The Donald, though not impossible.