Breaking: A full Marine battalion, or around 500 Marines, based out of Twentynine Palms in California have been mobilized to respond to protests in LA, sources tell me and @halbritz
Hegseth had put them on prepare to deploy orders over the weekend
Is it better or worse than previous efforts? The words say I'm investing in the future of Britain or similar but how does the video show that or tie up with that? (I'm not at all visual, you see, can't read icons either.)
I hate automatic checkouts, unless, as mentioned, I've only got one or two items, and want to get through quickly
I prefer to chat to a person, however cursory, and the more items you have, the more chance that the machine presents you with some annoying mishap or misidentification.
I always try to use the auto checkouts where possible, because it's quicker and I hate shopping. That said, I do want to slap the people responsible for designing many of them. Lots of staggeringly bad decisions have gone into some of these things.
Like the Tesco checkouts where it's possible to highlight a button on the touch screen, without triggering it. So you press the button, it changes colour, but the machine does nothing. That indicates the moronic designers used a user interface toolkit intended for use with a keyboard, which is the only circumstance where that behaviour makes sense.
Or the ones in Boots that yell "INFORMATION NEEDED!" in a hectoring voice when asking if you want a receipt.
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
I disagree with the urge to cancel 1984.
Can we cancel 2020 instead? And possibly 2021-25 too.
Is it better or worse than previous efforts? The words say I'm investing in the future of Britain or similar but how does the video show that or tie up with that? (I'm not at all visual, you see, can't read icons either.)
I've let it loop three times and I'm still none the wiser. Keir writes a note in a book then gets up? "Must try harder"? No idea what it's supposed to convey.
He's not investing anyway, it is the taxpayer who is 'investing'.
Ooh, Farage on ITV News. He says he's going to reopen the blast furnaces at Port Talbot.
That's South West Wales sorted.
Although I understood than when the blast furnaces stopped and cooled that was it. Goodnight Vienna. Perhaps Farage has invented a new technique for restarting blast furnaces along with reopening all the deep coal mines that Harold Wilson closed (thanks for the heads up HYUFD).
Given the amount of hot air Farage emits, it's a surprise that he thinks we need the coal as well.
(Really, it's part of nostalgia for half-remembered good times, isn't it? And it's not going to bring his hair back from grey, anyway.)
The closure is still raw in Port Talbot. I do believe that the blast furnaces should have been kept running but the last Government and this Government were keen to move to electric arc furnaces. This of course was all before Trump.
Perhaps the worst part of Farage cynicism is enough voters will buy into both the reopening of deep mines and blast furnaces. Neither are practical options.
Farage is either ill informed or a liar.
I think he's a bit glib, but I don't think he's lying.
There is an element of Boris there - a bullish determination that isn't put off by others telling him things are impossible - because things are often impossible till they aren't.
With Boris however, he was into Garden Bridges, Northern Ireland bridges, Island airports etc. I think Farage's ambitions are somewhat more grounded (in the recent past) and more achievable - so let's see.
The logistical practicalities of reopening blast furnaces and coal mines are pretty much impossible. OK if he wants to start from scratch in both cases, fair enough but the cost would be prohibitive. As far as the coal mines go, planning, geological surveys, ecological surveys. It would take years.
But the votes are needed for next May. So once they are in the bag the coal mines and the blast furnaces will be history.
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
Is it better or worse than previous efforts? The words say I'm investing in the future of Britain or similar but how does the video show that or tie up with that? (I'm not at all visual, you see, can't read icons either.)
I've let it loop three times and I'm still none the wiser. Keir writes a note in a book then gets up? "Must try harder"? No idea what it's supposed to convey.
That purposeful walking had me thinking on that David Mitchell spoof Sky football advert again.
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He isn't suggesting that, is he. It's merely a personal comment on the novel. It is allowed.
He does seem, however, to be missing the point, to the tale.
I hate automatic checkouts, unless, as mentioned, I've only got one or two items, and want to get through quickly
I prefer to chat to a person, however cursory, and the more items you have, the more chance that the machine presents you with some annoying mishap or misidentification.
I always try to use the auto checkouts where possible, because it's quicker and I hate shopping. That said, I do want to slap the people responsible for designing many of them. Lots of staggeringly bad decisions have gone into some of these things.
Like the Tesco checkouts where it's possible to highlight a button on the touch screen, without triggering it. So you press the button, it changes colour, but the machine does nothing. That indicates the moronic designers used a user interface toolkit intended for use with a keyboard, which is the only circumstance where that behaviour makes sense.
Or the ones in Boots that yell "INFORMATION NEEDED!" in a hectoring voice when asking if you want a receipt.
The worst thing about the auto checkouts is the image of yourself on the small screen above.
I don’t know what it is about it but the images could not be less complimentary if they tried.
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
I disagree with the urge to cancel 1984.
Can we cancel 2020 instead? And possibly 2021-25 too.
1994 for me - I think I was a bit of an arse.
Anus horribilis?
Oh yes. Think I only really came to maturity in 1996, aged 24. Boys often take time to mature.
One of the reasons I am so against lowering the voting age.
As another Reform councillor resigns, in Durham due health, now eight of those so recently elected for Reform have either resigned their seat or left the party.
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
I wonder if people will start paying money for human interaction, if the world aggressively automates
It seems to be the trend. See Klarna positioning 'talk to a human support person' as a "VIP" option.
Possibly not too far down the line to 'On the free tier? Get "Currah Speech". On the premium plus plan? Get to talk with the understanding human with a choice of real voices and accents from 'sultry' to "bants"'.
It's not too far removed to imagine the same thing in hospitality. Want to just rock up and order from the set menu? You get an app (or bot). Want the full a-la carte for 10x the price? You get a real waiter/waitress (specific choice is an extra 2x fee).
Time to sack Reeves. She's dangerously incompetent.
Hey Labour have only wasted the most important year of this Government - the one where the grotty things you have to do are 95% forgotten by the time the next election comes round
This spending review is going to send interest rates shooting up and mortgage rates will follow. She's Liz Truss in slow motion. The country can't afford to borrow more and it can't afford higher tax rates. Spending has got to fall and it has to fall on the unproductive bits like pensions and welfare.
She's worse than Liz Truss.
Liz Truss was incompetent but also unfortunate/foolish to coincide her rather trivial reforms with the Bank announcing QT, and her own announcement of the blank cheque on energy bill support.
Had they not announced the tax reforms (besides the pre-announced abolition of the dodgy NI supplement, which Hunt rightly kept abolished) but still had the QT and energy support, then the likelihood is that the markets would still have reacted, but the media would have comprehended the energy/QT effect without any scapegoats.
At least Truss had some sensible ideas like abolishing that hateful NI supplement that Sunak had created. What has Reeves ever done that's positive? Besides what she's now u-turned on.
That NI supplement was the best way to fund social care longer term
Far from it.
Why should only salaried incomes be paying for social care?
Income tax would be a better way to pay for it, 'all in it together'.
Or if you want payments for social care to protect people's inheritances, then do that from inheritance tax.
No reason to only tax people working for a living.
Income tax is a tax, as is inheritance tax (and people already have to sell their homes to pay for residential care).
NI should fund social care and be ringfenced for that though you could extend NI for social care to those retired but not yet in care homes
NI is a tax like any other, it is not hypothecated and hasn't been for almost 30 years.
Indeed, and it was always a tax even when it was hypothecated.
Nope, it was set up as an insurance to fund the state pension and contributory unemployment benefits and some healthcare only and should always have been ringfenced just for that
Nope, it was set up as a tax and called insurance.
It was always a tax, the name is irrelevant.
Using your logic we could merge NI and Income Tax as I advocate, keep the criterion for eligibility of the tax as Income Tax is set by today (so all income is covered equally not just wages), but call the revised tax "National Insurance" . . . then claim tax has been abolished.
No as you can't ringfence the army, the police, schools, transport funding etc.
You do realise income tax was originally set up to fund the army in the Napoleonic Wars?
You can't ringfence healthcare or social care or other universal benefits you want funding by the tax called national insurance either.
Yes you can, most OECD nations fund healthcare via social insurance or in the US private healthcare not tax.
Japan etc fund social care via insurance
If you want to fund social care, or healthcare, via insurance then all the more reason to abolish NI and get people to pay for actual insurance.
Instead NI is a tax and the NHS/care is universally available regardless of whether you've ever paid NI or not.
Then you end up with the US problem where mainly private health insurance funded healthcare works for the rich but leaves many middle income and lower income earners unable to afford healthcare if they cannot qualify for Medicaid and are too young for Medicare.
Which is why most OECD nations fund it via government run national health insurance programmes
Indeed, that is the problem with funding it by actual insurance, instead of a tax like we have.
NI is not health insurance, if it were the NHS would be ringfenced only to those who pay for it. Its a tax, no more, no less.
The opposite, funding healthcare just by tax leads to the massive bureaucratic state entity that is our NHS.
As I said state healthcare should be ringfenced so only those who pay into it via national health insurance get it like most OECD nations do with tax only topping it up for the poorest who could not otherwise afford healthcare
So you accept now that NI is merely a tax and agree with my proposal to abolish the tax called NI and you'd like to start again with an actual insurance policy?
We might be getting somewhere.
No, NI was sent up as an insurance for healthcare and unemployment and state pensions and should be ringfenced again for that
No, it wasn't, it was set up as a tax. That's why its based on incomes.
The benefits are set up as benefits. Not ringfenced to those who pay for it.
In no way is it an insurance. Its tax and spend, no different to if it were called Income Tax.
No it was set up as an insurance.
The 1911 NI Act created National Insurance to provide health insurance and time limited unemployment benefits, funded by contributions from employers and workers with a small contribution from employers
It doesn't matter how many times you repeat it, it doesn't make it true.
It was set up as a tax to provide benefits that could have previously been provided by insurance.
The name insurance was chosen for the tax and spend welfare as it was based on issues typically associated with insurance and that's more popular than tax, but its was pure tax and spend.
There is no insurance to it whatsoever. Tax rates are based on 'ability to pay' (based on earnings) and not insurance premiums based on risk profiles.
Benefits are based on need, almost entirely without any connection to whether people have paid or not.
It is pure "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need".
I hate automatic checkouts, unless, as mentioned, I've only got one or two items, and want to get through quickly
I prefer to chat to a person, however cursory, and the more items you have, the more chance that the machine presents you with some annoying mishap or misidentification.
I always try to use the auto checkouts where possible, because it's quicker and I hate shopping. That said, I do want to slap the people responsible for designing many of them. Lots of staggeringly bad decisions have gone into some of these things.
Like the Tesco checkouts where it's possible to highlight a button on the touch screen, without triggering it. So you press the button, it changes colour, but the machine does nothing. That indicates the moronic designers used a user interface toolkit intended for use with a keyboard, which is the only circumstance where that behaviour makes sense.
Or the ones in Boots that yell "INFORMATION NEEDED!" in a hectoring voice when asking if you want a receipt.
The worst thing about the auto checkouts is the image of yourself on the small screen above.
I don’t know what it is about it but the images could not be less complimentary if they tried.
I don’t know - imagine looking up and seeing what @pagan sees!
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Nah, archery takes too long to master Churchill apparently was in favour of reinstating the long bow to the army but sadly gunpowder and easy to use guns are easier to deploy.
As another Reform councillor resigns, in Durham due health, now eight of those so recently elected for Reform have either resigned their seat or left the party.
Are you following other parties too? Is this number exceptional?
Ooh, Farage on ITV News. He says he's going to reopen the blast furnaces at Port Talbot.
That's South West Wales sorted.
Although I understood than when the blast furnaces stopped and cooled that was it. Goodnight Vienna. Perhaps Farage has invented a new technique for restarting blast furnaces along with reopening all the deep coal mines that Harold Wilson closed (thanks for the heads up HYUFD).
Given the amount of hot air Farage emits, it's a surprise that he thinks we need the coal as well.
(Really, it's part of nostalgia for half-remembered good times, isn't it? And it's not going to bring his hair back from grey, anyway.)
The closure is still raw in Port Talbot. I do believe that the blast furnaces should have been kept running but the last Government and this Government were keen to move to electric arc furnaces. This of course was all before Trump.
Perhaps the worst part of Farage cynicism is enough voters will buy into both the reopening of deep mines and blast furnaces. Neither are practical options.
Farage is either ill informed or a liar.
I think he's a bit glib, but I don't think he's lying.
There is an element of Boris there - a bullish determination that isn't put off by others telling him things are impossible - because things are often impossible till they aren't.
With Boris however, he was into Garden Bridges, Northern Ireland bridges, Island airports etc. I think Farage's ambitions are somewhat more grounded (in the recent past) and more achievable - so let's see.
The logistical practicalities of reopening blast furnaces and coal mines are pretty much impossible. OK if he wants to start from scratch in both cases, fair enough but the cost would be prohibitive. As far as the coal mines go, planning, geological surveys, ecological surveys. It would take years.
But the votes are needed for next May. So once they are in the bag the coal mines and the blast furnaces will be history.
The logistical challenges are considerable, but one would not be starting 'from scratch' - at the very least the infrastructure and some of the necessary buildings are there - I appreciate there is a great deal more to be done than flicking a switch.
Reform have spoken a lot about their plans for Scunthorpe - I am very skeptical of Government-backed money making schemes, but they seem quite detailed in their thoughts. They're not in control at Scunthorpe, so perhaps they want to make Port Talbot a showcase for those ideas.
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Shooting people seems a rather odd form of social interaction.
(Having said that, my sister is a fairly keen shooter, and has met lots of friends around the country through the hobby.)
Is it better or worse than previous efforts? The words say I'm investing in the future of Britain or similar but how does the video show that or tie up with that? (I'm not at all visual, you see, can't read icons either.)
I've let it loop three times and I'm still none the wiser. Keir writes a note in a book then gets up? "Must try harder"? No idea what it's supposed to convey.
That purposeful walking had me thinking on that David Mitchell spoof Sky football advert again.
"... every kick of it mattering to someone, presumably".
Perhaps California would not be facing that predicament, had its government not decided to be a magnet for illegal immigration,
Doesn't california host a lot of "sanctuary cities"
Very much so.
I am *very* sceptical of those numbers.
For a start we know approximately how many people are undocumented, through the Department of Motor Vehicles, which issues licenses to both citizens and non-citizens.
In total, there are 1.2 million people in California with AB 60 licenses - i.e. those issued to people without proper paperwork. Now not all illegal immigrants will have licenses: some will drive illegally, and some will rely on their friends to get them to and from their place of employment. But AB 60 people are almost certainly the ones who are in employment. And even if we double the number, we only get to 6% of the population of California.
Now, it's possible that Los Angeles is much worse than (for example) San Francisco and the Bay Area. But I'd be surprised.
It's also worth remembering that the jobs with the highest proportion of undocumented workers are in the countryside. Essentially everyone who works picking fruit and vegtables in the Central Valley are undocumented. The places with the highest proportion of undocumented are often the places you'd least expect them.
Undocumented workers in Los Angeles are very heavily concentrated in two areas: construction and domestic help. (With a side helping of food service for independent contractors.) Basically, areas where record keeping is... limited.
Other parts of the economy - particularly the highly unionized entertainment industry - have essentially zero penetration of undocumented workers.
I would imagine that one sector of the entertainment industry has plenty of penetration of undocumented workers.
Time to sack Reeves. She's dangerously incompetent.
Hey Labour have only wasted the most important year of this Government - the one where the grotty things you have to do are 95% forgotten by the time the next election comes round
This spending review is going to send interest rates shooting up and mortgage rates will follow. She's Liz Truss in slow motion. The country can't afford to borrow more and it can't afford higher tax rates. Spending has got to fall and it has to fall on the unproductive bits like pensions and welfare.
She's worse than Liz Truss.
Liz Truss was incompetent but also unfortunate/foolish to coincide her rather trivial reforms with the Bank announcing QT, and her own announcement of the blank cheque on energy bill support.
Had they not announced the tax reforms (besides the pre-announced abolition of the dodgy NI supplement, which Hunt rightly kept abolished) but still had the QT and energy support, then the likelihood is that the markets would still have reacted, but the media would have comprehended the energy/QT effect without any scapegoats.
At least Truss had some sensible ideas like abolishing that hateful NI supplement that Sunak had created. What has Reeves ever done that's positive? Besides what she's now u-turned on.
That NI supplement was the best way to fund social care longer term
Far from it.
Why should only salaried incomes be paying for social care?
Income tax would be a better way to pay for it, 'all in it together'.
Or if you want payments for social care to protect people's inheritances, then do that from inheritance tax.
No reason to only tax people working for a living.
Income tax is a tax, as is inheritance tax (and people already have to sell their homes to pay for residential care).
NI should fund social care and be ringfenced for that though you could extend NI for social care to those retired but not yet in care homes
NI is a tax like any other, it is not hypothecated and hasn't been for almost 30 years.
Indeed, and it was always a tax even when it was hypothecated.
Nope, it was set up as an insurance to fund the state pension and contributory unemployment benefits and some healthcare only and should always have been ringfenced just for that
Nope, it was set up as a tax and called insurance.
It was always a tax, the name is irrelevant.
Using your logic we could merge NI and Income Tax as I advocate, keep the criterion for eligibility of the tax as Income Tax is set by today (so all income is covered equally not just wages), but call the revised tax "National Insurance" . . . then claim tax has been abolished.
No as you can't ringfence the army, the police, schools, transport funding etc.
You do realise income tax was originally set up to fund the army in the Napoleonic Wars?
You can't ringfence healthcare or social care or other universal benefits you want funding by the tax called national insurance either.
Yes you can, most OECD nations fund healthcare via social insurance or in the US private healthcare not tax.
Japan etc fund social care via insurance
If you want to fund social care, or healthcare, via insurance then all the more reason to abolish NI and get people to pay for actual insurance.
Instead NI is a tax and the NHS/care is universally available regardless of whether you've ever paid NI or not.
Then you end up with the US problem where mainly private health insurance funded healthcare works for the rich but leaves many middle income and lower income earners unable to afford healthcare if they cannot qualify for Medicaid and are too young for Medicare.
Which is why most OECD nations fund it via government run national health insurance programmes
Indeed, that is the problem with funding it by actual insurance, instead of a tax like we have.
NI is not health insurance, if it were the NHS would be ringfenced only to those who pay for it. Its a tax, no more, no less.
The opposite, funding healthcare just by tax leads to the massive bureaucratic state entity that is our NHS.
As I said state healthcare should be ringfenced so only those who pay into it via national health insurance get it like most OECD nations do with tax only topping it up for the poorest who could not otherwise afford healthcare
So you accept now that NI is merely a tax and agree with my proposal to abolish the tax called NI and you'd like to start again with an actual insurance policy?
We might be getting somewhere.
No, NI was sent up as an insurance for healthcare and unemployment and state pensions and should be ringfenced again for that
No, it wasn't, it was set up as a tax. That's why its based on incomes.
The benefits are set up as benefits. Not ringfenced to those who pay for it.
In no way is it an insurance. Its tax and spend, no different to if it were called Income Tax.
No it was set up as an insurance.
The 1911 NI Act created National Insurance to provide health insurance and time limited unemployment benefits, funded by contributions from employers and workers with a small contribution from employers
It doesn't matter how many times you repeat it, it doesn't make it true.
It was set up as a tax to provide benefits that could have previously been provided by insurance.
The name insurance was chosen for the tax and spend welfare as it was based on issues typically associated with insurance and that's more popular than tax, but its was pure tax and spend.
There is no insurance to it whatsoever. Tax rates are based on 'ability to pay' (based on earnings) and not insurance premiums based on risk profiles.
Benefits are based on need, almost entirely without any connection to whether people have paid or not.
It is pure "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need".
Yes it does, it was set up as insurance, hence you could only claim healthcare or unemployment benefit if you had made national insurance contributions.
So it didn't even fund benefits based on need, that did not come in permanently until the Attlee government's National Assistance Act which abolished the Poor Law. It replaced it with benefits for those had not paid enough national insurance contributions to receive support from the National Assistance Board funded by tax, later replaced by supplementary benefit, income support, JSA and now UC
Is it better or worse than previous efforts? The words say I'm investing in the future of Britain or similar but how does the video show that or tie up with that? (I'm not at all visual, you see, can't read icons either.)
I've let it loop three times and I'm still none the wiser. Keir writes a note in a book then gets up? "Must try harder"? No idea what it's supposed to convey.
That purposeful walking had me thinking on that David Mitchell spoof Sky football advert again.
"... every kick of it mattering to someone, presumably".
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Nah, archery takes too long to master Churchill apparently was in favour of reinstating the long bow to the army but sadly gunpowder and easy to use guns are easier to deploy.
I know places which feature axe throwing as a leisure activity.
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
I run with a couple of mates at least once a week, usually early mornings, and one of them convinced me that you should always greet anybody else you meet, runner, dog walker, bloke out to get the morning paper or whatever with a cheery "hello" and a smile because you might be the only human interaction that person may get that day. We live in a world that's increasingly lonely, and that has always made me think.
Ooh, Farage on ITV News. He says he's going to reopen the blast furnaces at Port Talbot.
That's South West Wales sorted.
Although I understood than when the blast furnaces stopped and cooled that was it. Goodnight Vienna. Perhaps Farage has invented a new technique for restarting blast furnaces along with reopening all the deep coal mines that Harold Wilson closed (thanks for the heads up HYUFD).
Given the amount of hot air Farage emits, it's a surprise that he thinks we need the coal as well.
(Really, it's part of nostalgia for half-remembered good times, isn't it? And it's not going to bring his hair back from grey, anyway.)
The closure is still raw in Port Talbot. I do believe that the blast furnaces should have been kept running but the last Government and this Government were keen to move to electric arc furnaces. This of course was all before Trump.
Perhaps the worst part of Farage cynicism is enough voters will buy into both the reopening of deep mines and blast furnaces. Neither are practical options.
Farage is either ill informed or a liar.
I think he's a bit glib, but I don't think he's lying.
There is an element of Boris there - a bullish determination that isn't put off by others telling him things are impossible - because things are often impossible till they aren't.
With Boris however, he was into Garden Bridges, Northern Ireland bridges, Island airports etc. I think Farage's ambitions are somewhat more grounded (in the recent past) and more achievable - so let's see.
The logistical practicalities of reopening blast furnaces and coal mines are pretty much impossible. OK if he wants to start from scratch in both cases, fair enough but the cost would be prohibitive. As far as the coal mines go, planning, geological surveys, ecological surveys. It would take years.
But the votes are needed for next May. So once they are in the bag the coal mines and the blast furnaces will be history.
The logistical challenges are considerable, but one would not be starting 'from scratch' - at the very least the infrastructure and some of the necessary buildings are there - I appreciate there is a great deal more to be done than flicking a switch.
Reform have spoken a lot about their plans for Scunthorpe - I am very skeptical of Government-backed money making schemes, but they seem quite detailed in their thoughts. They're not in control at Scunthorpe, so perhaps they want to make Port Talbot a showcase for those ideas.
Both blast furnaces at Port Talbot are stopped. It is being dismantled. If you want to resurrect a pair of blast furnaces you will need to build brand new ones from the ground up.
TATA won't be interested, although they would be more than happy to offload. The issues on site include a legacy hazardous landfill a couple of hundred metres from the foreshore, and more asbestos insulation than you can shake a stick at. Tata have a hundreds of millions of pounds war chest to pay for the clean up.
I hate automatic checkouts, unless, as mentioned, I've only got one or two items, and want to get through quickly
I prefer to chat to a person, however cursory, and the more items you have, the more chance that the machine presents you with some annoying mishap or misidentification.
I always try to use the auto checkouts where possible, because it's quicker and I hate shopping. That said, I do want to slap the people responsible for designing many of them. Lots of staggeringly bad decisions have gone into some of these things.
Like the Tesco checkouts where it's possible to highlight a button on the touch screen, without triggering it. So you press the button, it changes colour, but the machine does nothing. That indicates the moronic designers used a user interface toolkit intended for use with a keyboard, which is the only circumstance where that behaviour makes sense.
Or the ones in Boots that yell "INFORMATION NEEDED!" in a hectoring voice when asking if you want a receipt.
The worst thing about the auto checkouts is the image of yourself on the small screen above.
I don’t know what it is about it but the images could not be less complimentary if they tried.
Repeat to myself, "it's not a bald patch, it's not a bald patch, .."
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!
As another Reform councillor resigns, in Durham due health, now eight of those so recently elected for Reform have either resigned their seat or left the party.
I don't think the Reform candidates were informed exactly how much work is involved in being a councillor. If they had they wouldn't have bothered standing.
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Shooting people seems a rather odd form of social interaction.
(Having said that, my sister is a fairly keen shooter, and has met lots of friends around the country through the hobby.)
Bellringing is an excellent choice. All very friendly people.
I wonder if people will start paying money for human interaction, if the world aggressively automates
It seems to be the trend. See Klarna positioning 'talk to a human support person' as a "VIP" option.
Possibly not too far down the line to 'On the free tier? Get "Currah Speech". On the premium plus plan? Get to talk with the understanding human with a choice of real voices and accents from 'sultry' to "bants"'.
It's not too far removed to imagine the same thing in hospitality. Want to just rock up and order from the set menu? You get an app (or bot). Want the full a-la carte for 10x the price? You get a real waiter/waitress (specific choice is an extra 2x fee).
I believe that something like this is almost-certain
We will pay premium for human. For singing, dancing, sport, anything physical right in front of us - even waitressing. This is a great time to be beautitful, with stage presence, or a wonderful voice. Footballers will make even more money than they do now
Also certain kinds of non physical art will do well. Memoir writing, the plastic arts, these may well become premium too - the same way we pay out more for artisanal knives or plates, as against factory made cutlery and crockery. We will crave the human, but when we cannot see or sense the human we won't care how stuff arrives
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Shooting people seems a rather odd form of social interaction.
(Having said that, my sister is a fairly keen shooter, and has met lots of friends around the country through the hobby.)
Bellringing is an excellent choice. All very friendly people.
My mum had a go at it a few years ago. A bit strenuous she said.
As another Reform councillor resigns, in Durham due health, now eight of those so recently elected for Reform have either resigned their seat or left the party.
I don't think the Reform candidates were informed exactly how much work is involved in being a councillor. If they had they wouldn't have bothered standing.
How many of them expected to win, let alone be part of the governing party?
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Shooting people seems a rather odd form of social interaction.
(Having said that, my sister is a fairly keen shooter, and has met lots of friends around the country through the hobby.)
Honestly one of the best team building experiences is going paintballing.
Two different teams took great pleasure in repeatedly shooting me, one staff member took even greater pleasure in shooting me in the crotch.
Some good news from DC (and Dallas): "Nobody is surprised to learn that the Washington Commanders pay players differently based on position and performance. Yet finding that this also holds true for D.C. public school teachers generally comes as a shock.
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Shooting people seems a rather odd form of social interaction.
(Having said that, my sister is a fairly keen shooter, and has met lots of friends around the country through the hobby.)
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Shooting people seems a rather odd form of social interaction.
(Having said that, my sister is a fairly keen shooter, and has met lots of friends around the country through the hobby.)
Bellringing is an excellent choice. All very friendly people.
My mum had a go at it a few years ago. A bit strenuous she said.
Maybe mahjong then? You just have to push over small tiles in that.
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!
It’s the forward of the latest reprint of the book. If it was some random person giving there opinion that’s one thing but thus is literally the foreward to the latest print.
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Shooting people seems a rather odd form of social interaction.
(Having said that, my sister is a fairly keen shooter, and has met lots of friends around the country through the hobby.)
Bellringing is an excellent choice. All very friendly people.
Another pb ringer? I used to do that. Then moved to somewhere without a tower and had children, and rather got out of the habit.
I hate automatic checkouts, unless, as mentioned, I've only got one or two items, and want to get through quickly
I prefer to chat to a person, however cursory, and the more items you have, the more chance that the machine presents you with some annoying mishap or misidentification.
I always try to use the auto checkouts where possible, because it's quicker and I hate shopping. That said, I do want to slap the people responsible for designing many of them. Lots of staggeringly bad decisions have gone into some of these things.
Like the Tesco checkouts where it's possible to highlight a button on the touch screen, without triggering it. So you press the button, it changes colour, but the machine does nothing. That indicates the moronic designers used a user interface toolkit intended for use with a keyboard, which is the only circumstance where that behaviour makes sense.
Or the ones in Boots that yell "INFORMATION NEEDED!" in a hectoring voice when asking if you want a receipt.
The worst thing about the auto checkouts is the image of yourself on the small screen above.
I don’t know what it is about it but the images could not be less complimentary if they tried.
Repeat to myself, "it's not a bald patch, it's not a bald patch, .."
I don’t have that issue, I wear a cap when out 👍
I remember the drummer of The Hollies, Bobby Elliott, started losing his hair when young and always wore a hat. So as I lose mine I’m doing the same,
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!
It’s the forward of the latest reprint of the book. If it was some random person giving there opinion that’s one thing but thus is literally the foreward to the latest print.
Of course it merits discussion and critique.
I think Orwell would entirely approve of having a foreword that was a thoughtful and controversial critique rather than thoughtless, slavish praise.
Some good news from DC (and Dallas): "Nobody is surprised to learn that the Washington Commanders pay players differently based on position and performance. Yet finding that this also holds true for D.C. public school teachers generally comes as a shock.
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Shooting people seems a rather odd form of social interaction.
(Having said that, my sister is a fairly keen shooter, and has met lots of friends around the country through the hobby.)
Bellringing is an excellent choice. All very friendly people.
My mum had a go at it a few years ago. A bit strenuous she said.
I loved the camaraderie, but sadly I was too timid and became frightened of the ropes.
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Shooting people seems a rather odd form of social interaction.
(Having said that, my sister is a fairly keen shooter, and has met lots of friends around the country through the hobby.)
Bellringing is an excellent choice. All very friendly people.
Another pb ringer? I used to do that. Then moved to somewhere without a tower and had children, and rather got out of the habit.
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!
She’s (I think) pretty stupid if she can’t understand what 1984 is all about simply because there’s no black characters in it.
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
One can't complain about university fees if you also support such a high percentage of people going there. It's either free tuition and a small percentage going to higher education, or a large percentage and fees. There's no way round the maths.
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!
She’s (I think) pretty stupid if she can’t understand what 1984 is all about simply because there’s no black characters in it.
Her Foreword was accepted by the publishers. That's interesting in itself, since she seemingly can't find a way in to a novel which lacks her keywords.
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
One can't complain about university fees if you also support such a high percentage of people going there. It's either free tuition and a small percentage going to higher education, or a large percentage and fees. There's no way round the maths.
By that logic we need to cut pensions because we have more people claiming them than ever before. Its either restrict eligibility or cut the amount, there's no way around the maths.
We could have free tuition and more people going to university if we spent the same on education as a percentage of GDP as we did in the past, its a choice not to do so, not mathematics.
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
One can't complain about university fees if you also support such a high percentage of people going there. It's either free tuition and a small percentage going to higher education, or a large percentage and fees. There's no way round the maths.
And 2 is bollocks too. No one spent three years locked indoors.
Breaking: A full Marine battalion, or around 500 Marines, based out of Twentynine Palms in California have been mobilized to respond to protests in LA, sources tell me and @halbritz
Hegseth had put them on prepare to deploy orders over the weekend
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
My wife and I are starting archery lessons next week to that end, my mum is going to come over and babysit the sleeping children and we'll go and shoot some arrows and prepare for armageddon.
Shooting people seems a rather odd form of social interaction.
(Having said that, my sister is a fairly keen shooter, and has met lots of friends around the country through the hobby.)
Bellringing is an excellent choice. All very friendly people.
Another pb ringer? I used to do that. Then moved to somewhere without a tower and had children, and rather got out of the habit.
Only for a while. A rope got loose once and the way it thrashed around scared me.
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!
She’s (I think) pretty stupid if she can’t understand what 1984 is all about simply because there’s no black characters in it.
I know what she means - I cannot for the life of me understand any of Shakespeare because I am not an 17th century Elizabethan.
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!
She’s (I think) pretty stupid if she can’t understand what 1984 is all about simply because there’s no black characters in it.
Her Foreword was accepted by the publishers. That's interesting in itself, since she seemingly can't find a way in to a novel which lacks her keywords.
Her foreword if you read more about it is quite thoughtful and entirely in line with the kind of discussion that Orwell was absolutely in favour of.
While the foreword has prompted the familiar battle lines playing out across the Trump-era culture wars, Beers sees the conversation itself as in keeping with Orwell's legacy.
"By attempting to place Orwell's work in conversation with changing values and historical understandings in the decades since he was writing," she said, "scholars like Perkins-Valdez are exercising the very freedom to express uncomfortable and difficult opinions that Orwell explicitly championed."
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
If it wasn't for the unpleasant and unnecessary racial dogwhistles that detract from the point, I would have liked that.
1. There’s no racist dog whistles
2. The guy that wrote the tweet is black
Other than that, good point
1. Point 5 and "We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals" are racist dog whistles.
We're treated with contempt compared to relatively wealthy retirees, absolutely, but not compared to asylum seekers who are forbidden to work and given a pittance to live on.
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He isn't suggesting that, is he. It's merely a personal comment on the novel. It is allowed.
He sounds like the kind of arse that only reads things that speak to his race and ethnicity. I bet he’s a right laugh at dinner parties.’I can’t eat that cod, it’s so distressingly white. And Riesling? Really? Exceptionally white wine…’
It's not a random "personal comment". It's a Preface to the official 75th anniversary edition of 1984, written by a black female novelist
It is also ludicrous nonsense
For many years I assumed the character was black - I associated the name Winston with people from the Carribean.
I know you specialise in winding people up on here to amuse yourself but do you ever wonder if people like this are serious, or just genuinely taking the piss? Would be amusing if she does really think this, but knows it will achieve the very effect it’s having on PB.
Wait until they read Fahrenheit 451. Not only are there no black characters, but the main character allows his wife no agency whatsoever and has no respect for her love of inlfuencers.
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!
It’s the forward of the latest reprint of the book. If it was some random person giving there opinion that’s one thing but thus is literally the foreward to the latest print.
Of course it merits discussion and critique.
Perkins-Valdez is going to struggle with Middlemarch, Emma, Dombey and Son, the Song of Solomon, and Barchester Towers. Once you have noted the lack of 'race and ethnicity' what more is there to say?
Acyn @Acyn · 1h Speaker Johnson: Thank you for your bold visionary leadership—it is key to this great success we are achieving—I believe he will be the most consequential president of the modern era if not all of American history
===
Do these fawning stunted pygmies have any idea how they will look in the history books?
Acyn @Acyn · 1h Speaker Johnson: Thank you for your bold visionary leadership—it is key to this great success we are achieving—I believe he will be the most consequential president of the modern era if not all of American history
===
Do these fawning stunted pygmies have any idea how they will look in the history books?
I’d take California into our Union if they asked nicely.
Following our laws would probably strengthen their immigration enforcement. In terms of the law, not the militaristic way in which it's enforced. Not sure they'd be keen on the end of citizenship by birth either,
Acyn @Acyn · 1h Speaker Johnson: Thank you for your bold visionary leadership—it is key to this great success we are achieving—I believe he will be the most consequential president of the modern era if not all of American history
===
Do these fawning stunted pygmies have any idea how they will look in the history books?
No, they don't.
Can you name the five biggest supporters of General Boulanger?
Acyn @Acyn · 1h Speaker Johnson: Thank you for your bold visionary leadership—it is key to this great success we are achieving—I believe he will be the most consequential president of the modern era if not all of American history
===
Do these fawning stunted pygmies have any idea how they will look in the history books?
It rather depends on who writes them.
These pygmies aren't capable of writing books, the Veep excluded.
I think some would rather a future were there aren't any books.
I’d take California into our Union if they asked nicely.
"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and California" has a curiously interesting ring to it, like a stately home meeting Hollywood. Canada is surely the slightly more possible of the option, though.
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!
She’s (I think) pretty stupid if she can’t understand what 1984 is all about simply because there’s no black characters in it.
Her Foreword was accepted by the publishers. That's interesting in itself, since she seemingly can't find a way in to a novel which lacks her keywords.
Her foreword if you read more about it is quite thoughtful and entirely in line with the kind of discussion that Orwell was absolutely in favour of.
While the foreword has prompted the familiar battle lines playing out across the Trump-era culture wars, Beers sees the conversation itself as in keeping with Orwell's legacy.
"By attempting to place Orwell's work in conversation with changing values and historical understandings in the decades since he was writing," she said, "scholars like Perkins-Valdez are exercising the very freedom to express uncomfortable and difficult opinions that Orwell explicitly championed."
Within the context of his time, Orwell was against empire and Imperialism. Burmese Days does have some fairly stereotyped characters in it, but the underlying theme is that Imperialism degrades both conquered and conquerors.
I’d take California into our Union if they asked nicely.
"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and California" has a curiously interesting ring to it, like a stately home meeting Hollywood. Canada is surely the slightly more possible of the option, though.
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!
It’s the forward of the latest reprint of the book. If it was some random person giving there opinion that’s one thing but thus is literally the foreward to the latest print.
Of course it merits discussion and critique.
Perkins-Valdez is going to struggle with Middlemarch, Emma, Dombey and Son, the Song of Solomon, and Barchester Towers. Once you have noted the lack of 'race and ethnicity' what more is there to say?
I love TS Eliot's poetry even though I hardly understand any of it.
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
If it wasn't for the unpleasant and unnecessary racial dogwhistles that detract from the point, I would have liked that.
1. There’s no racist dog whistles
2. The guy that wrote the tweet is black
Other than that, good point
1. Point 5 and "We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals" are racist dog whistles.
We're treated with contempt compared to relatively wealthy retirees, absolutely, but not compared to asylum seekers who are forbidden to work and given a pittance to live on.
2. Are you claiming black people can't be racist?
Attitudes like yours - "shut up, you racist" - are precisely why Reform is leading the polls, and is gaining ground, every day, with younger Britons
Acyn @Acyn · 1h Speaker Johnson: Thank you for your bold visionary leadership—it is key to this great success we are achieving—I believe he will be the most consequential president of the modern era if not all of American history
===
Do these fawning stunted pygmies have any idea how they will look in the history books?
It rather depends on who writes them.
These pygmies aren't capable of writing books, the Veep excluded.
I think some would rather a future were there aren't any books.
Boots on the ground in LA before Canada or Greenland or Mexico actually catching me by surprise.
Escalating faster than even the most Bulwark reading pessimists like me would have thought.
Gonna be martial law all the way from this weekend until the mid-terms? Seems a stretch.
Rather depends on who gets shot first, and who fired.
It has been noted that the entire Season 2 on Andor is based on an authoritarian regime brutally suppressing a peaceful protest and claiming insurrection...
Acyn @Acyn · 1h Speaker Johnson: Thank you for your bold visionary leadership—it is key to this great success we are achieving—I believe he will be the most consequential president of the modern era if not all of American history
===
Do these fawning stunted pygmies have any idea how they will look in the history books?
It rather depends on who writes them.
These pygmies aren't capable of writing books, the Veep excluded.
I think some would rather a future were there aren't any books.
I’d take California into our Union if they asked nicely.
"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and California" has a curiously interesting ring to it, like a stately home meeting Hollywood. Canada is surely the slightly more possible of the option, though.
Why not Canada and the entire west coast?
That does give geographical continuity. I second this motion. Bit of an arse for those in LA to make all Commons votes, but that’s why we should rebuild Concorde.
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
If it wasn't for the unpleasant and unnecessary racial dogwhistles that detract from the point, I would have liked that.
1. There’s no racist dog whistles
2. The guy that wrote the tweet is black
Other than that, good point
1. Point 5 and "We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals" are racist dog whistles.
We're treated with contempt compared to relatively wealthy retirees, absolutely, but not compared to asylum seekers who are forbidden to work and given a pittance to live on.
2. Are you claiming black people can't be racist?
Attitudes like yours - "shut up, you racist" - are precisely why Reform is leading the polls, and is gaining ground, every day, with younger Britons
I never said shut up, but yes claiming to be treated worse than asylum seekers is an absurd falsehood/dog whistle.
Would you like to be forbidden from working and obliged to live off £49.18 per week?
I would not.
I would not wish it on you.
I would not wish it on anyone.
There are ways to critique the system and the amount spent without resorting to such hyperbole.
I’d take California into our Union if they asked nicely.
"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and California" has a curiously interesting ring to it, like a stately home meeting Hollywood. Canada is surely the slightly more possible of the option, though.
I’d take California into our Union if they asked nicely.
"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and California" has a curiously interesting ring to it, like a stately home meeting Hollywood. Canada is surely the slightly more possible of the option, though.
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
If it wasn't for the unpleasant and unnecessary racial dogwhistles that detract from the point, I would have liked that.
1. There’s no racist dog whistles
2. The guy that wrote the tweet is black
Other than that, good point
1. Point 5 and "We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals" are racist dog whistles.
We're treated with contempt compared to relatively wealthy retirees, absolutely, but not compared to asylum seekers who are forbidden to work and given a pittance to live on.
2. Are =if you claiming black people can't be racist?
Attitudes like yours - "shut up, you racist" - are precisely why Reform is leading the polls, and is gaining ground, every day, with younger Britons
I never said shut up, but yes claiming to be treated worse than asylum seekers is an absurd falsehood/dog whistle.
Would you like to be forbidden from working and obliged to live off £49.18 per week?
I would not.
I would not wish it on you.
I would not wish it on anyone.
There are ways to critique the system and the amount spent without resorting to such hyperbole.
You absolutely accused him of being a racist. You said he used "an unpleasant and unnecessary racial dogwhistle", and you said for that reason you were going to ignore him. In short, you said "shut up, you racist"
Do keep going, As things stand I want Reform to win the next election and people like you will deliver that
Acyn @Acyn · 1h Speaker Johnson: Thank you for your bold visionary leadership—it is key to this great success we are achieving—I believe he will be the most consequential president of the modern era if not all of American history
===
Do these fawning stunted pygmies have any idea how they will look in the history books?
"Consequential" is one of those elegantly ambiguous words. Much like calling Mr Ripley "Talented".
Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all."
He literally says "for someone like me". He's not saying you can't read it; he's saying it doesn't connect with him. God forbid people should have opinions on books!
She’s (I think) pretty stupid if she can’t understand what 1984 is all about simply because there’s no black characters in it.
Her Foreword was accepted by the publishers. That's interesting in itself, since she seemingly can't find a way in to a novel which lacks her keywords.
Her foreword if you read more about it is quite thoughtful and entirely in line with the kind of discussion that Orwell was absolutely in favour of.
While the foreword has prompted the familiar battle lines playing out across the Trump-era culture wars, Beers sees the conversation itself as in keeping with Orwell's legacy.
"By attempting to place Orwell's work in conversation with changing values and historical understandings in the decades since he was writing," she said, "scholars like Perkins-Valdez are exercising the very freedom to express uncomfortable and difficult opinions that Orwell explicitly championed."
I wonder if a North Korean dissident who had the unlikely good fortune to be able to read 1984 would find the ethnic gaps a major obstacle.
For me, I have read it precisely once, years ago, I would never read it again as what is important about it (as a novel I don't think it's all that good) is embedded in my heart and is irremovable.
The Orwell novel I actually remember is 'A Clergyman's Daughter', which I loved and still do.
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
If it wasn't for the unpleasant and unnecessary racial dogwhistles that detract from the point, I would have liked that.
1. There’s no racist dog whistles
2. The guy that wrote the tweet is black
Other than that, good point
1. Point 5 and "We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals" are racist dog whistles.
We're treated with contempt compared to relatively wealthy retirees, absolutely, but not compared to asylum seekers who are forbidden to work and given a pittance to live on.
2. Are =if you claiming black people can't be racist?
Attitudes like yours - "shut up, you racist" - are precisely why Reform is leading the polls, and is gaining ground, every day, with younger Britons
I never said shut up, but yes claiming to be treated worse than asylum seekers is an absurd falsehood/dog whistle.
Would you like to be forbidden from working and obliged to live off £49.18 per week?
I would not.
I would not wish it on you.
I would not wish it on anyone.
There are ways to critique the system and the amount spent without resorting to such hyperbole.
You absolutely accused him of being a racist. You said he used "an unpleasant and unnecessary racial dogwhistle", and you said for that reason you were going to ignore him. In short, you said "shut up, you racist"
Do keep going, As things stand I want Reform to win the next election and people like you will deliver that
I never said shut up, I am pro-free speech. Shut up is your words, not mine. I'm entirely comfortable with people I disagree with expressing their opinion.
I have said what I think was an unpleasant dog whistle and why. That's my free speech.
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
If it wasn't for the unpleasant and unnecessary racial dogwhistles that detract from the point, I would have liked that.
1. There’s no racist dog whistles
2. The guy that wrote the tweet is black
Other than that, good point
1. Point 5 and "We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals" are racist dog whistles.
We're treated with contempt compared to relatively wealthy retirees, absolutely, but not compared to asylum seekers who are forbidden to work and given a pittance to live on.
2. Are =if you claiming black people can't be racist?
Attitudes like yours - "shut up, you racist" - are precisely why Reform is leading the polls, and is gaining ground, every day, with younger Britons
I never said shut up, but yes claiming to be treated worse than asylum seekers is an absurd falsehood/dog whistle.
Would you like to be forbidden from working and obliged to live off £49.18 per week?
I would not.
I would not wish it on you.
I would not wish it on anyone.
There are ways to critique the system and the amount spent without resorting to such hyperbole.
You absolutely accused him of being a racist. You said he used "an unpleasant and unnecessary racial dogwhistle", and you said for that reason you were going to ignore him. In short, you said "shut up, you racist"
Do keep going, As things stand I want Reform to win the next election and people like you will deliver that
I never said shut up, I am pro-free speech. Shut up is your words, not mine. I'm entirely comfortable with people I disagree with expressing their opinion.
I have said what I think was an unpleasant dog whistle and why. That's my free speech.
It is. And I heartily applaud. Because British people are really tired of being called "racist" for offering the slightest complaint about migration, and the accusation is, I now think, actually counter productive. Driving people to Reform. So, more please
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Burgum
Like the Tesco checkouts where it's possible to highlight a button on the touch screen, without triggering it. So you press the button, it changes colour, but the machine does nothing. That indicates the moronic designers used a user interface toolkit intended for use with a keyboard, which is the only circumstance where that behaviour makes sense.
Or the ones in Boots that yell "INFORMATION NEEDED!" in a hectoring voice when asking if you want a receipt.
But the votes are needed for next May. So once they are in the bag the coal mines and the blast furnaces will be history.
I've just been open water swimming with three Ironman competitors, including two excellent ones. And the chat afterwards was lovely; despite the gulf in ability, skills and pace between them and me, they were all very encouraging and pleasant. As they always are.
And I think that's a key to human interactions: having something you do that gets you out meeting other people outside your usual family and friends. Whether it is a sport, a hobby, volunteering, or anything else.
Oh, and listening is key as well. Listen more than you talk. Something I often find hard to do...
I don’t know what it is about it but the images could not be less complimentary if they tried.
One of the reasons I am so against lowering the voting age.
Possibly not too far down the line to 'On the free tier? Get "Currah Speech". On the premium plus plan? Get to talk with the understanding human with a choice of real voices and accents from 'sultry' to "bants"'.
It's not too far removed to imagine the same thing in hospitality. Want to just rock up and order from the set menu? You get an app (or bot). Want the full a-la carte for 10x the price? You get a real waiter/waitress (specific choice is an extra 2x fee).
It was set up as a tax to provide benefits that could have previously been provided by insurance.
The name insurance was chosen for the tax and spend welfare as it was based on issues typically associated with insurance and that's more popular than tax, but its was pure tax and spend.
There is no insurance to it whatsoever. Tax rates are based on 'ability to pay' (based on earnings) and not insurance premiums based on risk profiles.
Benefits are based on need, almost entirely without any connection to whether people have paid or not.
It is pure "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need".
Reform have spoken a lot about their plans for Scunthorpe - I am very skeptical of Government-backed money making schemes, but they seem quite detailed in their thoughts. They're not in control at Scunthorpe, so perhaps they want to make Port Talbot a showcase for those ideas.
(Having said that, my sister is a fairly keen shooter, and has met lots of friends around the country through the hobby.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MusyO7J2inM
So it didn't even fund benefits based on need, that did not come in permanently until the Attlee government's National Assistance Act which abolished the Poor Law. It replaced it with benefits for those had not paid enough national insurance contributions to receive support from the National Assistance Board funded by tax, later replaced by supplementary benefit, income support, JSA and now UC
Jeremy Clarkson meets Australia captain Pat Cummins: ‘I’ve never been a fan of cricket’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2025/06/08/jeremy-clarkson-australia-pat-cummins-farm-kaleb-cooper/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J6eN2cbnoM&ab_channel=SkySportsFootball
BREAKING: NYPD and ICE mistakenly arrested a Chilean woman who was on vacation in New York City, leaving her 12-year-old daughter on the street alone.
This is what happens when you embolden ICE to act with zero oversight. Trump’s America.
https://x.com/CalltoActivism/status/1932152068204019996
We live in a world that's increasingly lonely, and that has always made me think.
TATA won't be interested, although they would be more than happy to offload. The issues on site include a legacy hazardous landfill a couple of hundred metres from the foreshore, and more asbestos insulation than you can shake a stick at. Tata have a hundreds of millions of pounds war chest to pay for the clean up.
Farage is talking utter nonsense.
We will pay premium for human. For singing, dancing, sport, anything physical right in front of us - even waitressing. This is a great time to be beautitful, with stage presence, or a wonderful voice. Footballers will make even more money than they do now
Also certain kinds of non physical art will do well. Memoir writing, the plastic arts, these may well become premium too - the same way we pay out more for artisanal knives or plates, as against factory made cutlery and crockery. We will crave the human, but when we cannot see or sense the human we won't care how stuff arrives
Something something blow the bloody doors off.
Two different teams took great pleasure in repeatedly shooting me, one staff member took even greater pleasure in shooting me in the crotch.
It is an even greater shock that D.C. students’ learning has improved more rapidly over the past 15 years than that of students in 20 other urban districts whose performance we have assessed."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/09/dc-dallas-schools-improvement-teachers/
It’s the forward of the latest reprint of the book. If it was some random person giving there opinion that’s one thing but thus is literally the foreward to the latest print.
Of course it merits discussion and critique.
Update — this will in fact be the full battalion, so it will actually be over 700 Marines deploying, source tells us.
@coachfinstock.bsky.social
Boots on the ground in LA before Canada or Greenland or Mexico actually catching me by surprise.
I remember the drummer of The Hollies, Bobby Elliott, started losing his hair when young and always wore a hat. So as I lose mine I’m doing the same,
"1️⃣ Sometimes I hate living in this country. I’m part of the generation whose university fees were tripled during austerity, while pensioners got the triple lock to protect their incomes.
2️⃣ I spent 3 years of my 20s locked indoors during Covid, to “protect the NHS” but let’s be honest: it was mostly to protect older people who faced far higher mortality.
3️⃣ Since then, living standards have collapsed, costs have soared, and older homeowners block new housing and infrastructure to protect the value of their assets leaving my generation locked out of home ownership and with soaring utilities bills.
4️⃣ Meanwhile, taxes keep rising to fund handouts for pensioners with household incomes of £70,000 — far more than many people my age earn — and we get nothing.
5️⃣ We’re spending £8 million a day housing and feeding illegal migrants, while my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6️⃣ Today's pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in Britain, ever. Over their lifetimes, they’ll take £2–£3 in state benefits & services for every £1 they paid in tax, state pensions, NHS, free education, housing market gains, minimal pension contributions.
7️⃣ It’s a complete pisstake.
No wonder young people are leaving.
We are treated with utter contempt compared to illegal arrivals and relatively wealthy retirees."
https://x.com/albieamankona/status/1932072006444290069
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cley59le6d8o
5) immigration has gone mad which means my generation either lives with parents into our 30s or burns 50%+ of our income on rent.
6) worse illegal immigrants are waiting over a year to be processed which means we are wasting over £8 million a day housing and feeding them
We could have free tuition and more people going to university if we spent the same on education as a percentage of GDP as we did in the past, its a choice not to do so, not mathematics.
2. The guy that wrote the tweet is black
Other than that, good point
https://www.newsweek.com/new-1984-foreword-includes-warning-about-problematic-characters-2082192
While the foreword has prompted the familiar battle lines playing out across the Trump-era culture wars, Beers sees the conversation itself as in keeping with Orwell's legacy.
"By attempting to place Orwell's work in conversation with changing values and historical understandings in the decades since he was writing," she said, "scholars like Perkins-Valdez are exercising the very freedom to express uncomfortable and difficult opinions that Orwell explicitly championed."
Tulip Siddiq saga rattles along.
I assume Starmer is hoping they can be persuaded not to issue an extradition request.
We're treated with contempt compared to relatively wealthy retirees, absolutely, but not compared to asylum seekers who are forbidden to work and given a pittance to live on.
2. Are you claiming black people can't be racist?
Gonna be martial law all the way from this weekend until the mid-terms? Seems a stretch.
Every copy must be burnt.
@Acyn
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1h
Speaker Johnson: Thank you for your bold visionary leadership—it is key to this great success we are achieving—I believe he will be the most consequential president of the modern era if not all of American history
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Do these fawning stunted pygmies have any idea how they will look in the history books?
Can you name the five biggest supporters of General Boulanger?
I think some would rather a future were there aren't any books.
@SpencerHakimian
Deploying the United States armed forces against American citizens is so deeply unconstitutional, un-American, and illegal.
Hell. The fucking country was founded because we opposed the British using their military to enforce their laws on our civilians.
The military is controlled by the civilians and for civilians. It is not controlled by a dictator.
Mobilizing the Marines on protesting Americans in Los Angeles is deeply problematic and will be shut down by courts immediately.
Or do you just want it with a positive spin ?
It has been noted that the entire Season 2 on Andor is based on an authoritarian regime brutally suppressing a peaceful protest and claiming insurrection...
Would you like to be forbidden from working and obliged to live off £49.18 per week?
I would not.
I would not wish it on you.
I would not wish it on anyone.
There are ways to critique the system and the amount spent without resorting to such hyperbole.
https://www.wokinghamremembers.com/2015/07/24/the-true-story-of-berkshires-california/
(and as far as any one can tell, the UK version nicked its name from the American one, for once.)
Do keep going, As things stand I want Reform to win the next election and people like you will deliver that
For me, I have read it precisely once, years ago, I would never read it again as what is important about it (as a novel I don't think it's all that good) is embedded in my heart and is irremovable.
The Orwell novel I actually remember is 'A Clergyman's Daughter', which I loved and still do.
I have said what I think was an unpleasant dog whistle and why. That's my free speech.