In this morning's discussion about the £300k mortgage for a couple earning £50k did anyone mention that would be a property price higher than the national average for people barely earning above minimum wage.
But everybody who wants to buy a house under the age of 25 *must* have a 3-bed semi or better.
Its perfectly possible in large parts of the country as well.
Leave school at 18, get a job, learn a skillset and at 25 they'll be earning £30k or more, have savings and no debt.
Then buy a 3 bed semi for £200k with a 10% deposit and a 3x mortgage.
Now that wont suit everyone's life plans but everyone has to make their own choices.
It's not that easy to have saved £30k - a whole year's pretax income - by the time you're 25, especially as you won't be starting on £30k, you'll be starting on £15-20k.
If you are living at home it might be doable, but if you're in shared accommodation, then you're going to be clearing at most £1,500/month (at £20k) and spending at least £500 of that on accommodation and bills. Even if you are able to save 20% of your post tax, post rent and bills income, you will struggle to save more than £2,400 in a year.
Getting to £30k of savings is not impossible, but does requires iron discipline and a very high savings rate.
So no avocados is what I'm hearing.
The deposit is pretty much the reason why all the "well, if government policy forces landlords to sell up, that's good for renters" arguments fall flat.
It's great if you're in a position to save for a 30k deposit (few are), it's even better if you've got family who can stump up the deposit (so, generational wealth).
If you don't have that ability, the war on landlords just means the pool of renters who are unable to buy are competing for a diminishing number of properties at ever higher prices, with the ever increasing regulatory burdens and red tape tacked onto the price of the rental.
We are at a point where the rental trap is more or less impossible to escape without family help, entrenching a two-tier system where those who are able to tap into generational wealth can get on the property ladder, while those without are screwed in perpetuity.
What on earth happens to the houses the landlords are selling? Either go to other landlords or renters. If they are left empty or second homes, tax them punitively. The houses don't disappear because amateur landlord can't make their business work.
Are you completely blind, or just thick as a whale omelette?
As I stated above, landlords selling up is great for those who can afford a 30k deposit.
It kinda sucks for renters who can't.
May I suggest visiting a popular optician for some reading glasses?
Unless the quantity of houses changes landlords selling up has next-to-zero effect on renters.
If a landlord sells to someone who was a tenant then the supply of landlords houses goes down by 1 and the demand for houses from tenants goes down by one so there is absolutely zero net change in supply versus demand.
Want to affect supply and demand - build more houses.
As has been discussed on here ad infinitum, renters tend to occupy more of a property than owners. E.g. a young couple buy a house together, having formerly lived in bedrooms in two fully occupied houses of multiple occupancy, buy a two bed flat with a spare bedroom, thus reducing occupancy levels. This diminishes the pool of rooms available to renters. This has been discussed on this site innumerable times.
As has been discussed on here ad infinitum that statistic is total bullshit as it just measures age. Controlling for age there is no significant difference whatsoever.
Owner occupiers, especially owner occupiers without a mortgage, are disproportionately elderly people without children living with them as their children have moved out of the house.
A young couple renting a home or buying a home of their own has no net change in housing supply.
My daughter and husband 53 and 64 have I year left on their mortgage and my youngest son 49 and his wife 42 have paid off their mortgage so they do not fit your profile
And my daughter has their 15 year son living with them and my son and his wife have 3 children 12, 10 and 2
I would add that neither had inheritance but a lot of middle age parents do inherit money and pay off their mortgage
Your daughter and husband are old.
Your youngest is old.
People should be able to get a home in their 20s or 30s, people in their fifties aren't especially relevant to the conversation other than saying that it was affordable for them to get homes decades ago which isn't the case for far too many today.
49 is old ?
The average age for a first time buyer is 34
Our son and daughter bought their homes in the last 20 - 25 years which is similar to the average age today
Yes it is.
49 is a generation past people who should be looking for homes today, 25 years ago is a totally different era. 25 years ago the average house price in Wales was £51k - to compare 25 years ago with today just shows how broken today is.
49 is well past the age where the NHS warns about dangers for pregnancies. For people to safely settle down, have a family, in their own home, they need to be buying homes in their 20s, early 30s at the latest.
And the average 34 year old today does not own their own home, the average age you're quoting is distorted by excluding those who don't get a home which is far, far, far too many people - way more than it used to be.
Wages in 2000 were £18,800 compared to £35,800 today
However, affordability does depend on location and even today they are homes available to buy in our area between £130,000 and £180,000
I understand you are frustrated about home ownership but the only solution is more homes as you say, but building regulations requirements of net zero compliance have added to the costs.
I understand that the government is to mandate the renting of all homes or sale will require those homes to have a C rating or above which again will cause huge increases in prices as homes are retrofitted
Indeed the Welsh government are about to mandate EV charging points on all homes for rent or sale
This is a complex and difficult problem to resolve but it is not the fault of those who have bought and paid off their mortgages
I really don't think we should accept the building industry propaganda about not being able to improve the quality of housing without massive additional costs. We should expect them to be able to increase productivity to deliver higher quality housing at a lower price.
This is a local development near to us and the prices have shocked the community
These are not affordable homes for many, and it is why public opinion is very much with the local authority rule of 200% Council tax uplift this year, with 300% to follow for all second homes
Its only shocked you because you've not been paying attention.
House prices are far too high. Land costs are far too high. Search for undeveloped land with consent, you'll be looking at more than six figures for the plot of land alone.
But get the exact same plot without consent and you can knock a couple of 0's off that price.
It is the 1948 act that is the problem, not pissing about with energy standards. Energy standards are a good thing, not a bad one and are utter peanuts in the housing costs.
Why are you so rude
Of course I have been following house prices and indeed in my company before I retired I lectured on property, regulation and if you believe it was involved with the DCLG advising Yvette Cooper on home information packs
I fear for younger people especially those who rent not least because at retirement their rent will continue unlike a mortgage free home.
Of course many will inherit from their parents which will change their opportunities and why any chancellor attacking IHT will not be popular with some
But please do not blame those who have paid their mortgage as it isn't their fault but that of successive governments failing to build enough houses and I doubt that will change much for a variety of reasons and NIMBYs
When you post things like "my 49 year old has a house" as a retort to a discussion that house prices are making housing unaffordable for too many today then that is demeaning to the millions of people in their 20s and 30s who do not and can not afford one because prices today are not what they were 25 years ago, nor are price-earning ratios.
Its not the fault of those who've paid off their mortgages, its the fault of those who want to inflate the "value" of their "asset" because they've done so.
And if you owned that asset you would want market value
What we have today is not free market value, because we do not have a free market.
Prior to the 1948 act land was 2% of house prices not because we had less land than today, but because you could build where you wanted within reason so why pay over the odds.
The 1948 is responsible for adding 00s to the price of land when it has consent. Not when it has insulation, norr when it has EV chargers, nor when it has LED lighting. When it has nothing but the land.
If you expect land prices to revert to 2% then I am afraid you are in for a very long wait
Land is about 2% already today if it doesn't have consent.
It is when consent is added that 00s get added to land price.
The problem and the solution are the same thing.
The solution you want is a pipedream
The solution I want has been implemented, successfully, in other countries around the world.
There is not a single reason why it could not be done in this country and for you to witter on about energy efficiency and pretend that's the reason why houses are expensive when land without a building on is far too pricy . . . just shows you don't even want to tackle the problem.
I have grandchildren so can you stop being rude
Of course I want it tackled and building more homes is the only answer
Saying uncomfortable truths is not being rude.
Certainly no more rude than than saying that what someone wants is a "pipedream".
If you want it tackling then why not be concerned with the real causes of prices as can be seen in even vacant plots of land, rather than point at energy standards and pretend those are the issue?
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Oreos are rubbish.
A friend of mine is a teacher with very singular opinions. A pupil at his school once offered him an Oreo. The pupil was met with a heartfelt tirade about how he would not be taking his Oreo, because Oreos were essentially an inferior, American version of bourbons* which, like grey squirrels, were driving out the native product through a massive advertising budget (here the squirrel analogy got a little strained). The Oreo went uneaten. As it turned out, the pupil had painstakingly removed the white filling from the Oreos and replaced it with toothpaste as an April Fool's day joke. He had expected a telling off, but not exactly THAT telling off.
*note for the benefit of SSI - a bourbon is a biscuit: a bit like an Oreo, but better. Smaller, browner, more unremarkable to look at, but better engineered and with a smoother flavour.
Bourbons are boring, IMO. (And Oreos, vile.)
Biscuits aren't meant to be wildly exciting. They know and are comfortable with their place at the staider end of the confectionery spectrum. There is a place for a garishly decorated doughnut, and that place is at a six year old's birthday party, or America.
I mean, some biscuits are too boring. The Nice biscuit and the Rich Tea biscuit are, I think, taking the piss a bit. But you don't have to shift far up the spectrum to get a very satisfying low-level treat. The bourbon, the digestive, the custard cream, the ginger nut. The plain hob-nob. You don't need to go full jaffa cake to have a nice time.
In this morning's discussion about the £300k mortgage for a couple earning £50k did anyone mention that would be a property price higher than the national average for people barely earning above minimum wage.
But everybody who wants to buy a house under the age of 25 *must* have a 3-bed semi or better.
Its perfectly possible in large parts of the country as well.
Leave school at 18, get a job, learn a skillset and at 25 they'll be earning £30k or more, have savings and no debt.
Then buy a 3 bed semi for £200k with a 10% deposit and a 3x mortgage.
Now that wont suit everyone's life plans but everyone has to make their own choices.
It's not that easy to have saved £30k - a whole year's pretax income - by the time you're 25, especially as you won't be starting on £30k, you'll be starting on £15-20k.
If you are living at home it might be doable, but if you're in shared accommodation, then you're going to be clearing at most £1,500/month (at £20k) and spending at least £500 of that on accommodation and bills. Even if you are able to save 20% of your post tax, post rent and bills income, you will struggle to save more than £2,400 in a year.
Getting to £30k of savings is not impossible, but does requires iron discipline and a very high savings rate.
So no avocados is what I'm hearing.
The deposit is pretty much the reason why all the "well, if government policy forces landlords to sell up, that's good for renters" arguments fall flat.
It's great if you're in a position to save for a 30k deposit (few are), it's even better if you've got family who can stump up the deposit (so, generational wealth).
If you don't have that ability, the war on landlords just means the pool of renters who are unable to buy are competing for a diminishing number of properties at ever higher prices, with the ever increasing regulatory burdens and red tape tacked onto the price of the rental.
We are at a point where the rental trap is more or less impossible to escape without family help, entrenching a two-tier system where those who are able to tap into generational wealth can get on the property ladder, while those without are screwed in perpetuity.
What on earth happens to the houses the landlords are selling? Either go to other landlords or renters. If they are left empty or second homes, tax them punitively. The houses don't disappear because amateur landlord can't make their business work.
Are you completely blind, or just thick as a whale omelette?
As I stated above, landlords selling up is great for those who can afford a 30k deposit.
It kinda sucks for renters who can't.
May I suggest visiting a popular optician for some reading glasses?
How thick is a whale omelette? And - come to mention it - how does one make a whale omelette, given whales are mammals?
Same way you make a cheese omelette, but with whales.
You need a bloody big grater though.
You’d need to weigh it first.
Where would you weigh a whale ?
At a whale weigh station.
Ba dum Tish.
I once attempted to test ChatGPT's understanding of the world by asking it that very question. It got unnecessarily cross about the ethics of doing so.
It now tells me, "you would weigh a whale in Wales."
That's genuinely interesting. It can spot a joke and attempt to carry it on. It's not uproariously funny, but also not as horribly unfunny as the jokes it told a year ago. It has a certain surreal charm.
I don't know if it is that interesting. Google it, there are reddit threads on the topic of jokes, of which Wales comes up as an answer.
Yes, but it can now spot a joke. Which it couldn't before.
In this morning's discussion about the £300k mortgage for a couple earning £50k did anyone mention that would be a property price higher than the national average for people barely earning above minimum wage.
But everybody who wants to buy a house under the age of 25 *must* have a 3-bed semi or better.
Its perfectly possible in large parts of the country as well.
Leave school at 18, get a job, learn a skillset and at 25 they'll be earning £30k or more, have savings and no debt.
Then buy a 3 bed semi for £200k with a 10% deposit and a 3x mortgage.
Now that wont suit everyone's life plans but everyone has to make their own choices.
It's not that easy to have saved £30k - a whole year's pretax income - by the time you're 25, especially as you won't be starting on £30k, you'll be starting on £15-20k.
If you are living at home it might be doable, but if you're in shared accommodation, then you're going to be clearing at most £1,500/month (at £20k) and spending at least £500 of that on accommodation and bills. Even if you are able to save 20% of your post tax, post rent and bills income, you will struggle to save more than £2,400 in a year.
Getting to £30k of savings is not impossible, but does requires iron discipline and a very high savings rate.
So no avocados is what I'm hearing.
The deposit is pretty much the reason why all the "well, if government policy forces landlords to sell up, that's good for renters" arguments fall flat.
It's great if you're in a position to save for a 30k deposit (few are), it's even better if you've got family who can stump up the deposit (so, generational wealth).
If you don't have that ability, the war on landlords just means the pool of renters who are unable to buy are competing for a diminishing number of properties at ever higher prices, with the ever increasing regulatory burdens and red tape tacked onto the price of the rental.
We are at a point where the rental trap is more or less impossible to escape without family help, entrenching a two-tier system where those who are able to tap into generational wealth can get on the property ladder, while those without are screwed in perpetuity.
What on earth happens to the houses the landlords are selling? Either go to other landlords or renters. If they are left empty or second homes, tax them punitively. The houses don't disappear because amateur landlord can't make their business work.
Are you completely blind, or just thick as a whale omelette?
As I stated above, landlords selling up is great for those who can afford a 30k deposit.
It kinda sucks for renters who can't.
May I suggest visiting a popular optician for some reading glasses?
Unless the quantity of houses changes landlords selling up has next-to-zero effect on renters.
If a landlord sells to someone who was a tenant then the supply of landlords houses goes down by 1 and the demand for houses from tenants goes down by one so there is absolutely zero net change in supply versus demand.
Want to affect supply and demand - build more houses.
As has been discussed on here ad infinitum, renters tend to occupy more of a property than owners. E.g. a young couple buy a house together, having formerly lived in bedrooms in two fully occupied houses of multiple occupancy, buy a two bed flat with a spare bedroom, thus reducing occupancy levels. This diminishes the pool of rooms available to renters. This has been discussed on this site innumerable times.
As has been discussed on here ad infinitum that statistic is total bullshit as it just measures age. Controlling for age there is no significant difference whatsoever.
Owner occupiers, especially owner occupiers without a mortgage, are disproportionately elderly people without children living with them as their children have moved out of the house.
A young couple renting a home or buying a home of their own has no net change in housing supply.
My daughter and husband 53 and 64 have I year left on their mortgage and my youngest son 49 and his wife 42 have paid off their mortgage so they do not fit your profile
And my daughter has their 15 year son living with them and my son and his wife have 3 children 12, 10 and 2
I would add that neither had inheritance but a lot of middle age parents do inherit money and pay off their mortgage
Your daughter and husband are old.
Your youngest is old.
People should be able to get a home in their 20s or 30s, people in their fifties aren't especially relevant to the conversation other than saying that it was affordable for them to get homes decades ago which isn't the case for far too many today.
49 is old ?
The average age for a first time buyer is 34
Our son and daughter bought their homes in the last 20 - 25 years which is similar to the average age today
Yes it is.
49 is a generation past people who should be looking for homes today, 25 years ago is a totally different era. 25 years ago the average house price in Wales was £51k - to compare 25 years ago with today just shows how broken today is.
49 is well past the age where the NHS warns about dangers for pregnancies. For people to safely settle down, have a family, in their own home, they need to be buying homes in their 20s, early 30s at the latest.
And the average 34 year old today does not own their own home, the average age you're quoting is distorted by excluding those who don't get a home which is far, far, far too many people - way more than it used to be.
Wages in 2000 were £18,800 compared to £35,800 today
However, affordability does depend on location and even today they are homes available to buy in our area between £130,000 and £180,000
I understand you are frustrated about home ownership but the only solution is more homes as you say, but building regulations requirements of net zero compliance have added to the costs.
I understand that the government is to mandate the renting of all homes or sale will require those homes to have a C rating or above which again will cause huge increases in prices as homes are retrofitted
Indeed the Welsh government are about to mandate EV charging points on all homes for rent or sale
This is a complex and difficult problem to resolve but it is not the fault of those who have bought and paid off their mortgages
I really don't think we should accept the building industry propaganda about not being able to improve the quality of housing without massive additional costs. We should expect them to be able to increase productivity to deliver higher quality housing at a lower price.
This is a local development near to us and the prices have shocked the community
These are not affordable homes for many, and it is why public opinion is very much with the local authority rule of 200% Council tax uplift this year, with 300% to follow for all second homes
Its only shocked you because you've not been paying attention.
House prices are far too high. Land costs are far too high. Search for undeveloped land with consent, you'll be looking at more than six figures for the plot of land alone.
But get the exact same plot without consent and you can knock a couple of 0's off that price.
It is the 1948 act that is the problem, not pissing about with energy standards. Energy standards are a good thing, not a bad one and are utter peanuts in the housing costs.
Why are you so rude
Of course I have been following house prices and indeed in my company before I retired I lectured on property, regulation and if you believe it was involved with the DCLG advising Yvette Cooper on home information packs
I fear for younger people especially those who rent not least because at retirement their rent will continue unlike a mortgage free home.
Of course many will inherit from their parents which will change their opportunities and why any chancellor attacking IHT will not be popular with some
But please do not blame those who have paid their mortgage as it isn't their fault but that of successive governments failing to build enough houses and I doubt that will change much for a variety of reasons and NIMBYs
I suspect you underestimate the level of intergenerational anger with regards to the housing market.
As a 40-something, many of us had parents who bought in their 20s for about 3x their annual salary, by the time we came to buy, it was 10x our salaries, plus deposit which either meant being insanely lucky or having parental help.
As a 40-something, many more twenty somethings can't even manage it with parental help, as house prices have further pulled away from annual salaries, hence the 6x mortgages announced this week - the ponzi must continue at any cost.
It is, to borrow a trumpism, a rigged system. The idea that you throw much of your early life away paying a landlord half your take home. Then, if you're super lucky, your parents give you enough cash to throw half your salary away paying the bank.
If we built a shit ton of new houses such as the new equilibrium was people paying 20-25% of income to either rent or (with lower rental costs) save up to buy a place of their own, huge amounts of money would be diverted from the unproductive sector (bricks and mortar) to business.
Ask anyone under the age of 40 and they will tell you the system is fundamentally broken.
Bart isn't angry with you. He - like me - is angry at the system.
Like everyone else our age.
I do understand the anger and really do worry for renters in retirement
Starmer changing planning may help until you come into dispute with the Greens and NIMBYs
Indeed a small Welsh village rejected 18 affordable homes because in their words it would effect their Welsh tradition and language
I expect and hope the decision will be rejected on appeal but even then what happens when a non Welsh speaking buyer turns up
My problem with @BartholomewRoberts is he can be very confrontational especially to those who are on the housing ladder and retirees and as you say it is not their fault
In this morning's discussion about the £300k mortgage for a couple earning £50k did anyone mention that would be a property price higher than the national average for people barely earning above minimum wage.
But everybody who wants to buy a house under the age of 25 *must* have a 3-bed semi or better.
Its perfectly possible in large parts of the country as well.
Leave school at 18, get a job, learn a skillset and at 25 they'll be earning £30k or more, have savings and no debt.
Then buy a 3 bed semi for £200k with a 10% deposit and a 3x mortgage.
Now that wont suit everyone's life plans but everyone has to make their own choices.
It's not that easy to have saved £30k - a whole year's pretax income - by the time you're 25, especially as you won't be starting on £30k, you'll be starting on £15-20k.
If you are living at home it might be doable, but if you're in shared accommodation, then you're going to be clearing at most £1,500/month (at £20k) and spending at least £500 of that on accommodation and bills. Even if you are able to save 20% of your post tax, post rent and bills income, you will struggle to save more than £2,400 in a year.
Getting to £30k of savings is not impossible, but does requires iron discipline and a very high savings rate.
So no avocados is what I'm hearing.
The deposit is pretty much the reason why all the "well, if government policy forces landlords to sell up, that's good for renters" arguments fall flat.
It's great if you're in a position to save for a 30k deposit (few are), it's even better if you've got family who can stump up the deposit (so, generational wealth).
If you don't have that ability, the war on landlords just means the pool of renters who are unable to buy are competing for a diminishing number of properties at ever higher prices, with the ever increasing regulatory burdens and red tape tacked onto the price of the rental.
We are at a point where the rental trap is more or less impossible to escape without family help, entrenching a two-tier system where those who are able to tap into generational wealth can get on the property ladder, while those without are screwed in perpetuity.
What on earth happens to the houses the landlords are selling? Either go to other landlords or renters. If they are left empty or second homes, tax them punitively. The houses don't disappear because amateur landlord can't make their business work.
Are you completely blind, or just thick as a whale omelette?
As I stated above, landlords selling up is great for those who can afford a 30k deposit.
It kinda sucks for renters who can't.
May I suggest visiting a popular optician for some reading glasses?
How thick is a whale omelette? And - come to mention it - how does one make a whale omelette, given whales are mammals?
Same way you make a cheese omelette, but with whales.
You need a bloody big grater though.
You’d need to weigh it first.
Where would you weigh a whale ?
At a whale weigh station.
Ba dum Tish.
I once attempted to test ChatGPT's understanding of the world by asking it that very question. It got unnecessarily cross about the ethics of doing so.
It now tells me, "you would weigh a whale in Wales."
That's genuinely interesting. It can spot a joke and attempt to carry it on. It's not uproariously funny, but also not as horribly unfunny as the jokes it told a year ago. It has a certain surreal charm.
I don't know if it is that interesting. Google it, there are reddit threads on the topic of jokes, of which Wales comes up as an answer.
Yes, but it can now spot a joke. Which it couldn't before.
It can now tell really GOOD jokes, if you know how to prompt
My guess is Starmer raises tax by far more than what's required to fix his fictitious hole on 30th October as part of a plan to fund the NHS over 10-years, with muchos Statism on top, and he goes for broke on that.
Gives him a bit of a two-term narrative and plays well to Labour's USP.
So maybe £40bn+ of tax rises phased in, rather than the twenty-two he's already ballooned to with his name your price deals.
I can't help feeling that this year has been a lot of waiting around. We were waiting for ages for the election and now we are waiting again for this budget to find how much we are all getting clobbered.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Oreos are rubbish.
A friend of mine is a teacher with very singular opinions. A pupil at his school once offered him an Oreo. The pupil was met with a heartfelt tirade about how he would not be taking his Oreo, because Oreos were essentially an inferior, American version of bourbons* which, like grey squirrels, were driving out the native product through a massive advertising budget (here the squirrel analogy got a little strained). The Oreo went uneaten. As it turned out, the pupil had painstakingly removed the white filling from the Oreos and replaced it with toothpaste as an April Fool's day joke. He had expected a telling off, but not exactly THAT telling off.
*note for the benefit of SSI - a bourbon is a biscuit: a bit like an Oreo, but better. Smaller, browner, more unremarkable to look at, but better engineered and with a smoother flavour.
Bourbons are boring, IMO. (And Oreos, vile.)
Biscuits aren't meant to be wildly exciting. They know and are comfortable with their place at the staider end of the confectionery spectrum. There is a place for a garishly decorated doughnut, and that place is at a six year old's birthday party, or America.
I mean, some biscuits are too boring. The Nice biscuit and the Rich Tea biscuit are, I think, taking the piss a bit. But you don't have to shift far up the spectrum to get a very satisfying low-level treat. The bourbon, the digestive, the custard cream, the ginger nut. The plain hob-nob. You don't need to go full jaffa cake to have a nice time.
I just don’t like bourbons. They’re slightly too dry; insufficiently chocolatey; textureless.
In this morning's discussion about the £300k mortgage for a couple earning £50k did anyone mention that would be a property price higher than the national average for people barely earning above minimum wage.
But everybody who wants to buy a house under the age of 25 *must* have a 3-bed semi or better.
Its perfectly possible in large parts of the country as well.
Leave school at 18, get a job, learn a skillset and at 25 they'll be earning £30k or more, have savings and no debt.
Then buy a 3 bed semi for £200k with a 10% deposit and a 3x mortgage.
Now that wont suit everyone's life plans but everyone has to make their own choices.
It's not that easy to have saved £30k - a whole year's pretax income - by the time you're 25, especially as you won't be starting on £30k, you'll be starting on £15-20k.
If you are living at home it might be doable, but if you're in shared accommodation, then you're going to be clearing at most £1,500/month (at £20k) and spending at least £500 of that on accommodation and bills. Even if you are able to save 20% of your post tax, post rent and bills income, you will struggle to save more than £2,400 in a year.
Getting to £30k of savings is not impossible, but does requires iron discipline and a very high savings rate.
So no avocados is what I'm hearing.
The deposit is pretty much the reason why all the "well, if government policy forces landlords to sell up, that's good for renters" arguments fall flat.
It's great if you're in a position to save for a 30k deposit (few are), it's even better if you've got family who can stump up the deposit (so, generational wealth).
If you don't have that ability, the war on landlords just means the pool of renters who are unable to buy are competing for a diminishing number of properties at ever higher prices, with the ever increasing regulatory burdens and red tape tacked onto the price of the rental.
We are at a point where the rental trap is more or less impossible to escape without family help, entrenching a two-tier system where those who are able to tap into generational wealth can get on the property ladder, while those without are screwed in perpetuity.
What on earth happens to the houses the landlords are selling? Either go to other landlords or renters. If they are left empty or second homes, tax them punitively. The houses don't disappear because amateur landlord can't make their business work.
Are you completely blind, or just thick as a whale omelette?
As I stated above, landlords selling up is great for those who can afford a 30k deposit.
It kinda sucks for renters who can't.
May I suggest visiting a popular optician for some reading glasses?
Unless the quantity of houses changes landlords selling up has next-to-zero effect on renters.
If a landlord sells to someone who was a tenant then the supply of landlords houses goes down by 1 and the demand for houses from tenants goes down by one so there is absolutely zero net change in supply versus demand.
Want to affect supply and demand - build more houses.
As has been discussed on here ad infinitum, renters tend to occupy more of a property than owners. E.g. a young couple buy a house together, having formerly lived in bedrooms in two fully occupied houses of multiple occupancy, buy a two bed flat with a spare bedroom, thus reducing occupancy levels. This diminishes the pool of rooms available to renters. This has been discussed on this site innumerable times.
As has been discussed on here ad infinitum that statistic is total bullshit as it just measures age. Controlling for age there is no significant difference whatsoever.
Owner occupiers, especially owner occupiers without a mortgage, are disproportionately elderly people without children living with them as their children have moved out of the house.
A young couple renting a home or buying a home of their own has no net change in housing supply.
My daughter and husband 53 and 64 have I year left on their mortgage and my youngest son 49 and his wife 42 have paid off their mortgage so they do not fit your profile
And my daughter has their 15 year son living with them and my son and his wife have 3 children 12, 10 and 2
I would add that neither had inheritance but a lot of middle age parents do inherit money and pay off their mortgage
Your daughter and husband are old.
Your youngest is old.
People should be able to get a home in their 20s or 30s, people in their fifties aren't especially relevant to the conversation other than saying that it was affordable for them to get homes decades ago which isn't the case for far too many today.
49 is old ?
The average age for a first time buyer is 34
Our son and daughter bought their homes in the last 20 - 25 years which is similar to the average age today
Yes it is.
49 is a generation past people who should be looking for homes today, 25 years ago is a totally different era. 25 years ago the average house price in Wales was £51k - to compare 25 years ago with today just shows how broken today is.
49 is well past the age where the NHS warns about dangers for pregnancies. For people to safely settle down, have a family, in their own home, they need to be buying homes in their 20s, early 30s at the latest.
And the average 34 year old today does not own their own home, the average age you're quoting is distorted by excluding those who don't get a home which is far, far, far too many people - way more than it used to be.
Wages in 2000 were £18,800 compared to £35,800 today
However, affordability does depend on location and even today they are homes available to buy in our area between £130,000 and £180,000
I understand you are frustrated about home ownership but the only solution is more homes as you say, but building regulations requirements of net zero compliance have added to the costs.
I understand that the government is to mandate the renting of all homes or sale will require those homes to have a C rating or above which again will cause huge increases in prices as homes are retrofitted
Indeed the Welsh government are about to mandate EV charging points on all homes for rent or sale
This is a complex and difficult problem to resolve but it is not the fault of those who have bought and paid off their mortgages
I really don't think we should accept the building industry propaganda about not being able to improve the quality of housing without massive additional costs. We should expect them to be able to increase productivity to deliver higher quality housing at a lower price.
This is a local development near to us and the prices have shocked the community
These are not affordable homes for many, and it is why public opinion is very much with the local authority rule of 200% Council tax uplift this year, with 300% to follow for all second homes
Its only shocked you because you've not been paying attention.
House prices are far too high. Land costs are far too high. Search for undeveloped land with consent, you'll be looking at more than six figures for the plot of land alone.
But get the exact same plot without consent and you can knock a couple of 0's off that price.
It is the 1948 act that is the problem, not pissing about with energy standards. Energy standards are a good thing, not a bad one and are utter peanuts in the housing costs.
Why are you so rude
Of course I have been following house prices and indeed in my company before I retired I lectured on property, regulation and if you believe it was involved with the DCLG advising Yvette Cooper on home information packs
I fear for younger people especially those who rent not least because at retirement their rent will continue unlike a mortgage free home.
Of course many will inherit from their parents which will change their opportunities and why any chancellor attacking IHT will not be popular with some
But please do not blame those who have paid their mortgage as it isn't their fault but that of successive governments failing to build enough houses and I doubt that will change much for a variety of reasons and NIMBYs
When you post things like "my 49 year old has a house" as a retort to a discussion that house prices are making housing unaffordable for too many today then that is demeaning to the millions of people in their 20s and 30s who do not and can not afford one because prices today are not what they were 25 years ago, nor are price-earning ratios.
Its not the fault of those who've paid off their mortgages, its the fault of those who want to inflate the "value" of their "asset" because they've done so.
And if you owned that asset you would want market value
What we have today is not free market value, because we do not have a free market.
Prior to the 1948 act land was 2% of house prices not because we had less land than today, but because you could build where you wanted within reason so why pay over the odds.
The 1948 is responsible for adding 00s to the price of land when it has consent. Not when it has insulation, norr when it has EV chargers, nor when it has LED lighting. When it has nothing but the land.
If you expect land prices to revert to 2% then I am afraid you are in for a very long wait
Land is about 2% already today if it doesn't have consent.
It is when consent is added that 00s get added to land price.
The problem and the solution are the same thing.
The solution you want is a pipedream
The solution I want has been implemented, successfully, in other countries around the world.
There is not a single reason why it could not be done in this country and for you to witter on about energy efficiency and pretend that's the reason why houses are expensive when land without a building on is far too pricy . . . just shows you don't even want to tackle the problem.
I have grandchildren so can you stop being rude
Of course I want it tackled and building more homes is the only answer
Saying uncomfortable truths is not being rude.
Certainly no more rude than than saying that what someone wants is a "pipedream".
If you want it tackling then why not be concerned with the real causes of prices as can be seen in even vacant plots of land, rather than point at energy standards and pretend those are the issue?
Energy requirements are an additional cost and when mandated renting or selling homes at C or above will mean huge costs in retrofitted properties which again will fall either on the renter or buyer
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Oreos are rubbish.
A friend of mine is a teacher with very singular opinions. A pupil at his school once offered him an Oreo. The pupil was met with a heartfelt tirade about how he would not be taking his Oreo, because Oreos were essentially an inferior, American version of bourbons* which, like grey squirrels, were driving out the native product through a massive advertising budget (here the squirrel analogy got a little strained). The Oreo went uneaten. As it turned out, the pupil had painstakingly removed the white filling from the Oreos and replaced it with toothpaste as an April Fool's day joke. He had expected a telling off, but not exactly THAT telling off.
*note for the benefit of SSI - a bourbon is a biscuit: a bit like an Oreo, but better. Smaller, browner, more unremarkable to look at, but better engineered and with a smoother flavour.
Bourbons are boring, IMO. (And Oreos, vile.)
Biscuits aren't meant to be wildly exciting. They know and are comfortable with their place at the staider end of the confectionery spectrum. There is a place for a garishly decorated doughnut, and that place is at a six year old's birthday party, or America.
I mean, some biscuits are too boring. The Nice biscuit and the Rich Tea biscuit are, I think, taking the piss a bit. But you don't have to shift far up the spectrum to get a very satisfying low-level treat. The bourbon, the digestive, the custard cream, the ginger nut. The plain hob-nob. You don't need to go full jaffa cake to have a nice time.
Also, you don't want a really fancy biscuit if your intention is to dunk. And a well dunked biscuit, suffused with tea, is a thing of great beauty (cf proust and his madeleines, the simplicity is key)
One thing I have learned on my many travels is that fairly plain biscuits - like a plain Hobnob - dipped in red wine - can be glorious.The wine soaks into the biscuit. It's a bit like ctrawberry chili jam and fine blue stilton...
However I do like the little yummy biscuits continental types often serve automatically with coffee
I didn't see the speech, did Starmer have anything imaginative or interesting to say about how we will get the increase in productivity and magic growth required to get the country back on track?
Christ you're like a broken record. You, Leon and Starmer could all slug it out for the dreariest contribution of the day. At least tongue tied Starmer raised a smile by not being able to differentiate a hostage from a sausage.
WTF are you talking about. I asked a serious question, I didn't see the speech, did he have anything interesting to say? I was trying to get past just the gaffes, I was genuinely interested what was the substance.
Yes, he mistakenly confused a hostage with a sausage.
His put down was reasonably effective unless you are cheerleading for Corbyn.
Other than that it was a well delivered load of conference nonsense for the faithful. Much like most leader's conference speeches.
Well normally there is the odd policy to give some examples of the vision a leader wants to portray. The pre-briefing was about getting tougher on benefit fraud, anything else?
You don't normally get that in a party conf speech. There was a 'tone' though. Specifically a collectivist one. The idea that it's special to be nothing special and we rise together rather than trying to compete and stand out. Contrast being to the usual Tory thing of "ladders" and "aspiration" and all of that euphemistic cover for not giving a hoot about gross inequality. No idea (yet) if it translates to policies and outcomes but I really liked that aspect of the speech.
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Oreos are rubbish.
A friend of mine is a teacher with very singular opinions. A pupil at his school once offered him an Oreo. The pupil was met with a heartfelt tirade about how he would not be taking his Oreo, because Oreos were essentially an inferior, American version of bourbons* which, like grey squirrels, were driving out the native product through a massive advertising budget (here the squirrel analogy got a little strained). The Oreo went uneaten. As it turned out, the pupil had painstakingly removed the white filling from the Oreos and replaced it with toothpaste as an April Fool's day joke. He had expected a telling off, but not exactly THAT telling off.
*note for the benefit of SSI - a bourbon is a biscuit: a bit like an Oreo, but better. Smaller, browner, more unremarkable to look at, but better engineered and with a smoother flavour.
Bourbons are boring, IMO. (And Oreos, vile.)
Biscuits aren't meant to be wildly exciting. They know and are comfortable with their place at the staider end of the confectionery spectrum. There is a place for a garishly decorated doughnut, and that place is at a six year old's birthday party, or America.
I mean, some biscuits are too boring. The Nice biscuit and the Rich Tea biscuit are, I think, taking the piss a bit. But you don't have to shift far up the spectrum to get a very satisfying low-level treat. The bourbon, the digestive, the custard cream, the ginger nut. The plain hob-nob. You don't need to go full jaffa cake to have a nice time.
PM's office is on the phone. Do you fancy doing some speech-writing for them?
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Oreos are rubbish.
A friend of mine is a teacher with very singular opinions. A pupil at his school once offered him an Oreo. The pupil was met with a heartfelt tirade about how he would not be taking his Oreo, because Oreos were essentially an inferior, American version of bourbons* which, like grey squirrels, were driving out the native product through a massive advertising budget (here the squirrel analogy got a little strained). The Oreo went uneaten. As it turned out, the pupil had painstakingly removed the white filling from the Oreos and replaced it with toothpaste as an April Fool's day joke. He had expected a telling off, but not exactly THAT telling off.
*note for the benefit of SSI - a bourbon is a biscuit: a bit like an Oreo, but better. Smaller, browner, more unremarkable to look at, but better engineered and with a smoother flavour.
Bourbons are boring, IMO. (And Oreos, vile.)
Biscuits aren't meant to be wildly exciting. They know and are comfortable with their place at the staider end of the confectionery spectrum. There is a place for a garishly decorated doughnut, and that place is at a six year old's birthday party, or America.
I mean, some biscuits are too boring. The Nice biscuit and the Rich Tea biscuit are, I think, taking the piss a bit. But you don't have to shift far up the spectrum to get a very satisfying low-level treat. The bourbon, the digestive, the custard cream, the ginger nut. The plain hob-nob. You don't need to go full jaffa cake to have a nice time.
I just don’t like bourbons. They’re slightly too dry; insufficiently chocolatey; textureless.
I’d actually prefer a plain hobnob.
Try an Abernethy. More taste than a digestive, less oaty than a hobnob.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
It's hotting up politically here in Asheville this afternoon!
The corner of the town square has been occupied by "Veterans for Peace" with their 'honk for peace' demo (getting a fair few honks) and Palestinian flags. The veterans themselves have the look of people who've maybe struggled to find gainful employment since their service days, and there is no way the vehicles they arrived in would pass an MOT, if America had any such test.
Meanwhile a Trump-supporting car covered in painted slogans, on one side pro-Israel and on the other slamming the Democrats as the "party of paedophiles", with US flags flying is doing circuits of the square trying to annoy the veterans (who appear way too far left to be worried by anti-Dem propaganda), and behind the Trump car a white Camry has swung in, slogan-free but from its driving style both proximate and aggressive one can deduce that its driver does not 'approve this message'.
From your man on the spot, in memory of the long lost Bunnco...
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
STOP FUCKING DOXXING
Look, we all get that you're bitterly disappointed that the long-awaited Labour government is a pile of dead donkey shite, and Starmer is the stiffened donkey. It must be dismaying. Fair enough. We see the acrid disgruntlement in all your comments, and those of @Mexicanpete and @kinabalu and the rest; that's life, and that's politics...
So, whatever. Feel free to vent and abuse. But stop the doxxing, it is against the rules and you will be banned
Eh? Who am I doxxing? It’s an anonymous poster with a different handle.
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
If you do not like it just move past their posts
They account for more than half the posts on here.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
It is also rather nice to grow old gracefully and be thankful for all your blessings, and in my case the medics who have been amazing
'Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference'
I didn't see the speech, did Starmer have anything imaginative or interesting to say about how we will get the increase in productivity and magic growth required to get the country back on track?
Christ you're like a broken record. You, Leon and Starmer could all slug it out for the dreariest contribution of the day. At least tongue tied Starmer raised a smile by not being able to differentiate a hostage from a sausage.
WTF are you talking about. I asked a serious question, I didn't see the speech, did he have anything interesting to say? I was trying to get past just the gaffes, I was genuinely interested what was the substance.
Yes, he mistakenly confused a hostage with a sausage.
His put down was reasonably effective unless you are cheerleading for Corbyn.
Other than that it was a well delivered load of conference nonsense for the faithful. Much like most leader's conference speeches.
Well normally there is the odd policy to give some examples of the vision a leader wants to portray. The pre-briefing was about getting tougher on benefit fraud, anything else?
You don't normally get that in a party conf speech. There was a 'tone' though. Specifically a collectivist one. The idea that it's special to be nothing special and we rise together rather than trying to compete and stand out. Contrast being to the usual Tory thing of "ladders" and "aspiration" and all of that euphemistic cover for not giving a hoot about gross inequality. No idea (yet) if it translates to policies and outcomes but I really liked that aspect of the speech.
"The state will take back control" is the Telegraph print headline tomorrow, echoing the point I made down thread.
Times: Brace for the incoming storm warns Starmer.
It's hotting up politically here in Asheville this afternoon!
The corner of the town square has been occupied by "Veterans for Peace" with their 'honk for peace' demo (getting a fair few honks) and Palestinian flags. The veterans themselves have the look of people who've maybe struggled to find gainful employment since their service days, and there is no way the vehicles they arrived in would pass an MOT, if America had any such test.
Meanwhile a Trump-supporting car covered in painted slogans, on one side pro-Israel and on the other slamming the Democrats as the "party of paedophiles", with US flags flying is doing circuits of the square trying to annoy the veterans (who appear way too far left to be worried by anti-Dem propaganda), and behind the Trump car a white Camry has swung in, slogan-free but from its driving style both proximate and aggressive one can deduce that its driver does not 'approve this message'.
From your man on the spot, in memory of the long lost Bunnco...
I was in Asheville the day Obama won the first time. Proper fisty cuffs kicked off in the parking lot of the "Fresh Market" grocery store.
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Oreos are rubbish.
A friend of mine is a teacher with very singular opinions. A pupil at his school once offered him an Oreo. The pupil was met with a heartfelt tirade about how he would not be taking his Oreo, because Oreos were essentially an inferior, American version of bourbons* which, like grey squirrels, were driving out the native product through a massive advertising budget (here the squirrel analogy got a little strained). The Oreo went uneaten. As it turned out, the pupil had painstakingly removed the white filling from the Oreos and replaced it with toothpaste as an April Fool's day joke. He had expected a telling off, but not exactly THAT telling off.
*note for the benefit of SSI - a bourbon is a biscuit: a bit like an Oreo, but better. Smaller, browner, more unremarkable to look at, but better engineered and with a smoother flavour.
Bourbons are boring, IMO. (And Oreos, vile.)
The problem with American biscuits/cookies, as with so much American food (and I love SOME American food) is that they are too sweet
The worst are S'mores. OMFG. I wanted to vomit. I did not want s'more - and I told my hosts
What north America is great for is pure pure blue mineral skies, and space, and optimism. I sensed that in Vancouver, esp in the campus of UBC. A sense of the future being near and being exciting and being GOOD
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Oreos are rubbish.
A friend of mine is a teacher with very singular opinions. A pupil at his school once offered him an Oreo. The pupil was met with a heartfelt tirade about how he would not be taking his Oreo, because Oreos were essentially an inferior, American version of bourbons* which, like grey squirrels, were driving out the native product through a massive advertising budget (here the squirrel analogy got a little strained). The Oreo went uneaten. As it turned out, the pupil had painstakingly removed the white filling from the Oreos and replaced it with toothpaste as an April Fool's day joke. He had expected a telling off, but not exactly THAT telling off.
*note for the benefit of SSI - a bourbon is a biscuit: a bit like an Oreo, but better. Smaller, browner, more unremarkable to look at, but better engineered and with a smoother flavour.
Bourbons are boring, IMO. (And Oreos, vile.)
Biscuits aren't meant to be wildly exciting. They know and are comfortable with their place at the staider end of the confectionery spectrum. There is a place for a garishly decorated doughnut, and that place is at a six year old's birthday party, or America.
I mean, some biscuits are too boring. The Nice biscuit and the Rich Tea biscuit are, I think, taking the piss a bit. But you don't have to shift far up the spectrum to get a very satisfying low-level treat. The bourbon, the digestive, the custard cream, the ginger nut. The plain hob-nob. You don't need to go full jaffa cake to have a nice time.
Yes Rich Tea is taking 'plain' almost to the point of absurdity. If someone offers you a biscuit and then brings out a plate of Rich Tea it's beyond disappointing.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
I didn't see the speech, did Starmer have anything imaginative or interesting to say about how we will get the increase in productivity and magic growth required to get the country back on track?
Most drily amusing comment of the day.
He's completely out of his depth and will likely shortly match Liz Truss for the least popular PM ever.
I knew he'd be dire, incompetent and tin-eared but did not think he'd be this dismal this quick.
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
If you do not like it just move past their posts
Indeed. I don't think there is a poster on here that I find boring, except when they are complaining about how boring other posters are. I realise there is something a tad recursive about this.
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
If you do not like it just move past their posts
They account for more than half the posts on here.
Then maybe that is telling you something about Starmer and Labour you find hard to deal with but then that is politics
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
STOP FUCKING DOXXING
Look, we all get that you're bitterly disappointed that the long-awaited Labour government is a pile of dead donkey shite, and Starmer is the stiffened donkey. It must be dismaying. Fair enough. We see the acrid disgruntlement in all your comments, and those of @Mexicanpete and @kinabalu and the rest; that's life, and that's politics...
So, whatever. Feel free to vent and abuse. But stop the doxxing, it is against the rules and you will be banned
Eh? Who am I doxxing? It’s an anonymous poster with a different handle.
You are attempting to associate a present poster with a past poster, and you are claiming they are the same
You've now done it umpteen times and I am surprised you haven't been banned. There are rules against doxxing for a reason, the site only works if we generally observe them
It's not the worst crime in PB history but it is bad and you should stop, it also makes YOU look petulant and whiny, so it does you no service. Just stop it
And do try and grow a pair as regards critique of your precious Nu Labour government. This is what happens to parties in power. They get viciously attacked: that is democracy
I didn't see the speech, did Starmer have anything imaginative or interesting to say about how we will get the increase in productivity and magic growth required to get the country back on track?
Christ you're like a broken record. You, Leon and Starmer could all slug it out for the dreariest contribution of the day. At least tongue tied Starmer raised a smile by not being able to differentiate a hostage from a sausage.
WTF are you talking about. I asked a serious question, I didn't see the speech, did he have anything interesting to say? I was trying to get past just the gaffes, I was genuinely interested what was the substance.
Yes, he mistakenly confused a hostage with a sausage.
His put down was reasonably effective unless you are cheerleading for Corbyn.
Other than that it was a well delivered load of conference nonsense for the faithful. Much like most leader's conference speeches.
Well normally there is the odd policy to give some examples of the vision a leader wants to portray. The pre-briefing was about getting tougher on benefit fraud, anything else?
You don't normally get that in a party conf speech. There was a 'tone' though. Specifically a collectivist one. The idea that it's special to be nothing special and we rise together rather than trying to compete and stand out. Contrast being to the usual Tory thing of "ladders" and "aspiration" and all of that euphemistic cover for not giving a hoot about gross inequality. No idea (yet) if it translates to policies and outcomes but I really liked that aspect of the speech.
Anyway - how was/is the Red Wall? Where did you get to after Watford Gap?
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
If you do not like it just move past their posts
They account for more than half the posts on here.
What? That can't be true. Four posters account for more than half the posts on here? Some working need to be show, at least.
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Oreos are rubbish.
A friend of mine is a teacher with very singular opinions. A pupil at his school once offered him an Oreo. The pupil was met with a heartfelt tirade about how he would not be taking his Oreo, because Oreos were essentially an inferior, American version of bourbons* which, like grey squirrels, were driving out the native product through a massive advertising budget (here the squirrel analogy got a little strained). The Oreo went uneaten. As it turned out, the pupil had painstakingly removed the white filling from the Oreos and replaced it with toothpaste as an April Fool's day joke. He had expected a telling off, but not exactly THAT telling off.
*note for the benefit of SSI - a bourbon is a biscuit: a bit like an Oreo, but better. Smaller, browner, more unremarkable to look at, but better engineered and with a smoother flavour.
Bourbons are boring, IMO. (And Oreos, vile.)
Biscuits aren't meant to be wildly exciting. They know and are comfortable with their place at the staider end of the confectionery spectrum. There is a place for a garishly decorated doughnut, and that place is at a six year old's birthday party, or America.
I mean, some biscuits are too boring. The Nice biscuit and the Rich Tea biscuit are, I think, taking the piss a bit. But you don't have to shift far up the spectrum to get a very satisfying low-level treat. The bourbon, the digestive, the custard cream, the ginger nut. The plain hob-nob. You don't need to go full jaffa cake to have a nice time.
Yes Rich Tea is taking 'plain' almost to the point of absurdity. If someone offers you a biscuit and then brings out a plate of Rich Tea it's beyond disappointing.
My wife loves rich tea and butter sometimes with two rich tea and butter in-between
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
If you do not like it just move past their posts
They account for more than half the posts on here.
What? That can't be true. Four posters account for more than half the posts on here? Some working need to be show, at least.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
I take it you've read this, from Altman yesterday :
I know this is a poor use of my one picture a day, but the image below wins pb for the day for me. The contrast between kinabalu's brief, snappy, slightly exasperated tone in dealing with the Rich Tea and Anabobz's utter grumpiness with bourbons somehow makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.
I didn't see the speech, did Starmer have anything imaginative or interesting to say about how we will get the increase in productivity and magic growth required to get the country back on track?
Christ you're like a broken record. You, Leon and Starmer could all slug it out for the dreariest contribution of the day. At least tongue tied Starmer raised a smile by not being able to differentiate a hostage from a sausage.
WTF are you talking about. I asked a serious question, I didn't see the speech, did he have anything interesting to say? I was trying to get past just the gaffes, I was genuinely interested what was the substance.
Yes, he mistakenly confused a hostage with a sausage.
His put down was reasonably effective unless you are cheerleading for Corbyn.
Other than that it was a well delivered load of conference nonsense for the faithful. Much like most leader's conference speeches.
Well normally there is the odd policy to give some examples of the vision a leader wants to portray. The pre-briefing was about getting tougher on benefit fraud, anything else?
You don't normally get that in a party conf speech. There was a 'tone' though. Specifically a collectivist one. The idea that it's special to be nothing special and we rise together rather than trying to compete and stand out. Contrast being to the usual Tory thing of "ladders" and "aspiration" and all of that euphemistic cover for not giving a hoot about gross inequality.
Rubbish. The already wealthy don't need to talk about aspiration. Aspiration all about giving those near or at the bottom of society the ability to move up, through proven mechanisms like property ownership, incentives to work through low taxation, decent education and a strong, productive economy.
And if the already wealthy also flourish under those conditions, all the better.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
I take it you've read this, from Altman yesterday :
Yes. You can generally presume I have read every single new thing about AI. I am still an avid enthusiast and scholar of the subject, I am simply not allowed to talk about it on here, too much (and fair enough, I did go a bit bonkers about it (tho fair enough fair enough, it is probably the single most exciting thing to happen to any of us, and perhaps to any humans ever))
I had a quick dig into the idea that rented properties have higher occupancy rates than owner-occupied earlier today.
I think a lot of it is simply explained by age. Younger people are more likely to share a property than older people; younger people are more likely to rent. To invert the idea - the very few pensioners who rent have lower rates of occupancy than younger people who rent.
Indeed, we know that the fertility rate is astoundingly low. I would suggest that occupancy rates for owner-occupied would increase markedly should more younger people get on the housing ladder due to a boost in the number of children occupying bedrooms.
(I think this kind of analysis requires a much more rigorous approach than what I have come up with but thanks to MattW for sparking the idea)
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
If you do not like it just move past their posts
They account for more than half the posts on here.
What? That can't be true. Four posters account for more than half the posts on here? Some working need to be show, at least.
Yes, that is arrant bollox
And also how can they have droned on, until around 1445 today, about sausagegate when it only happened then? I am just trying to comment on odds-changing events in approximately real time.
Sausagegate is much bigger than it appears. Stay tuned till tomorrow for why.
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
I found myself on the wrong side of IshmaelZ and things got quite nasty for a time. I've not really noticed any similarity between them and @mercator ?
If they are the same user then they've decided to move on and that's what we should all do, IMO.
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Store-bought? Perhaps, though I seriously doubt it.
Home-made? No freaking way that home-baked UK "biscuits" surpass US made-from-scratch cookies.
What US manufactured cookie surpasses the chocolate hobnob ?
Oatmill cookies. Which appear to be the inspiration for the UK (nockoff?) "Hobnob".
Best when (reasonably) fresh (for store bought) AND with raisins.
Many thanks for wonderful opportunity (as a Revolting Colonial) to mock one Great British Institution - the Digestive Buscuit - with another - Politicalbetting.com.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
Grubby little man isn't he.
He's now more popular than your piggy-eyed puritanical sausage-gaffe-ing twat of a leader
Speaking of which, does anyone have any voting intention polls out?
The latest one for what it is worth (which is very little at this point) has the Conservatives down a bit, Reform up a bit, Labour and Lib Dems the same as the GE. Two earlier polls had Labour down a bit.
I didn't see the speech, did Starmer have anything imaginative or interesting to say about how we will get the increase in productivity and magic growth required to get the country back on track?
Christ you're like a broken record. You, Leon and Starmer could all slug it out for the dreariest contribution of the day. At least tongue tied Starmer raised a smile by not being able to differentiate a hostage from a sausage.
WTF are you talking about. I asked a serious question, I didn't see the speech, did he have anything interesting to say? I was trying to get past just the gaffes, I was genuinely interested what was the substance.
Yes, he mistakenly confused a hostage with a sausage.
His put down was reasonably effective unless you are cheerleading for Corbyn.
Other than that it was a well delivered load of conference nonsense for the faithful. Much like most leader's conference speeches.
Well normally there is the odd policy to give some examples of the vision a leader wants to portray. The pre-briefing was about getting tougher on benefit fraud, anything else?
You don't normally get that in a party conf speech. There was a 'tone' though. Specifically a collectivist one. The idea that it's special to be nothing special and we rise together rather than trying to compete and stand out. Contrast being to the usual Tory thing of "ladders" and "aspiration" and all of that euphemistic cover for not giving a hoot about gross inequality. No idea (yet) if it translates to policies and outcomes but I really liked that aspect of the speech.
"The state will take back control" is the Telegraph print headline tomorrow, echoing the point I made down thread.
Times: Brace for the incoming storm warns Starmer.
They also think it was quite radical then. I'm not sure though. I could be divining what I want from it. Could be just words.
Need me a triple shot of that stuff Gonna get drunk Won't you listen right here I want one bourbon One shot and one beer One bourbon, one scotch, one beer
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Store-bought? Perhaps, though I seriously doubt it.
Home-made? No freaking way that home-baked UK "biscuits" surpass US made-from-scratch cookies.
What US manufactured cookie surpasses the chocolate hobnob ?
Oatmill cookies. Which appear to be the inspiration for the UK (nockoff?) "Hobnob".
Best when (reasonably) fresh (for store bought) AND with raisins.
With all due respect, any American foodstuff which is not somehow and directly derived from native American cuisine (pretty rare) will naturally have European and often British origins, so this is "phooey", as I believe you say
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
Lots of reasons: 1. It's just icky. (But as I said earlier I have a low bar for this; I find cosmetics icky.) 2. Elon Musk looks like a waxy weirdo. I don't want to look like that. Sure, I look a bit more haggard in my 40s than I did in my 20s, but I'm in my 40s - I'm meant to. (In all honesty, I think I'm better looking now than I ever was, for one reason and one reason alone: I now just shave my head with a trimmer, and while I never have good hair, I never have bad hair either. Wish I'd started doing this 35 years ago. Once, in my late 20s, I went into a barbers and just got him to shave everything on a No.1 and honestly that weekend I was fighting the women off with a stick. But as a haircut it had no longevity and needed doing again after 2 weeks and paying for a haircut more than once a month borders on vanity, so it didn't last - if only it had occurred to me I could do it myself... ) 3. Do women really like that sort of look? I'm not convinced men like the women who've been all tweaked. I'm certainly far from convinced it's the other way around. Though if only 1 man in 100 does it and only 2 women in 100 like it you're already ahead of the game, I suppose. But while men's genetic instructions are to seek fertile women, women's are to seek successful men - and this doesn't necessarily translate as 'young'. Though there may, I suppose, be an element of 'look how successful I am, I can afford to do this to my face' about it. 4. Slebs are no sort of role models. At least, not that sort of sleb. 5. It's time and money I could be using for other things. Indeed, if being better looking was my thing, I'd say just doing some exercise or getting some nice clothes would make me feel better about myself. 6. A (female, 40s) friend of mine does that sort of thing and she always looks weirdly shiny and that alone would put me off going anywhere near the sort of establishments she frequents.
Basically, good luck to you but I'm going nowhere near.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
I take it you've read this, from Altman yesterday :
Yes. You can generally presume I have read every single new thing about AI. I am still an avid enthusiast and scholar of the subject, I am simply not allowed to talk about it on here, too much (and fair enough, I did go a bit bonkers about it (tho fair enough fair enough, it is probably the single most exciting thing to happen to any of us, and perhaps to any humans ever))
I mean, I hate to doubt anything you say... but there were more than 100 papers posted so far this week on arxiv.org - even on just the narrow AI fields I follow. I am in awe of your abilities.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
Musk looks like shit, though.
Have you seen how he looked in his 20s?
My more generalised point is that it's pretty much de rigeur among male slebs now, the idea that a rich guy looks in the mirror at 55 and goes "bugger, i look old, but there's nothing i can do" is bollox.
Looking younger and more attractive is a competitive advantage, and it's one you can purchase easily.
Many thanks for wonderful opportunity (as a Revolting Colonial) to mock one Great British Institution - the Digestive Buscuit - with another - Politicalbetting.com.
OR is it the other way around?
There may be many ways an American can mock Britain, and some may secretly hurt. We are not a self-confident people. But every single one of us - all 67 million of us - are so sure of the adequacy of the digestive biscuit that your barbs have no sting whatsoever. Mocking us for the paucity of our biscuits would be like us mocking you for the smallness of your country.
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Store-bought? Perhaps, though I seriously doubt it.
Home-made? No freaking way that home-baked UK "biscuits" surpass US made-from-scratch cookies.
What US manufactured cookie surpasses the chocolate hobnob ?
Oatmill cookies. Which appear to be the inspiration for the UK (nockoff?) "Hobnob".
Best when (reasonably) fresh (for store bought) AND with raisins.
I imported a stash of Chocolate Hobnobs for some friends in Seattle (on request).
They had been there a number of years and had apparently not found a decent substitute.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
This is an interesting YouTube channel about plastic surgery from one of the top surgeons in New York.
I didn't see the speech, did Starmer have anything imaginative or interesting to say about how we will get the increase in productivity and magic growth required to get the country back on track?
Christ you're like a broken record. You, Leon and Starmer could all slug it out for the dreariest contribution of the day. At least tongue tied Starmer raised a smile by not being able to differentiate a hostage from a sausage.
WTF are you talking about. I asked a serious question, I didn't see the speech, did he have anything interesting to say? I was trying to get past just the gaffes, I was genuinely interested what was the substance.
Yes, he mistakenly confused a hostage with a sausage.
His put down was reasonably effective unless you are cheerleading for Corbyn.
Other than that it was a well delivered load of conference nonsense for the faithful. Much like most leader's conference speeches.
Well normally there is the odd policy to give some examples of the vision a leader wants to portray. The pre-briefing was about getting tougher on benefit fraud, anything else?
You don't normally get that in a party conf speech. There was a 'tone' though. Specifically a collectivist one. The idea that it's special to be nothing special and we rise together rather than trying to compete and stand out. Contrast being to the usual Tory thing of "ladders" and "aspiration" and all of that euphemistic cover for not giving a hoot about gross inequality.
Rubbish. The already wealthy don't need to talk about aspiration. Aspiration all about giving those near or at the bottom of society the ability to move up, through proven mechanisms like property ownership, incentives to work through low taxation, decent education and a strong, productive economy.
And if the already wealthy also flourish under those conditions, all the better.
That's "ladder" and "escape" imagery which I don't like. I prefer to think of raising the floor and eroding differentials so as to remove the reliance on that.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
Musk looks like shit, though.
Have you seen how he looked in his 20s?
My more generalised point is that it's pretty much de rigeur among male slebs now, the idea that a rich guy looks in the mirror at 55 and goes "bugger, i look old, but there's nothing i can do" is bollox.
Looking younger and more attractive is a competitive advantage, and it's one you can purchase easily.
Musk does look like a fat turtle though. He might have had some 'work done', but that doesn't really help the "I'm on my back and can't flip over" feeling he gives out when you see photo's of him. Paying $40bn for twitter to delete unflattering posts possibly counts as more 'work done' I guess.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
Musk looks like shit, though.
Have you seen how he looked in his 20s?
My more generalised point is that it's pretty much de rigeur among male slebs now, the idea that a rich guy looks in the mirror at 55 and goes "bugger, i look old, but there's nothing i can do" is bollox.
Looking younger and more attractive is a competitive advantage, and it's one you can purchase easily.
I think I'll save the money in case I need new knees instead of blowing it on a new face.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
Musk looks like shit, though.
Mostly because he dresses badly.
If you want to look good when you are older pay attention to clothing. I saw a patient in his nineties today still looking handsome in a well cut suit, tie, crisp shirt and well polished shoes, the full Monty.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
Musk looks like shit, though.
Have you seen how he looked in his 20s?
My more generalised point is that it's pretty much de rigeur among male slebs now, the idea that a rich guy looks in the mirror at 55 and goes "bugger, i look old, but there's nothing i can do" is bollox.
Looking younger and more attractive is a competitive advantage, and it's one you can purchase easily.
Musk does look like a fat turtle though. He might have had some 'work done', but that doesn't really help the "I'm on my back and can't flip over" feeling he gives out when you see photo's of him. Paying $40bn for twitter to delete unflattering posts possibly counts as more 'work done' I guess.
Just watch the film out at the moment - The Substance to dispel any thoughts of plastic surgery or anti ageing potions
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Store-bought? Perhaps, though I seriously doubt it.
Home-made? No freaking way that home-baked UK "biscuits" surpass US made-from-scratch cookies.
What US manufactured cookie surpasses the chocolate hobnob ?
Oatmill cookies. Which appear to be the inspiration for the UK (nockoff?) "Hobnob".
Best when (reasonably) fresh (for store bought) AND with raisins.
I imported a stash of Chocolate Hobnobs for some friends in Seattle (on request).
They had been there a number of years and had apparently not found a decent substitute.
In this morning's discussion about the £300k mortgage for a couple earning £50k did anyone mention that would be a property price higher than the national average for people barely earning above minimum wage.
But everybody who wants to buy a house under the age of 25 *must* have a 3-bed semi or better.
Its perfectly possible in large parts of the country as well.
Leave school at 18, get a job, learn a skillset and at 25 they'll be earning £30k or more, have savings and no debt.
Then buy a 3 bed semi for £200k with a 10% deposit and a 3x mortgage.
Now that wont suit everyone's life plans but everyone has to make their own choices.
It's not that easy to have saved £30k - a whole year's pretax income - by the time you're 25, especially as you won't be starting on £30k, you'll be starting on £15-20k.
If you are living at home it might be doable, but if you're in shared accommodation, then you're going to be clearing at most £1,500/month (at £20k) and spending at least £500 of that on accommodation and bills. Even if you are able to save 20% of your post tax, post rent and bills income, you will struggle to save more than £2,400 in a year.
Getting to £30k of savings is not impossible, but does requires iron discipline and a very high savings rate.
Well its not £30k but 20K, 10% of £200k.
Or £10k each as its for a couple.
And yes, it does assume a few years living at home. Which is what all the teenagers I know do who get a job at 18 (and even more so for those who leave school at 16).
Eek twin A managed to save £20,000 in a lifetime ISA in just over 2.5 years - and that in a not brilliantly paying job while living at home and paying for multiple holidays and a car.
And yes she was being charged rent - I did give it back to her as a gifted deposit though..
"...Eek twin A managed to save £20,000 in a lifetime ISA in just over 2.5 years - and that in a not brilliantly paying job while living at home and paying for multiple holidays and a car.
And yes she was being charged rent - I did give it back to her as a gifted deposit though..."
Exactly what are you trying to prove there?
she managed to save the £20,000 while living a decent life (3 year old car, multiple holidays abroad) AND paying the market rent for a room. The fact I then gifted some money back so she hit a lower mortgage ratio threshold is irrelevant to the point that saving £20,000 is very achievable.
Market rent for a room in the South-East (not London!) is round-about £500pcm. Electric, Water and council tax adds about another £250pcm. 20K over 2.5yrs is £660pcm. Food, clothes, haircuts, dental, basic maintenance, call it £100pw that's 430pcm. I don't know how much a car costs.
All in, that's 500+250+660+430+holiday+car, which comes to 1850+holiday+car. Take-home pay for £26K is around £1850 and that doesn't cover the three holidays plus the cost of buying the car plus the cost of maintaining the car plus the cost of petrol etc.
May I ask how much your daughter earned please? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.
Many thanks for wonderful opportunity (as a Revolting Colonial) to mock one Great British Institution - the Digestive Buscuit - with another - Politicalbetting.com.
OR is it the other way around?
There may be many ways an American can mock Britain, and some may secretly hurt. We are not a self-confident people. But every single one of us - all 67 million of us - are so sure of the adequacy of the digestive biscuit that your barbs have no sting whatsoever. Mocking us for the paucity of our biscuits would be like us mocking you for the smallness of your country.
I was going to make some harsh observations about nomenclature until I noticed your username. But seriously has anything ever sounded less appetising than biscuits & gravy?
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
Musk looks like shit, though.
Mostly because he dresses badly.
If you want to look good when you are older pay attention to clothing. I saw a patient in his nineties today still looking handsome in a well cut suit, tie, crisp shirt and well polished shoes, the full Monty.
My great uncle was like that. Always immaculately turned out in a three piece suit, right up to the age of 100. Was he remarkably good looking? Or did he just give the impression of being good looking because he presented himself as such?
Mind you, some people just look good in clothes. I could wear the most expensive clothes in Manchester and still look unkempt. Some in my family can wear a tracksuit and look like they're on a catwalk.
He was also a lovely man who made you feel like the most interesting person in the world when you spoke to him. A rare talent.
In this morning's discussion about the £300k mortgage for a couple earning £50k did anyone mention that would be a property price higher than the national average for people barely earning above minimum wage.
But everybody who wants to buy a house under the age of 25 *must* have a 3-bed semi or better.
Its perfectly possible in large parts of the country as well.
Leave school at 18, get a job, learn a skillset and at 25 they'll be earning £30k or more, have savings and no debt.
Then buy a 3 bed semi for £200k with a 10% deposit and a 3x mortgage.
Now that wont suit everyone's life plans but everyone has to make their own choices.
It's not that easy to have saved £30k - a whole year's pretax income - by the time you're 25, especially as you won't be starting on £30k, you'll be starting on £15-20k.
If you are living at home it might be doable, but if you're in shared accommodation, then you're going to be clearing at most £1,500/month (at £20k) and spending at least £500 of that on accommodation and bills. Even if you are able to save 20% of your post tax, post rent and bills income, you will struggle to save more than £2,400 in a year.
Getting to £30k of savings is not impossible, but does requires iron discipline and a very high savings rate.
So no avocados is what I'm hearing.
The deposit is pretty much the reason why all the "well, if government policy forces landlords to sell up, that's good for renters" arguments fall flat.
It's great if you're in a position to save for a 30k deposit (few are), it's even better if you've got family who can stump up the deposit (so, generational wealth).
If you don't have that ability, the war on landlords just means the pool of renters who are unable to buy are competing for a diminishing number of properties at ever higher prices, with the ever increasing regulatory burdens and red tape tacked onto the price of the rental.
We are at a point where the rental trap is more or less impossible to escape without family help, entrenching a two-tier system where those who are able to tap into generational wealth can get on the property ladder, while those without are screwed in perpetuity.
What on earth happens to the houses the landlords are selling? Either go to other landlords or renters. If they are left empty or second homes, tax them punitively. The houses don't disappear because amateur landlord can't make their business work.
Are you completely blind, or just thick as a whale omelette?
As I stated above, landlords selling up is great for those who can afford a 30k deposit.
It kinda sucks for renters who can't.
May I suggest visiting a popular optician for some reading glasses?
Unless the quantity of houses changes landlords selling up has next-to-zero effect on renters.
If a landlord sells to someone who was a tenant then the supply of landlords houses goes down by 1 and the demand for houses from tenants goes down by one so there is absolutely zero net change in supply versus demand.
Want to affect supply and demand - build more houses.
As has been discussed on here ad infinitum, renters tend to occupy more of a property than owners. E.g. a young couple buy a house together, having formerly lived in bedrooms in two fully occupied houses of multiple occupancy, buy a two bed flat with a spare bedroom, thus reducing occupancy levels. This diminishes the pool of rooms available to renters. This has been discussed on this site innumerable times.
As has been discussed on here ad infinitum that statistic is total bullshit as it just measures age. Controlling for age there is no significant difference whatsoever.
Owner occupiers, especially owner occupiers without a mortgage, are disproportionately elderly people without children living with them as their children have moved out of the house.
A young couple renting a home or buying a home of their own has no net change in housing supply.
My daughter and husband 53 and 64 have I year left on their mortgage and my youngest son 49 and his wife 42 have paid off their mortgage so they do not fit your profile
And my daughter has their 15 year son living with them and my son and his wife have 3 children 12, 10 and 2
I would add that neither had inheritance but a lot of middle age parents do inherit money and pay off their mortgage
Your daughter and husband are old.
Your youngest is old.
People should be able to get a home in their 20s or 30s, people in their fifties aren't especially relevant to the conversation other than saying that it was affordable for them to get homes decades ago which isn't the case for far too many today.
49 is old ?
The average age for a first time buyer is 34
Our son and daughter bought their homes in the last 20 - 25 years which is similar to the average age today
Yes it is.
49 is a generation past people who should be looking for homes today, 25 years ago is a totally different era. 25 years ago the average house price in Wales was £51k - to compare 25 years ago with today just shows how broken today is.
49 is well past the age where the NHS warns about dangers for pregnancies. For people to safely settle down, have a family, in their own home, they need to be buying homes in their 20s, early 30s at the latest.
And the average 34 year old today does not own their own home, the average age you're quoting is distorted by excluding those who don't get a home which is far, far, far too many people - way more than it used to be.
Wages in 2000 were £18,800 compared to £35,800 today
However, affordability does depend on location and even today they are homes available to buy in our area between £130,000 and £180,000
I understand you are frustrated about home ownership but the only solution is more homes as you say, but building regulations requirements of net zero compliance have added to the costs.
I understand that the government is to mandate the renting of all homes or sale will require those homes to have a C rating or above which again will cause huge increases in prices as homes are retrofitted
Indeed the Welsh government are about to mandate EV charging points on all homes for rent or sale
This is a complex and difficult problem to resolve but it is not the fault of those who have bought and paid off their mortgages
I really don't think we should accept the building industry propaganda about not being able to improve the quality of housing without massive additional costs. We should expect them to be able to increase productivity to deliver higher quality housing at a lower price.
This is a local development near to us and the prices have shocked the community
These are not affordable homes for many, and it is why public opinion is very much with the local authority rule of 200% Council tax uplift this year, with 300% to follow for all second homes
Its only shocked you because you've not been paying attention.
House prices are far too high. Land costs are far too high. Search for undeveloped land with consent, you'll be looking at more than six figures for the plot of land alone.
But get the exact same plot without consent and you can knock a couple of 0's off that price.
It is the 1948 act that is the problem, not pissing about with energy standards. Energy standards are a good thing, not a bad one and are utter peanuts in the housing costs.
Why are you so rude
Of course I have been following house prices and indeed in my company before I retired I lectured on property, regulation and if you believe it was involved with the DCLG advising Yvette Cooper on home information packs
I fear for younger people especially those who rent not least because at retirement their rent will continue unlike a mortgage free home.
Of course many will inherit from their parents which will change their opportunities and why any chancellor attacking IHT will not be popular with some
But please do not blame those who have paid their mortgage as it isn't their fault but that of successive governments failing to build enough houses and I doubt that will change much for a variety of reasons and NIMBYs
I suspect you underestimate the level of intergenerational anger with regards to the housing market.
As a 40-something, many of us had parents who bought in their 20s for about 3x their annual salary, by the time we came to buy, it was 10x our salaries, plus deposit which either meant being insanely lucky or having parental help.
As a 40-something, many more twenty somethings can't even manage it with parental help, as house prices have further pulled away from annual salaries, hence the 6x mortgages announced this week - the ponzi must continue at any cost.
It is, to borrow a trumpism, a rigged system. The idea that you throw much of your early life away paying a landlord half your take home. Then, if you're super lucky, your parents give you enough cash to throw half your salary away paying the bank.
If we built a shit ton of new houses such as the new equilibrium was people paying 20-25% of income to either rent or (with lower rental costs) save up to buy a place of their own, huge amounts of money would be diverted from the unproductive sector (bricks and mortar) to business.
Ask anyone under the age of 40 and they will tell you the system is fundamentally broken.
Bart isn't angry with you. He - like me - is angry at the system.
Like everyone else our age.
I do understand the anger and really do worry for renters in retirement
Starmer changing planning may help until you come into dispute with the Greens and NIMBYs
Indeed a small Welsh village rejected 18 affordable homes because in their words it would effect their Welsh tradition and language
I expect and hope the decision will be rejected on appeal but even then what happens when a non Welsh speaking buyer turns up
My problem with @BartholomewRoberts is he can be very confrontational especially to those who are on the housing ladder and retirees and as you say it is not their fault
I am on the housing ladder myself, why the heck would I confront those like myself who are?
I have not done that.
What I object to are those who oppose liberalising construction, or want in unrelated discussions want to spend billions on unnecessary and unearned welfare for pensioners. Nothing unreasonable with either.
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Oreos are rubbish.
A friend of mine is a teacher with very singular opinions. A pupil at his school once offered him an Oreo. The pupil was met with a heartfelt tirade about how he would not be taking his Oreo, because Oreos were essentially an inferior, American version of bourbons* which, like grey squirrels, were driving out the native product through a massive advertising budget (here the squirrel analogy got a little strained). The Oreo went uneaten. As it turned out, the pupil had painstakingly removed the white filling from the Oreos and replaced it with toothpaste as an April Fool's day joke. He had expected a telling off, but not exactly THAT telling off.
*note for the benefit of SSI - a bourbon is a biscuit: a bit like an Oreo, but better. Smaller, browner, more unremarkable to look at, but better engineered and with a smoother flavour.
Bourbons are boring, IMO. (And Oreos, vile.)
Biscuits aren't meant to be wildly exciting. They know and are comfortable with their place at the staider end of the confectionery spectrum. There is a place for a garishly decorated doughnut, and that place is at a six year old's birthday party, or America.
I mean, some biscuits are too boring. The Nice biscuit and the Rich Tea biscuit are, I think, taking the piss a bit. But you don't have to shift far up the spectrum to get a very satisfying low-level treat. The bourbon, the digestive, the custard cream, the ginger nut. The plain hob-nob. You don't need to go full jaffa cake to have a nice time.
Yes Rich Tea is taking 'plain' almost to the point of absurdity. If someone offers you a biscuit and then brings out a plate of Rich Tea it's beyond disappointing.
My wife loves rich tea and butter sometimes with two rich tea and butter in-between
Ok I can just about imagine that. Not sure it's for me though.
No PM has done a better Conference speech in my memory than this one by Starmer.
Which doesn't mean it was a great speech. Starmer is no Obama or Bill Clinton but it went down well in Conference as far as I can tell. Ideally with a stump speech you also address a wider audience. This one didn't but none of others have either.
In this morning's discussion about the £300k mortgage for a couple earning £50k did anyone mention that would be a property price higher than the national average for people barely earning above minimum wage.
But everybody who wants to buy a house under the age of 25 *must* have a 3-bed semi or better.
Its perfectly possible in large parts of the country as well.
Leave school at 18, get a job, learn a skillset and at 25 they'll be earning £30k or more, have savings and no debt.
Then buy a 3 bed semi for £200k with a 10% deposit and a 3x mortgage.
Now that wont suit everyone's life plans but everyone has to make their own choices.
It's not that easy to have saved £30k - a whole year's pretax income - by the time you're 25, especially as you won't be starting on £30k, you'll be starting on £15-20k.
If you are living at home it might be doable, but if you're in shared accommodation, then you're going to be clearing at most £1,500/month (at £20k) and spending at least £500 of that on accommodation and bills. Even if you are able to save 20% of your post tax, post rent and bills income, you will struggle to save more than £2,400 in a year.
Getting to £30k of savings is not impossible, but does requires iron discipline and a very high savings rate.
So no avocados is what I'm hearing.
The deposit is pretty much the reason why all the "well, if government policy forces landlords to sell up, that's good for renters" arguments fall flat.
It's great if you're in a position to save for a 30k deposit (few are), it's even better if you've got family who can stump up the deposit (so, generational wealth).
If you don't have that ability, the war on landlords just means the pool of renters who are unable to buy are competing for a diminishing number of properties at ever higher prices, with the ever increasing regulatory burdens and red tape tacked onto the price of the rental.
We are at a point where the rental trap is more or less impossible to escape without family help, entrenching a two-tier system where those who are able to tap into generational wealth can get on the property ladder, while those without are screwed in perpetuity.
What on earth happens to the houses the landlords are selling? Either go to other landlords or renters. If they are left empty or second homes, tax them punitively. The houses don't disappear because amateur landlord can't make their business work.
Are you completely blind, or just thick as a whale omelette?
As I stated above, landlords selling up is great for those who can afford a 30k deposit.
It kinda sucks for renters who can't.
May I suggest visiting a popular optician for some reading glasses?
Unless the quantity of houses changes landlords selling up has next-to-zero effect on renters.
If a landlord sells to someone who was a tenant then the supply of landlords houses goes down by 1 and the demand for houses from tenants goes down by one so there is absolutely zero net change in supply versus demand.
Want to affect supply and demand - build more houses.
Not quite.
10 renters looking, 5 houses on market
2 (now ex) renters buy 2 of the houses
Now 8 renters looking, 3 houses on market
So ratio of looking : houses on market rises
There's 5 insufficient houses either way in either scenario and the 2 richest (ex) renters would have offered to pay more rent to get the homes anyway in the renting scenario so there's no real difference.
The only way to solve the shortage is to build at least 5 more homes.
We need a 1950s style mass building programme of social housing to properly reset the housing market. Nothing else will be sufficient.
Or even better a 1930s style mass building programme of housing.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
Musk looks like shit, though.
Have you seen how he looked in his 20s?
My more generalised point is that it's pretty much de rigeur among male slebs now, the idea that a rich guy looks in the mirror at 55 and goes "bugger, i look old, but there's nothing i can do" is bollox.
Looking younger and more attractive is a competitive advantage, and it's one you can purchase easily.
I think I'll save the money in case I need new knees instead of blowing it on a new face.
I think there's a lot to be said for aging naturally and gracefully.
I notice a lot of celebs that don't get "work" done often look pretty rough in their middle years but look much better and more natural later.
Where-as those that delay the aging process with "work" in the middle years look really bad when they get old - Probably because they have to keep getting more and more work just to stand still... Eventually it can reach the point where they become a complete freak-show.
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Store-bought? Perhaps, though I seriously doubt it.
Home-made? No freaking way that home-baked UK "biscuits" surpass US made-from-scratch cookies.
What US manufactured cookie surpasses the chocolate hobnob ?
Oatmill cookies. Which appear to be the inspiration for the UK (nockoff?) "Hobnob".
Best when (reasonably) fresh (for store bought) AND with raisins.
I imported a stash of Chocolate Hobnobs for some friends in Seattle (on request).
They had been there a number of years and had apparently not found a decent substitute.
My own sainted mother baked oatmeal cookies to die for. Sadly she's NOT baking in Seattle, or anywhere else (that I know of anyway).
Am no longer consuming cookies (home-made or store-bought) but Archway oakmeal with raison cookies used to be pretty good. However, unsure they would meet exacting requirements of your friends; certainly NOT something to impress guests!
Speaking of "digestive" properties of digestive buscuits, somehow doubt that, should one be afflicted with constipation, scarfing down a half-dozen or more is gonna unplug ones plumbing.
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Store-bought? Perhaps, though I seriously doubt it.
Home-made? No freaking way that home-baked UK "biscuits" surpass US made-from-scratch cookies.
What US manufactured cookie surpasses the chocolate hobnob ?
Oatmill cookies. Which appear to be the inspiration for the UK (nockoff?) "Hobnob".
Best when (reasonably) fresh (for store bought) AND with raisins.
I imported a stash of Chocolate Hobnobs for some friends in Seattle (on request).
They had been there a number of years and had apparently not found a decent substitute.
It's hotting up politically here in Asheville this afternoon!
The corner of the town square has been occupied by "Veterans for Peace" with their 'honk for peace' demo (getting a fair few honks) and Palestinian flags. The veterans themselves have the look of people who've maybe struggled to find gainful employment since their service days, and there is no way the vehicles they arrived in would pass an MOT, if America had any such test.
Meanwhile a Trump-supporting car covered in painted slogans, on one side pro-Israel and on the other slamming the Democrats as the "party of paedophiles", with US flags flying is doing circuits of the square trying to annoy the veterans (who appear way too far left to be worried by anti-Dem propaganda), and behind the Trump car a white Camry has swung in, slogan-free but from its driving style both proximate and aggressive one can deduce that its driver does not 'approve this message'.
From your man on the spot, in memory of the long lost Bunnco...
I was in Asheville the day Obama won the first time. Proper fisty cuffs kicked off in the parking lot of the "Fresh Market" grocery store.
So, the veterans have retired to the bar, the Trump car has zoomed off pursued by the Camry, and the demo spot has been occupied by a small group of pro-Palestine students, hectoring passers-by with their megaphone; or they would be, were it not for the Pride event being hosted outside the hotel across the street, which is pumping out Abba hits at maximum volume.
Meanwhile I have retired to sample some North Carolinian Chardonnay. There’s a rather good wine shop down the street, and I asked yesterday whether the North Carolina wines, of which they had an entire shelf, were any good. With admirable honesty the lady in the shop said “no” and pulled a sour face. But I bought one anyway. From a family owned farm established in 2008, on the slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains. On Vivino it has a very good rating, but that may say more about the geographical spread of users of that App than it does about the wine…
Said previously that 2024 is giving me the brexit itch. Now I'm coming out in hives.
I think it's a genuinely interesting ad because it's saying something new. No idea whether it resonates with the target low information white male, but it will be very damaging to Trump if it does. And to be honest it's low risk for the Kamala campaign as anything she wins in that demographic is a bonus.
Colston Bassett blue stilton with Okanagan strawberry chilli jam???
Who knew???
Fuck. That's good
Oh ffs. It's grub. Get a grip.
Your miserablism is a joy. Labour are such a disappointment. It's delicious to watch
Tho not as delicious as Colston Bassett stilton with Okanagan chili jam
I can well imagine. I have had a similar combination with Stilton, and it's magnificent.
What are you eating this concoction on? For a long time I sidestepped cheese as vaguely unsatisfactory but it turned out what was actually unsatisfactory was the cracker or oatcake or otger taste vacuum it sat on. My solution is a digestive or hovis biscuit.
The term "digestive biscuit" is NOT a masterpierce of British marketing.
Sounds like something a vet would prescribe for a consipated parrot.
Well, that just shows where you are wrong. Digestive biscuits are made with bicarbonate of soda, which is a mild laxative, and so the name was chosen deliberately to sell them as a Victorian era health food to aid in digestion. This marketing was so popular that digestive biscuits are still a staple biscuit in Britain today.
So constipated Victorians used to seek relief, by shoving disgestive buscuits up their fundaments?
Surprise, surprise!
You eat them.
Look, there's a reason why the number one item we are asked to bring with us by Americans when we cross the Atlantic is biscuits. The British simply do biscuits better than the Americans, however hard oreos may be advertised.
Store-bought? Perhaps, though I seriously doubt it.
Home-made? No freaking way that home-baked UK "biscuits" surpass US made-from-scratch cookies.
What US manufactured cookie surpasses the chocolate hobnob ?
Oatmill cookies. Which appear to be the inspiration for the UK (nockoff?) "Hobnob".
Best when (reasonably) fresh (for store bought) AND with raisins.
I imported a stash of Chocolate Hobnobs for some friends in Seattle (on request).
They had been there a number of years and had apparently not found a decent substitute.
I didn't see the speech, did Starmer have anything imaginative or interesting to say about how we will get the increase in productivity and magic growth required to get the country back on track?
Christ you're like a broken record. You, Leon and Starmer could all slug it out for the dreariest contribution of the day. At least tongue tied Starmer raised a smile by not being able to differentiate a hostage from a sausage.
WTF are you talking about. I asked a serious question, I didn't see the speech, did he have anything interesting to say? I was trying to get past just the gaffes, I was genuinely interested what was the substance.
Yes, he mistakenly confused a hostage with a sausage.
His put down was reasonably effective unless you are cheerleading for Corbyn.
Other than that it was a well delivered load of conference nonsense for the faithful. Much like most leader's conference speeches.
Well normally there is the odd policy to give some examples of the vision a leader wants to portray. The pre-briefing was about getting tougher on benefit fraud, anything else?
You don't normally get that in a party conf speech. There was a 'tone' though. Specifically a collectivist one. The idea that it's special to be nothing special and we rise together rather than trying to compete and stand out. Contrast being to the usual Tory thing of "ladders" and "aspiration" and all of that euphemistic cover for not giving a hoot about gross inequality. No idea (yet) if it translates to policies and outcomes but I really liked that aspect of the speech.
Anyway - how was/is the Red Wall? Where did you get to after Watford Gap?
Donny hotel. Parents tomorrow. Monthly thing now with the combined age of the three of us being 243.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
Musk looks like shit, though.
Mostly because he dresses badly.
If you want to look good when you are older pay attention to clothing. I saw a patient in his nineties today still looking handsome in a well cut suit, tie, crisp shirt and well polished shoes, the full Monty.
My great uncle was like that. Always immaculately turned out in a three piece suit, right up to the age of 100. Was he remarkably good looking? Or did he just give the impression of being good looking because he presented himself as such?
Mind you, some people just look good in clothes. I could wear the most expensive clothes in Manchester and still look unkempt. Some in my family can wear a tracksuit and look like they're on a catwalk.
He was also a lovely man who made you feel like the most interesting person in the world when you spoke to him. A rare talent.
It's largely a matter of getting the clothes right. They have to fit in the right places.
Where Musk gets it wrong is that he dresses for the shape he wants to be, not the shape he actually is. I think he cares quite a lot for how he is perceived, just is a very poor judge of what does suit him.
The Great Canadian Cookie - at least in British Columbia - is the Nanaimo Bar
per wiki: The Nanaimo bar is a bar dessert that requires no baking and is named after the Canadian city of Nanaimo in British Columbia. It consists of three layers: a wafer, nut, and coconut crumb base; custard icing in the middle; and a layer of chocolate ganache on top.
SSI - Also very popular in rest of Pacific Northwest south of the Medicine Line. Especially as do-it-yourself version are staples for campouts, same as s'mores.
Best way to consume both being around a campfire NOT in a 7-11 parking lot.
No PM has done a better Conference speech in my memory than this one by Starmer.
Which doesn't mean it was a great speech. Starmer is no Obama or Bill Clinton but it went down well in Conference as far as I can tell. Ideally with a stump speech you also address a wider audience. This one didn't but none of others have either.
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
If you do not like it just move past their posts
They account for more than half the posts on here.
What? That can't be true. Four posters account for more than half the posts on here? Some working need to be show, at least.
Yes, that is arrant bollox
out of all the nonsense that gets posted on this site, it's THIS that's getting fact-checked? Definitely something in the water.
Many thanks for wonderful opportunity (as a Revolting Colonial) to mock one Great British Institution - the Digestive Buscuit - with another - Politicalbetting.com.
OR is it the other way around?
There may be many ways an American can mock Britain, and some may secretly hurt. We are not a self-confident people. But every single one of us - all 67 million of us - are so sure of the adequacy of the digestive biscuit that your barbs have no sting whatsoever. Mocking us for the paucity of our biscuits would be like us mocking you for the smallness of your country.
I was going to make some harsh observations about nomenclature until I noticed your username. But seriously has anything ever sounded less appetising than biscuits & gravy?
It's actually pretty good. When I'm on the road in America (admittedly not often nowadays) I like to take in some proper country cooking. Cracker Barrel is rather hokey, but the food is surprisingly OK.
Nigel on the other hand is a middle class, middle ranking stock-broker who drinks red wine in high end restaurants.
His other great piece of psychological projection (straight from the Trump playbook) was when he said he was going to root out bigots from Reform. Quite how he would retain his membership under such a requirement remains a mystery.
Yes that shocked me. Telling half his voters to fuck off basically. Not smart politics.
Quite the opposite
This tellls me Farage is deadly serious about turning Reform into an election winning party (which I did not expect). He is following the path of Le Pen and Meloni. Sacking the nutters and tacking somewhat to the centre (but staying firmly on the hard right when it comes to migration/asylum/kulturkampf, etc)
He really wants to do this. He can sense a unique opportunity. Given that he is arguably the most consequential and successful British politician of the 21st century I would be worried in Labour AND Tory HQs
That does require him not to die of liver disease before the next General Election.
For a man with an apparently less-than-healthy lifestyle, Farage looks quite slim and chipper
Contrast with Boris
He's the same age as Nick Clegg. Nick looks about 15 years younger.
Clegg’s aged a lot recently based on the interview that was posted on here. He’s starting to acquire the look of an aging minor rockstar who retired to California.
Someone on here, a few years ago, when I was about 55, warned me that a lot of apparently well-preserved men age really suddenly after about 55
Tragically, that turns out to be true. I could pass for early 40s into my mid 50s. Not any more
> Botox and fillers > Laser resurfacing > Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
Interesting!
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
Eh, I see a dermatologist once a month.
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
Musk looks like shit, though.
Have you seen how he looked in his 20s?
My more generalised point is that it's pretty much de rigeur among male slebs now, the idea that a rich guy looks in the mirror at 55 and goes "bugger, i look old, but there's nothing i can do" is bollox.
Looking younger and more attractive is a competitive advantage, and it's one you can purchase easily.
I think I'll save the money in case I need new knees instead of blowing it on a new face.
I think there's a lot to be said for aging naturally and gracefully.
I notice a lot of celebs that don't get "work" done often look pretty rough in their middle years but look much better and more natural later.
Where-as those that delay the aging process with "work" in the middle years look really bad when they get old - Probably because they have to keep getting more and more work just to stand still... Eventually it can reach the point where they become a complete freak-show.
As a society we revere youthfulness and good looks. Those things are great when you have them, but we need to accept they are fleeting.
An old face is also an experienced face. Each and every frown/worry line has it's own story. Every scar on an old persons body (and sometimes even on a young persons body) is a war wound. A token of a personal battle fought and won.
We should embrace our imperfections IMO. At the end of the day, we are human. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
I found myself on the wrong side of IshmaelZ and things got quite nasty for a time. I've not really noticed any similarity between them and @mercator ?
If they are the same user then they've decided to move on and that's what we should all do, IMO.
say something derogatory about oxford and see if he bites
I don't see how that can be a Con gain from Labour, given that - on those numbers - the LibDems were on 29.7% last time against 22.6% for Labour.
I was thinking the same. I double checked their spreadsheet of the previous result and it does show Labour third but also shows it being a Labour defence.
Ye Gods. It’s the same four miserable bores droning on night after night, with repetitive dour invective from @IshmaelZ/@mercantor. Somebody please - PLEASE! - make it stop.
I found myself on the wrong side of IshmaelZ and things got quite nasty for a time. I've not really noticed any similarity between them and @mercator ?
If they are the same user then they've decided to move on and that's what we should all do, IMO.
say something derogatory about oxford and see if he bites
Many thanks for wonderful opportunity (as a Revolting Colonial) to mock one Great British Institution - the Digestive Buscuit - with another - Politicalbetting.com.
OR is it the other way around?
There may be many ways an American can mock Britain, and some may secretly hurt. We are not a self-confident people. But every single one of us - all 67 million of us - are so sure of the adequacy of the digestive biscuit that your barbs have no sting whatsoever. Mocking us for the paucity of our biscuits would be like us mocking you for the smallness of your country.
I was going to make some harsh observations about nomenclature until I noticed your username. But seriously has anything ever sounded less appetising than biscuits & gravy?
It's actually pretty good. When I'm on the road in America (admittedly not often nowadays) I like to take in some proper country cooking. Cracker Barrel is rather hokey, but the food is surprisingly OK.
Scones seem to be a savoury staple once you get into Confederate territory. Or even in those states that almost joined the confederacy, but didn’t. Breakfast Biscuit is the Louisville breakfast, a fried egg, bacon and cheese, inside a scone.
The by- presumably due to his somewhat delayed resignation owing to his now living in Didcot or thereabouts? That renowned Labour target seat that now has a LibDem MP.
Many thanks for wonderful opportunity (as a Revolting Colonial) to mock one Great British Institution - the Digestive Buscuit - with another - Politicalbetting.com.
OR is it the other way around?
There may be many ways an American can mock Britain, and some may secretly hurt. We are not a self-confident people. But every single one of us - all 67 million of us - are so sure of the adequacy of the digestive biscuit that your barbs have no sting whatsoever. Mocking us for the paucity of our biscuits would be like us mocking you for the smallness of your country.
I was going to make some harsh observations about nomenclature until I noticed your username. But seriously has anything ever sounded less appetising than biscuits & gravy?
It's actually pretty good. When I'm on the road in America (admittedly not often nowadays) I like to take in some proper country cooking. Cracker Barrel is rather hokey, but the food is surprisingly OK.
Scones seem to be a savoury staple once you get into Confederate territory. Or even in those states that almost joined the confederacy, but didn’t. Breakfast Biscuit is the Louisville breakfast, a fried egg, bacon and cheese, inside a scone.
Well, I did have 5 formative years in Georgia. Quite partial to cornbread, corn dogs, and chicken fried steak, but never got to like grits.
Something is happening in the locals for the conservatives
I think 24.4% was an absolutely rock bottom result for the Tories at the GE and they're starting to slowly recover from it. (I know a recent opinion poll put them on 21% but I wouldn't take too much notice of that compared to real results).
Comments
Certainly no more rude than than saying that what someone wants is a "pipedream".
If you want it tackling then why not be concerned with the real causes of prices as can be seen in even vacant plots of land, rather than point at energy standards and pretend those are the issue?
I mean, some biscuits are too boring. The Nice biscuit and the Rich Tea biscuit are, I think, taking the piss a bit. But you don't have to shift far up the spectrum to get a very satisfying low-level treat. The bourbon, the digestive, the custard cream, the ginger nut. The plain hob-nob. You don't need to go full jaffa cake to have a nice time.
Starmer changing planning may help until you come into dispute with the Greens and NIMBYs
Indeed a small Welsh village rejected 18 affordable homes because in their words it would effect their Welsh tradition and language
I expect and hope the decision will be rejected on appeal but even then what happens when a non Welsh speaking buyer turns up
My problem with @BartholomewRoberts is he can be very confrontational especially to those who are on the housing ladder and retirees and as you say it is not their fault
Terrifying
> Laser resurfacing
> Facelift
Have already had the first two in my 40s, and trust me, it makes a difference.
"Growing old gracefully" is a myth. There are those who can afford to slow the ageing process and those who can't. I assume you are in the former category, if you can get over the whole "men don't go to a dermatologist" concept.
They’re slightly too dry; insufficiently chocolatey; textureless.
I’d actually prefer a plain hobnob.
One thing I have learned on my many travels is that fairly plain biscuits - like a plain Hobnob - dipped in red wine - can be glorious.The wine soaks into the biscuit. It's a bit like ctrawberry chili jam and fine blue stilton...
However I do like the little yummy biscuits continental types often serve automatically with coffee
Actually I don't mind growing old as long as I remain fit and healthy (and so far so good, but who knows, please don't smite me, God). I can walk 15 miles no problem, I do adventure sports, I travel endlessly, it keeps you young, even if my hair is now as grey as Gandalf's beard
I just want to last long enough to benefit from AI inventing anti-ageing pills and then reverse-ageing medicines. 5-10 years? Then I won't die EVAH which will be nice
The corner of the town square has been occupied by "Veterans for Peace" with their 'honk for peace' demo (getting a fair few honks) and Palestinian flags. The veterans themselves have the look of people who've maybe struggled to find gainful employment since their service days, and there is no way the vehicles they arrived in would pass an MOT, if America had any such test.
Meanwhile a Trump-supporting car covered in painted slogans, on one side pro-Israel and on the other slamming the Democrats as the "party of paedophiles", with US flags flying is doing circuits of the square trying to annoy the veterans (who appear way too far left to be worried by anti-Dem propaganda), and behind the Trump car a white Camry has swung in, slogan-free but from its driving style both proximate and aggressive one can deduce that its driver does not 'approve this message'.
From your man on the spot, in memory of the long lost Bunnco...
'Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference'
Times: Brace for the incoming storm warns Starmer.
The worst are S'mores. OMFG. I wanted to vomit. I did not want s'more - and I told my hosts
What north America is great for is pure pure blue mineral skies, and space, and optimism. I sensed that in Vancouver, esp in the campus of UBC. A sense of the future being near and being exciting and being GOOD
I'm vain and I'm old. Or at least, getting older.
Most women are having botox and fillers and so on done even in their 20s, the competitive advantage you get as a guy from having minor tweaks done in your 40s and 50s is huge, considering maybe only 1 in 100 guys will have it done as "it's totally gay brah". Except look at Elon Musk etc and you realise all the slebs have it done, you just have to get over the weirdness of "I am I guy in a salon having fillers in my face and lasers peeling off my skin". Most guys think that's infra dig - I say being able to get over that gives me a competitive advantage. Absolutely no shame about having cosmetic work done as I get older. Why *wouldn't* I want to look younger?
He's completely out of his depth and will likely shortly match Liz Truss for the least popular PM ever.
I knew he'd be dire, incompetent and tin-eared but did not think he'd be this dismal this quick.
I realise there is something a tad recursive about this.
You've now done it umpteen times and I am surprised you haven't been banned. There are rules against doxxing for a reason, the site only works if we generally observe them
It's not the worst crime in PB history but it is bad and you should stop, it also makes YOU look petulant and whiny, so it does you no service. Just stop it
And do try and grow a pair as regards critique of your precious Nu Labour government. This is what happens to parties in power. They get viciously attacked: that is democracy
https://ia.samaltman.com/
And if the already wealthy also flourish under those conditions, all the better.
I think a lot of it is simply explained by age. Younger people are more likely to share a property than older people; younger people are more likely to rent. To invert the idea - the very few pensioners who rent have lower rates of occupancy than younger people who rent.
Indeed, we know that the fertility rate is astoundingly low. I would suggest that occupancy rates for owner-occupied would increase markedly should more younger people get on the housing ladder due to a boost in the number of children occupying bedrooms.
(I think this kind of analysis requires a much more rigorous approach than what I have come up with but thanks to MattW for sparking the idea)
Sausagegate is much bigger than it appears. Stay tuned till tomorrow for why.
If they are the same user then they've decided to move on and that's what we should all do, IMO.
Best when (reasonably) fresh (for store bought) AND with raisins.
OR is it the other way around?
Gonna get drunk
Won't you listen right here
I want one bourbon
One shot and one beer
One bourbon, one scotch, one beer
Anzac biscuit
1. It's just icky. (But as I said earlier I have a low bar for this; I find cosmetics icky.)
2. Elon Musk looks like a waxy weirdo. I don't want to look like that. Sure, I look a bit more haggard in my 40s than I did in my 20s, but I'm in my 40s - I'm meant to. (In all honesty, I think I'm better looking now than I ever was, for one reason and one reason alone: I now just shave my head with a trimmer, and while I never have good hair, I never have bad hair either. Wish I'd started doing this 35 years ago. Once, in my late 20s, I went into a barbers and just got him to shave everything on a No.1 and honestly that weekend I was fighting the women off with a stick. But as a haircut it had no longevity and needed doing again after 2 weeks and paying for a haircut more than once a month borders on vanity, so it didn't last - if only it had occurred to me I could do it myself... )
3. Do women really like that sort of look? I'm not convinced men like the women who've been all tweaked. I'm certainly far from convinced it's the other way around. Though if only 1 man in 100 does it and only 2 women in 100 like it you're already ahead of the game, I suppose. But while men's genetic instructions are to seek fertile women, women's are to seek successful men - and this doesn't necessarily translate as 'young'. Though there may, I suppose, be an element of 'look how successful I am, I can afford to do this to my face' about it.
4. Slebs are no sort of role models. At least, not that sort of sleb.
5. It's time and money I could be using for other things. Indeed, if being better looking was my thing, I'd say just doing some exercise or getting some nice clothes would make me feel better about myself.
6. A (female, 40s) friend of mine does that sort of thing and she always looks weirdly shiny and that alone would put me off going anywhere near the sort of establishments she frequents.
Basically, good luck to you but I'm going nowhere near.
My more generalised point is that it's pretty much de rigeur among male slebs now, the idea that a rich guy looks in the mirror at 55 and goes "bugger, i look old, but there's nothing i can do" is bollox.
Looking younger and more attractive is a competitive advantage, and it's one you can purchase easily.
They had been there a number of years and had apparently not found a decent substitute.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/30641206/trump-assassin-ryan-routh-son-oran-arrested-child-pornography/amp/
https://www.youtube.com/@drgarylinkov/videos
If you want to look good when you are older pay attention to clothing. I saw a patient in his nineties today still looking handsome in a well cut suit, tie, crisp shirt and well polished shoes, the full Monty.
https://www.thebritishpantryltd.com/
Been there for decades. Hobnobs in the shop, of course. But also a british bakery, pub, and restaurant.
All in, that's 500+250+660+430+holiday+car, which comes to 1850+holiday+car. Take-home pay for £26K is around £1850 and that doesn't cover the three holidays plus the cost of buying the car plus the cost of maintaining the car plus the cost of petrol etc.
May I ask how much your daughter earned please? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.
Mind you, some people just look good in clothes. I could wear the most expensive clothes in Manchester and still look unkempt. Some in my family can wear a tracksuit and look like they're on a catwalk.
He was also a lovely man who made you feel like the most interesting person in the world when you spoke to him. A rare talent.
I have not done that.
What I object to are those who oppose liberalising construction, or want in unrelated discussions want to spend billions on unnecessary and unearned welfare for pensioners. Nothing unreasonable with either.
Which doesn't mean it was a great speech. Starmer is no Obama or Bill Clinton but it went down well in Conference as far as I can tell. Ideally with a stump speech you also address a wider audience. This one didn't but none of others have either.
I notice a lot of celebs that don't get "work" done often look pretty rough in their middle years but look much better and more natural later.
Where-as those that delay the aging process with "work" in the middle years look really bad when they get old - Probably because they have to keep getting more and more work just to stand still... Eventually it can reach the point where they become a complete freak-show.
Am no longer consuming cookies (home-made or store-bought) but Archway oakmeal with raison cookies used to be pretty good. However, unsure they would meet exacting requirements of your friends; certainly NOT something to impress guests!
Speaking of "digestive" properties of digestive buscuits, somehow doubt that, should one be afflicted with constipation, scarfing down a half-dozen or more is gonna unplug ones plumbing.
Meanwhile I have retired to sample some North Carolinian Chardonnay. There’s a rather good wine shop down the street, and I asked yesterday whether the North Carolina wines, of which they had an entire shelf, were any good. With admirable honesty the lady in the shop said “no” and pulled a sour face. But I bought one anyway. From a family owned farm established in 2008, on the slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains. On Vivino it has a very good rating, but that may say more about the geographical spread of users of that App than it does about the wine…
Where Musk gets it wrong is that he dresses for the shape he wants to be, not the shape he actually is. I think he cares quite a lot for how he is perceived, just is a very poor judge of what does suit him.
per wiki:
The Nanaimo bar is a bar dessert that requires no baking and is named after the Canadian city of Nanaimo in British Columbia. It consists of three layers: a wafer, nut, and coconut crumb base; custard icing in the middle; and a layer of chocolate ganache on top.
SSI - Also very popular in rest of Pacific Northwest south of the Medicine Line. Especially as do-it-yourself version are staples for campouts, same as s'mores.
Best way to consume both being around a campfire NOT in a 7-11 parking lot.
An old face is also an experienced face. Each and every frown/worry line has it's own story. Every scar on an old persons body (and sometimes even on a young persons body) is a war wound. A token of a personal battle fought and won.
We should embrace our imperfections IMO. At the end of the day, we are human. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Godalming Binscombe & Charterhouse (Waverley) Council By-Election Result:
🌳 CON: 40.6% (+19.7)
🔶 LDM: 40.0% (+10.7)
🌍 GRN: 10.9% (-16.3)
🌹 LAB: 8.5% (-14.1)
Conservative GAIN from Labour.
Changes w/ 2023.
The REALLY good ones, with pecan chunks embedded in a thin-ish, flat-bottom layer of superior cane sugar.
"MID SUFFOLK Thurston
RICHARDSON, Harold (The Conservative Party Candidate) 579
BARRICK-COOK, Oscar (The Green Party) 518
HOPE, Nathan Curtis (Labour Party) 79"
www.midsuffolk.gov.uk/documents/d/mid-suffolk/thurston-ward-by-election-declarations-of-results
https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1838716378158715272?t=7CahPCAONjc39IwMZ8In2w&s=19
https://modgov.waverley.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?ID=432&RPID=58808859