I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I’m sure they are, much as I’m sure that if your son and Dimbleby both decided to go into your career in your part of the world and the interviewers said, “ah, young MexicanBob, your father has done some great work in this county, unlike that wet London posh boy Dimbleby, have the job.”
Life in the shit shovelling game doesn't work like that. My 2:2 in politics from Cardiff counts for nought either. But you are right, son of Mexican Scumbag or David Dimbleby, neither would guarantee a job as say a binman. .
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.
Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city
I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.
My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.
If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?
Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.
Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it
My family have stopped sending all cards
We tend to express happy birthday, anniversary etc on our Whats app or facebook pages
Most everything we do today is by e mail and bcs payments
Indeed my daughters house sale and purchase, plus survey is done entirely by e mail
We receive virtually no post and to be honest, for a couple of oldies, we are quite proud how we have embraced modern tech communications
You still can't send parcels online
Sent a parcel by Royal Mail to South Wales last Monday. Checked this morning and it arrived Wednesday.
Quite right, if you only pay for a second class stamp you should expect only a second class service.
If you want your mail to arrive quicker and a first class service pay for first class stamps and postage
We had about twenty items of post two days ago after days with nothing. Note we do not live in Wick, or the Isles of Scilly. We live in Southern England. The postal service is broken.
So you still get post then
We still have an excellent postal service. Every morning our postie empties the nearby postbox, drives round delivering bulky items, then walks round delivering letters and small packages, normally around the same time each day? Are we just lucky?
Partly luck - some posties know their rounds well and are reliable and diligent. Partly it falls out of the way jobs are allocated within the office, using the seniority system. Essentially once all the delivery rounds and other jobs having been revised - management's intention being to create jobs of equal workload (the unions, not always so much) - the longest serving employer gets to pick first, and so on down the list, with the least popular jobs left for the newest entrant, or sometimes not even filled at all and treated as training roles.
Even in a perfect world, with something like delivery it's not possible to create exactly equal jobs, and even if the now computer aided process has evened up the assumed workload, there will always be differences known to the staff based on which routes are hilly, have houses with steps, or other hidden complexities, and in the old days, posties also knew which routes were better for Xmas gifts and tips.
So it's probable that if you have a diligent, long-serving postie on your round, there is something about it that makes it relatively attractive to deliver. Feel sorry for the people on the rounds always covered by the newbies...
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I’m sure they are, much as I’m sure that if your son and Dimbleby both decided to go into your career in your part of the world and the interviewers said, “ah, young MexicanBob, your father has done some great work in this county, unlike that wet London posh boy Dimbleby, have the job.”
Life in the shit shovelling game doesn't work like that. My 2:2 in politics from Cardiff counts for nought either. But you are right, son of Mexican Scumbag or David Dimbleby, neither would guarantee a job as say a binman. .
Used to be the case in the old newspaper print industry that to get an apprenticeship one had either to be the son of a print worker or recommended by a couple of them.
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
Several of my elderly relatives (albeit a decreasing number) either don't use email or don't like them. They like having physical letters to read and re-read.
Indeed I still know over 80s who don't even have internet
My wife used to shop at a needlecraft shop near Leeds called Bonds of Farsley. When she asked if she could buy online the response was one of "t'internet, we haven't even got an inside toilet!"
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
What can be described as nepotism is unavoidable. This is why working towards equality of opportunity is vital but also never ending. It happens at every level, from children of street level drug dealers being more likely to pick up that trade themselves to children of the rich and famous finding ways to be rich and famous.
For the fortunate the double advantage is obvious: OTOH genetics, and OTOH network/leg up/work ethic/bank of mum and dad/start off based in agreeable bit of London/education/who you meet/circles you move in.
This is ineradicable. I have lived for the last 35 years in a wonderful but rather neglected part of the north. The state education system (all my children went through it) is pretty decent but not in the same league in aspiration, confidence and contacts as to begin equalising.
A third factor in nepotism is simply understanding that a particular vocation exists. If your father is a writer and your mother a long-distance lorry driver, granddad an MP and granny a doctor, then you know from a young age that it is possible to do these things, and what the pathway is.
Throughout history, the first son took over the family farm, business or trade and any additional sons had the choice between the military, the clergy or becoming a merchant or explorer or somesuch. Most people just choosing their employment is a relatively recent development.
Or, in those countries that split farms and other assets equally between sons, they had fewer people to go off and do new stuff away from farming, and farms got smaller and smaller until they all starved, or emigrated.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
Yes, he went to Cardiff not Oxford when graduates of the latter like Dimbleby Jr and Cambridge dominate national news media, nothing to do with his parentage otherwise
No. You know nothing!
ALL those with media ambitions like Susannah Reid, Emma Barnett , Jason Mohammed and many, many more do their post graduate degree at Cardiff School of Journalism. Perhaps you don't need to attend if your dad interviewed Richard Nixon.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
Since our very constitution revolves around nepo babyism hardly surprising if the lower orders take it up. We can only thank our lucky stars that the king in waiting believes he has the talents to end homelessness, the global environmental crisis and war in the middle east. A renaissance prince indeed.
Ha, our main religion revolves around nepo babyism.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
Wilfred Frost has a PPE degree from Oxford, he just chose media rather than being an MP or a banker (his grandfather was also the 17th Duke of Norfolk so he has blue blood as well as being media royalty).
Fred Dimbleby edited Cherwell, the Oxford University student newspaper
Quite right, if you only pay for a second class stamp you should expect only a second class service.
If you want your mail to arrive quicker and a first class service pay for first class stamps and postage
We had about twenty items of post two days ago after days with nothing. Note we do not live in Wick, or the Isles of Scilly. We live in Southern England. The postal service is broken.
So you still get post then
We still have an excellent postal service. Every morning our postie empties the nearby postbox, drives round delivering bulky items, then walks round delivering letters and small packages, normally around the same time each day? Are we just lucky?
Partly luck - some posties know their rounds well and are reliable and diligent. Partly it falls out of the way jobs are allocated within the office, using the seniority system. Essentially once all the delivery rounds and other jobs having been revised - management's intention being to create jobs of equal workload (the unions, not always so much) - the longest serving employer gets to pick first, and so on down the list, with the least popular jobs left for the newest entrant, or sometimes not even filled at all and treated as training roles.
Even in a perfect world, with something like delivery it's not possible to create exactly equal jobs, and even if the now computer aided process has evened up the assumed workload, there will always be differences known to the staff based on which routes are hilly, have houses with steps, or other hidden complexities, and in the old days, posties also knew which routes were better for Xmas gifts and tips.
So it's probable that if you have a diligent, long-serving postie on your round, there is something about it that makes it relatively attractive to deliver. Feel sorry for the people on the rounds always covered by the newbies...
Aeons ago, when I was about 17 I spent the first half of the school's Christmas holiday being a temporary postman. Quite enjoyed it, actually; didn't rain a lot.... this was Essex .... and the people I came across were universally friendly and pleasant. Must admit I didn't get a lot of tips, but it taught a middle-class youth a lot about work.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
Yes, he went to Cardiff not Oxford when graduates of the latter like Dimbleby Jr and Cambridge dominate national news media, nothing to do with his parentage otherwise
No. You know nothing!
ALL those with media ambitions like Susannah Reid, Emma Barnett , Jason Mohammed and many, many more do their post graduate degree at Cardiff School of Journalism. Perhaps you don't need to attend if your dad interviewed Richard Nixon.
Susannah Reid presents lifestyle and morning programmes and Emma Barnett Woman's Hour and Jason Mohammed Final Score none are allowed to present the news.
Huw Edwards was ironically one of the few non Oxbridge types to anchor the BBC news and he had a Cardiff degree
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
Yes, he went to Cardiff not Oxford when graduates of the latter like Dimbleby Jr and Cambridge dominate national news media, nothing to do with his parentage otherwise
No. You know nothing!
ALL those with media ambitions like Susannah Reid, Emma Barnett , Jason Mohammed and many, many more do their post graduate degree at Cardiff School of Journalism. Perhaps you don't need to attend if your dad interviewed Richard Nixon.
Susannah Reid presents lifestyle and morning programmes and Emma Barnett Woman's Hour not the news
Check out their Wikipedia pages.
Emma Barnett presents BBC News flagship Today, and she's f*****' useless.
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
Several of my elderly relatives (albeit a decreasing number) either don't use email or don't like them. They like having physical letters to read and re-read.
Indeed I still know over 80s who don't even have internet
I am surprised you have it yourself, given how stuck in the past your attitudes are. Surely when you were first shown the internet, you must have thought "this is the Devil's work, and no good will come of it..." ?
Quite right, if you only pay for a second class stamp you should expect only a second class service.
If you want your mail to arrive quicker and a first class service pay for first class stamps and postage
We had about twenty items of post two days ago after days with nothing. Note we do not live in Wick, or the Isles of Scilly. We live in Southern England. The postal service is broken.
So you still get post then
We still have an excellent postal service. Every morning our postie empties the nearby postbox, drives round delivering bulky items, then walks round delivering letters and small packages, normally around the same time each day? Are we just lucky?
Partly luck - some posties know their rounds well and are reliable and diligent. Partly it falls out of the way jobs are allocated within the office, using the seniority system. Essentially once all the delivery rounds and other jobs having been revised - management's intention being to create jobs of equal workload (the unions, not always so much) - the longest serving employer gets to pick first, and so on down the list, with the least popular jobs left for the newest entrant, or sometimes not even filled at all and treated as training roles.
Even in a perfect world, with something like delivery it's not possible to create exactly equal jobs, and even if the now computer aided process has evened up the assumed workload, there will always be differences known to the staff based on which routes are hilly, have houses with steps, or other hidden complexities, and in the old days, posties also knew which routes were better for Xmas gifts and tips.
So it's probable that if you have a diligent, long-serving postie on your round, there is something about it that makes it relatively attractive to deliver. Feel sorry for the people on the rounds always covered by the newbies...
Aeons ago, when I was about 17 I spent the first half of the school's Christmas holiday being a temporary postman. Quite enjoyed it, actually; didn't rain a lot.... this was Essex .... and the people I came across were universally friendly and pleasant. Must admit I didn't get a lot of tips, but it taught a middle-class youth a lot about work.
It was of course more dangerous back then, what with those German bombs dropping all over the place...
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.
Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city
I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.
My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.
If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?
Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.
Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it
My family have stopped sending all cards
We tend to express happy birthday, anniversary etc on our Whats app or facebook pages
Most everything we do today is by e mail and bcs payments
Indeed my daughters house sale and purchase, plus survey is done entirely by e mail
We receive virtually no post and to be honest, for a couple of oldies, we are quite proud how we have embraced modern tech communications
You still can't send parcels online
Yes, you can
Many parcel companies offer an online service to book and collect from your home
So as I said you can't send parcels online, you have to get them collected and delivered even on that example
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
Yes, he went to Cardiff not Oxford when graduates of the latter like Dimbleby Jr and Cambridge dominate national news media, nothing to do with his parentage otherwise
No. You know nothing!
ALL those with media ambitions like Susannah Reid, Emma Barnett , Jason Mohammed and many, many more do their post graduate degree at Cardiff School of Journalism. Perhaps you don't need to attend if your dad interviewed Richard Nixon.
Susannah Reid presents lifestyle and morning programmes and Emma Barnett Woman's Hour not the news
Check out their Wikipedia pages.
Emma Barnett presents BBC News flagship Today, and she's f*****' useless.
The thing is, lots of people can do lots of jobs, or they could if they got the chance, but the ones who get the chances are the ones with a recognisable name.
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
Several of my elderly relatives (albeit a decreasing number) either don't use email or don't like them. They like having physical letters to read and re-read.
Indeed I still know over 80s who don't even have internet
I am surprised you have it yourself, given how stuck in the past your attitudes are. Surely when you were first shown the internet, you must have thought "this is the Devil's work, and no good will come of it..." ?
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
Several of my elderly relatives (albeit a decreasing number) either don't use email or don't like them. They like having physical letters to read and re-read.
Indeed I still know over 80s who don't even have internet
I am surprised you have it yourself, given how stuck in the past your attitudes are. Surely when you were first shown the internet, you must have thought "this is the Devil's work, and no good will come of it..." ?
Using the internet is a tax dodge.
You can buy cheaper stuff online and thus pay less VAT.
'The truth is that Jake never truly recovered from the downfall of Liz Truss - a prime minister whose brief and chaotic tenure he enthusiastically supported.'
Unsurprisingly, Jake Berry's local Conservative association not hugely impressed by his defection to Reform.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
Yes, he went to Cardiff not Oxford when graduates of the latter like Dimbleby Jr and Cambridge dominate national news media, nothing to do with his parentage otherwise
No. You know nothing!
ALL those with media ambitions like Susannah Reid, Emma Barnett , Jason Mohammed and many, many more do their post graduate degree at Cardiff School of Journalism. Perhaps you don't need to attend if your dad interviewed Richard Nixon.
Susannah Reid presents lifestyle and morning programmes and Emma Barnett Woman's Hour and Jason Mohammed Final Score none are allowed to present the news.
Huw Edwards was ironically one of the few non Oxbridge types to anchor the BBC news and he had a Cardiff degree
FFS
It's not their Mickey Mouse first degree from Cardiff like mine in politics. It is a prestigious post graduate qualification from a World renowned school of journalism. It compares to whatever you did at Aber, only much, much more prestigious.
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.
Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city
I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.
My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.
If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?
Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.
Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it
My family have stopped sending all cards
We tend to express happy birthday, anniversary etc on our Whats app or facebook pages
Most everything we do today is by e mail and bcs payments
Indeed my daughters house sale and purchase, plus survey is done entirely by e mail
We receive virtually no post and to be honest, for a couple of oldies, we are quite proud how we have embraced modern tech communications
You still can't send parcels online
You can. I received an eBay item* last week from someone who told me RM picked up the parcel from their address.
[*Er, just some old style Transformer toys for my nephew ]
The really scary thing to contemplate is, what if those Trump measures that make our skin crawl actually work? If the economy improves? If throwing his weight and his bombs around achieves peace? If the murder rate declines? If people start migrating to the US because they have skills but stop swimming across the Rio Grande because the American Dream is by invitation only?
Does Trumpism then replace democracy as the global norm?
The US economy is not going well. Trump has failed to achieve peace in Ukraine (in 24 hours or longer). The murder rate was already relatively low when he took office. I don't think you need to worry about your what if yet.
Trump has been in power for 6 months - the economy might crater or might boom and so MarqueeMark’s point stands on the “what if?” Question. If you are saying that Trump is clearly a failure as he hasn’t got a booming economy in 6 months then you will be infinitely more excoriating about Labour’s failure to do so in a year, yes?
As for peace for Ukraine, we all knew the 24 hours was bombast however, again, Trump hasn’t achieved peace in 6 months, Biden, The EU and UK haven’t managed it in years so again he might also fail but he could also succeed, early days.
I’m far from a Trump or MAGA lover but it’s very easy to point at “failures” so far but it’s early and the original point that if it succeeds it asks very difficult questions is a very valid one.
We have already seen very immediate negative effects on the economy because of Trump's policies. Sure, we don't know what the future will bring, but we already know how the markets reacted to his tariff plans. (I can still never spell "tariff" correctly on the first attempt.) Likewise, Trump's complete and utter failure over Ukraine is already apparent.
As you say, it's very easy to point at failures so far. That's because there have been so many of them and they are so obviously failures. Maybe everything Trump is doing will somehow come to fruition in a few months and utopia will be achieved. But it doesn't seem very likely judging by events so far!
As for Labour, I didn't vote for them a year ago and I'm not intending to vote for them in the future. That said, they're not rounding up UK citizens and sending them to concentration camps, so I think Starmer is doing a better job than Trump.
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.
Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city
I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.
My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.
If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?
Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.
Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it
My family have stopped sending all cards
We tend to express happy birthday, anniversary etc on our Whats app or facebook pages
Most everything we do today is by e mail and bcs payments
Indeed my daughters house sale and purchase, plus survey is done entirely by e mail
We receive virtually no post and to be honest, for a couple of oldies, we are quite proud how we have embraced modern tech communications
You still can't send parcels online
Yes, you can
Many parcel companies offer an online service to book and collect from your home
My lad is working at the 2000 Trees festival from yesterday. He'll be shooting Kneecap on Saturday (calm down at the back, just photographs) so I'll get him to report back factually any controversy.
'The truth is that Jake never truly recovered from the downfall of Liz Truss - a prime minister whose brief and chaotic tenure he enthusiastically supported.'
Unsurprisingly, Jake Berry's local Conservative association not hugely impressed by his defection to Reform.
WRT the one in one out deal with France, which I suspect won't work, I suggest the plan which might work is this: For one week (or even less) starting on date X - the date being the day after it is announced, 100% of all boat arrivals will be returned immediately to France.
The probability is that people will then stop arriving, and wait for the week to be out. If that happens, then the short period, 24 hours before it ends, is extended a further few days, and so on without limit, just a few days at a time.
If they do keep arriving, then again, extending a few days at a time would fairly soon see a big drop in the numbers.
The problem with this is that the people on the boats are not well-informed about UK government policy and practice. You can make that announcement, but the people on the ground won't know about it, and the people smugglers aren't going to tell them.
'The truth is that Jake never truly recovered from the downfall of Liz Truss - a prime minister whose brief and chaotic tenure he enthusiastically supported.'
Unsurprisingly, Jake Berry's local Conservative association not hugely impressed by his defection to Reform.
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.
Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city
I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.
My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.
If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?
Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.
Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it
Has anyone worked out how to hang on-line Christmas cards on strings around the room, or display them on mantelpieces, cupboard tops and so on? Most of them seem to have some sort of animation. Sending holiday pictures on Facebook isn't a good idea, unless you have a very restricted page, because it demonstrates to all and sundry that your house is empty, and the evilly inclined can have easy access.
Create a slideshow from them and send it to your flat screen TV
Lacks ambition. Buy a load of phones/tablets and string them all up on USB cables for power, displaying one card on each device. For distant relatives/acquaintances it may be acceptable to have multiple cards on one device on rotation.
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
Several of my elderly relatives (albeit a decreasing number) either don't use email or don't like them. They like having physical letters to read and re-read.
Indeed I still know over 80s who don't even have internet
I am surprised you have it yourself, given how stuck in the past your attitudes are. Surely when you were first shown the internet, you must have thought "this is the Devil's work, and no good will come of it..." ?
Using the internet is a tax dodge.
You can buy cheaper stuff online and thus pay less VAT.
Although shopping online precludes using cash which shuts out the money laundering/black economy/ cash in hand tax dodging community from a large market so swings and roundabouts.
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.
Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city
I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.
My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.
If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?
Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.
Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it
My family have stopped sending all cards
We tend to express happy birthday, anniversary etc on our Whats app or facebook pages
Most everything we do today is by e mail and bcs payments
Indeed my daughters house sale and purchase, plus survey is done entirely by e mail
We receive virtually no post and to be honest, for a couple of oldies, we are quite proud how we have embraced modern tech communications
You still can't send parcels online
You can. I received an eBay item* last week from someone who told me RM picked up the parcel from their address.
[*Er, just some old style Transformer toys for my nephew ]
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.
Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city
I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.
My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.
If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?
Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.
Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it
My family have stopped sending all cards
We tend to express happy birthday, anniversary etc on our Whats app or facebook pages
Most everything we do today is by e mail and bcs payments
Indeed my daughters house sale and purchase, plus survey is done entirely by e mail
We receive virtually no post and to be honest, for a couple of oldies, we are quite proud how we have embraced modern tech communications
You still can't send parcels online
Yes, you can
Many parcel companies offer an online service to book and collect from your home
So as I said you can't send parcels online, you have to get them collected and delivered even on that example
What a bizarre response
As has been said by other posters you book online and it is collected
Amazon is an online company who deliver to your door
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
Wilfred Frost has a PPE degree from Oxford, he just chose media rather than being an MP or a banker (his grandfather was also the 17th Duke of Norfolk so he has blue blood as well as being media royalty).
Fred Dimbleby edited Cherwell, the Oxford University student newspaper
I'm trying to think how I'd handle the situation of a cherished old friend who has fallen into the wrong company and gone bad.
Would I keep faith, text, write, pick up the phone, still talk, on account of what we had, hoping they'd see sense and we could have it again? I like to think I would. But there'd come a time when if nothing changed I'd have to write them off.
With America that crux point is the midterms. I'm giving it up to then. That is the last chance saloon for our relationship. If they value it at all, they know what they need to do when they go to the polls. Hand President Donald J Trump his ass on a plate.
The main problem with the latter is that Trump, or rather the powers behind the throne (Trump is just too incompetent to do this), rig the elections such that Republican/Trump voters are kept enfranchised and other voters are disenfranchised. Or even, that everyone is enfranchised but wouldn't you know it, Trump is given a 10 million vote head start by the click of a button on the voting machines.
I remain greatly unconvinced the election and results in 2026 will reflect the true feelings of the people in the United States.
The really scary thing to contemplate is, what if those Trump measures that make our skin crawl actually work? If the economy improves? If throwing his weight and his bombs around achieves peace? If the murder rate declines? If people start migrating to the US because they have skills but stop swimming across the Rio Grande because the American Dream is by invitation only?
Does Trumpism then replace democracy as the global norm?
Have wondered the same for a while. What if he is right? It’s not a pleasant thought but if the evidence is, for example, that being brutal and ejecting migrants without a care for international rules and mores makes them stop trying to get in then does Rwanda start to look like it was the right plan? How do British politicians do a 180 degree turn without looking like even bigger charlatans than they are already.
Luckily (or sadly really) issues like the MAGA approach to vaccines and science will be exposed by numbers of dead and sick so that won’t be adopted but there are potentially areas where the accepted western “norms” could be shown up as completely wrong.
Of course Rwanda was the right plan. In principle. And for this reason
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I’m sure they are, much as I’m sure that if your son and Dimbleby both decided to go into your career in your part of the world and the interviewers said, “ah, young MexicanBob, your father has done some great work in this county, unlike that wet London posh boy Dimbleby, have the job.”
Life in the shit shovelling game doesn't work like that. My 2:2 in politics from Cardiff counts for nought either. But you are right, son of Mexican Scumbag or David Dimbleby, neither would guarantee a job as say a binman. .
Used to be the case in the old newspaper print industry that to get an apprenticeship one had either to be the son of a print worker or recommended by a couple of them.
Here's the second paragraph of the Hippocratic oath for doctors:
To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the Healer's oath, but to nobody else.
'The truth is that Jake never truly recovered from the downfall of Liz Truss - a prime minister whose brief and chaotic tenure he enthusiastically supported.'
Unsurprisingly, Jake Berry's local Conservative association not hugely impressed by his defection to Reform.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
Wilfred Frost has a PPE degree from Oxford, he just chose media rather than being an MP or a banker (his grandfather was also the 17th Duke of Norfolk so he has blue blood as well as being media royalty).
Fred Dimbleby edited Cherwell, the Oxford University student newspaper
WTAF!
In a funny way, this ties into our discussions about the Norman Conquest. The more aristocratic Norman ancestry you have, the better you will do in life, in general.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I’m sure they are, much as I’m sure that if your son and Dimbleby both decided to go into your career in your part of the world and the interviewers said, “ah, young MexicanBob, your father has done some great work in this county, unlike that wet London posh boy Dimbleby, have the job.”
Life in the shit shovelling game doesn't work like that. My 2:2 in politics from Cardiff counts for nought either. But you are right, son of Mexican Scumbag or David Dimbleby, neither would guarantee a job as say a binman. .
Used to be the case in the old newspaper print industry that to get an apprenticeship one had either to be the son of a print worker or recommended by a couple of them.
Here's the second paragraph of the Hippocratic oath for doctors:
To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the Healer's oath, but to nobody else.
Such is human nature, I doubt we'll ever get away from the idea that advancing the interests of our own children, and our friends' children, is entirely the morally correct thing to do.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
Wilfred Frost has a PPE degree from Oxford, he just chose media rather than being an MP or a banker (his grandfather was also the 17th Duke of Norfolk so he has blue blood as well as being media royalty).
Fred Dimbleby edited Cherwell, the Oxford University student newspaper
WTAF!
In a funny way, this ties into our discussions about the Norman Conquest. The more aristocratic Norman ancestry you have, the better you will do in life, in general.
"Britain is a crime-ridden hell hole" - yes mate, because you defunded the police and the criminal justice system. "taxes are sky high" - because you broke the economy with cuts and put the taxes up "a benefits system bringing the world's poor to our shores with no control" - asylum seekers don't get benefits mate, but even if that was true whose policies in government created the vast increase in arrivals? "He [Farage] doesn't change his views when the political weather changes" - unlike Berry apparently
This is the problem that Reform have. If the very best/worst Tories join Reform and say "this country is broken, vote for us" when do the voters say "but you are the fuckers who broke it"?
We also have Kemi Badenoch out swinging this morning on welfare - strange how I don't remember the last Conservative Government tightening up rules on welfare to deny payments to foreigners or "handing out taxpayer-funded cars for conditions like constipation.”
I have more respect for Jake Berry. Ewwww, that was nasty to type.
The start of any recovery process is to accept that you are in a mess and need help. Kemi and the remaining Tories can't stomach the idea that they did anything wrong, and the endless "Labour have broken this" guff is met with deaf ears for obvious reasons.
I was going to ask if there has ever been a leader as tone deaf, arrogant and politically stunted as Kemi Badenoch. Then I remembered Liz Truss.
Any politician worth his salt should be out on a boat in the Channel pestering illegal migrants today. Let's hope it is a safer venture than a previous light aircraft stunt.
Not just Fagage, but Sky also following an overloaded boat about to enter the dangerous sea lanes with a French coastguard boat standing off
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I wish your son well but I never understand why people do degrees in journalism. You can learn the skills of the trade in a few weeks. And on the job
And most of it is raw talent. A nose for a story and the ability to tell it. I would never advise anyone to “study” journalism
"Britain is a crime-ridden hell hole" - yes mate, because you defunded the police and the criminal justice system. "taxes are sky high" - because you broke the economy with cuts and put the taxes up "a benefits system bringing the world's poor to our shores with no control" - asylum seekers don't get benefits mate, but even if that was true whose policies in government created the vast increase in arrivals? "He [Farage] doesn't change his views when the political weather changes" - unlike Berry apparently
This is the problem that Reform have. If the very best/worst Tories join Reform and say "this country is broken, vote for us" when do the voters say "but you are the fuckers who broke it"?
We also have Kemi Badenoch out swinging this morning on welfare - strange how I don't remember the last Conservative Government tightening up rules on welfare to deny payments to foreigners or "handing out taxpayer-funded cars for conditions like constipation.”
I have more respect for Jake Berry. Ewwww, that was nasty to type.
The start of any recovery process is to accept that you are in a mess and need help. Kemi and the remaining Tories can't stomach the idea that they did anything wrong, and the endless "Labour have broken this" guff is met with deaf ears for obvious reasons.
I was going to ask if there has ever been a leader as tone deaf, arrogant and politically stunted as Kemi Badenoch. Then I remembered Liz Truss.
Any politician worth his salt should be out on a boat in the Channel pestering illegal migrants today. Let's hope it is a safer venture than a previous light aircraft stunt.
Not just Fagage, but Sky also following an overloaded boat about to enter the dangerous sea lanes with a French coastguard boat standing off
All of those should be classed towards a 'one-in, one-out' policy with France.
Instead it's going to be '17 in, one-out, one-in'.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
Wilfred Frost has a PPE degree from Oxford, he just chose media rather than being an MP or a banker (his grandfather was also the 17th Duke of Norfolk so he has blue blood as well as being media royalty).
Fred Dimbleby edited Cherwell, the Oxford University student newspaper
WTAF!
In a funny way, this ties into our discussions about the Norman Conquest. The more aristocratic Norman ancestry you have, the better you will do in life, in general.
Just ask Danny Dyer and Frank Gardiner!
WRT Wilfred Frost, you'd have to be quite inept, not to succeed in life, if your father is David Frost, and your grandfather is the Duke of Norfolk.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I wish your son well but I never understand why people do degrees in journalism. You can learn the skills of the trade in a few weeks. And on the job
And most of it is raw talent. A nose for a story and the ability to tell it. I would never advise anyone to “study” journalism
Its a bit like virology - no idea why people do degrees in virology. A nose for it and a few weeks reading Reddit threads is all you need...
I expect human rights lawyers meeting the migrants and claiming the scheme is illegal under the ECHR
This from the BBC
Like the previous government's Rwanda scheme, this proposed returns deal is likely to encounter several legal, political and practical obstacles.
Any attempt to return people who have claimed asylum in the UK to France will trigger a challenge in the courts. Is it legal under the UN Refugee Convention?
The previous government attempted to get around that issue with its Nationality and Borders Act, declaring it unlawful for a migrant to claim asylum in the UK if they had travelled through a safe third country such as France. Might Labour keep that controversial element of the Conservative legislation?
The European Union will also have concerns about a scheme which some member states fear will see returnees shifted to the first EU country they entered under the so-called Dublin Convention.
As well as legal challenge to returning people, there will be practical difficulties in deciding which migrants in France should be sent to the UK, as part of the ‘one-in one-out’ deal. Who will make those decisions and on what basis? And will it work?
The pilot scheme being proposed is probably not at a large enough scale to act as a serious deterrent, but officials believe the arrangement has the potential to be powerful weapon in the battle to stop the boats.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I wish your son well but I never understand why people do degrees in journalism. You can learn the skills of the trade in a few weeks. And on the job
And most of it is raw talent. A nose for a story and the ability to tell it. I would never advise anyone to “study” journalism
Its a bit like virology - no idea why people do degrees in virology. A nose for it and a few weeks reading Reddit threads is all you need...
I am exceedingly sure it is nothing like virology. For a start, journalists don’t generally kick off global plagues that kill 20 million people
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.
Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city
I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.
My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.
If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?
Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.
Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it
My family have stopped sending all cards
We tend to express happy birthday, anniversary etc on our Whats app or facebook pages
Most everything we do today is by e mail and bcs payments
Indeed my daughters house sale and purchase, plus survey is done entirely by e mail
We receive virtually no post and to be honest, for a couple of oldies, we are quite proud how we have embraced modern tech communications
You still can't send parcels online
Yes, you can
Many parcel companies offer an online service to book and collect from your home
So as I said you can't send parcels online, you have to get them collected and delivered even on that example
What a bizarre response
As has been said by other posters you book online and it is collected
Amazon is an online company who deliver to your door
Are you saying they are not an online business
I really do wonder about your thought processes
I think the thought process is something like:
I've made a statement
I won't back down on it
I will contort as necessary to support facts 1 and 2
An important skill in life* is admitting when you're wrong. I may be wrong about this
*but, to be fair, maybe not for those with ambitions of a political career - I don't know whether that applies here
I'm trying to think how I'd handle the situation of a cherished old friend who has fallen into the wrong company and gone bad.
Would I keep faith, text, write, pick up the phone, still talk, on account of what we had, hoping they'd see sense and we could have it again? I like to think I would. But there'd come a time when if nothing changed I'd have to write them off.
With America that crux point is the midterms. I'm giving it up to then. That is the last chance saloon for our relationship. If they value it at all, they know what they need to do when they go to the polls. Hand President Donald J Trump his ass on a plate.
The main problem with the latter is that Trump, or rather the powers behind the throne (Trump is just too incompetent to do this), rig the elections such that Republican/Trump voters are kept enfranchised and other voters are disenfranchised. Or even, that everyone is enfranchised but wouldn't you know it, Trump is given a 10 million vote head start by the click of a button on the voting machines.
I remain greatly unconvinced the election and results in 2026 will reflect the true feelings of the people in the United States.
I agree a GOP-rigged election is a risk. However what I think and hope (emphasis on the latter) is the weight of sentiment against Trump by then will be sufficient to sweep over the obstacles.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I wish your son well but I never understand why people do degrees in journalism. You can learn the skills of the trade in a few weeks. And on the job
And most of it is raw talent. A nose for a story and the ability to tell it. I would never advise anyone to “study” journalism
Its a bit like virology - no idea why people do degrees in virology. A nose for it and a few weeks reading Reddit threads is all you need...
I am exceedingly sure it is nothing like virology. For a start, journalists don’t generally kick off global plagues that kill 20 million people
No, just panics and false shortages that inconvenience millions.
Quite right, if you only pay for a second class stamp you should expect only a second class service.
If you want your mail to arrive quicker and a first class service pay for first class stamps and postage
We had about twenty items of post two days ago after days with nothing. Note we do not live in Wick, or the Isles of Scilly. We live in Southern England. The postal service is broken.
So you still get post then
We still have an excellent postal service. Every morning our postie empties the nearby postbox, drives round delivering bulky items, then walks round delivering letters and small packages, normally around the same time each day? Are we just lucky?
No, often that is the case here too.
When we order from Amazon etc often they will ring the bell, wait 5 or 10 seconds at most then dump the delivery and sod off.
Royal Mail posties however if you are not in will leave a note and leave the package at the backdoor where it is less likely to be stolen.
There are exceptions but I still prefer the heirs of Postman Pat to the timed to the second employees of postman Bezos
As I was about to turn the corner into my rather lengthy drive I noticed a large Amazon box in the middle of the road (it is a quiet country road). I retrieved the parcel and checked the name and a partial company address. I found a phone number on the Companies House Beta site and texted the guy. It was rope he needed for work, and he was working locally. He was very grateful and collected from my porch. That was the third time it had been lost by Jeff's posties.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I wish your son well but I never understand why people do degrees in journalism. You can learn the skills of the trade in a few weeks. And on the job
And most of it is raw talent. A nose for a story and the ability to tell it. I would never advise anyone to “study” journalism
My best mate shunned Sixth Form in favour of weekdays in the Magistrate Courts, week nights and ends watching non-league football, and second and third tier RL, and attempting to receive payment for anything that he saw worthy of reporting. He ended up commentating on the World Cup.
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.
Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city
I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.
My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.
If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?
Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.
Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it
My family have stopped sending all cards
We tend to express happy birthday, anniversary etc on our Whats app or facebook pages
Most everything we do today is by e mail and bcs payments
Indeed my daughters house sale and purchase, plus survey is done entirely by e mail
We receive virtually no post and to be honest, for a couple of oldies, we are quite proud how we have embraced modern tech communications
You still can't send parcels online
Yes, you can
Many parcel companies offer an online service to book and collect from your home
So as I said you can't send parcels online, you have to get them collected and delivered even on that example
What a bizarre response
As has been said by other posters you book online and it is collected
Amazon is an online company who deliver to your door
Are you saying they are not an online business
I really do wonder about your thought processes
I think the thought process is something like:
I've made a statement
I won't back down on it
I will contort as necessary to support facts 1 and 2
An important skill in life* is admitting when you're wrong. I may be wrong about this
*but, to be fair, maybe not for those with ambitions of a political career - I don't know whether that applies here
Backing down gracefully in a way which diffuses the argument is a rare skill. I was 18 before I encountered someone who could do it. I remember how impressed I was. One of my daughters mastered this very early, another by the time she reached her teens, though it stillisn't instinctive,and a third will go on arguing black is white until she is blue in the face. It shouldn't be hard. But for most humans, it is.
I expect human rights lawyers meeting the migrants and claiming the scheme is illegal under the ECHR
This from the BBC
Like the previous government's Rwanda scheme, this proposed returns deal is likely to encounter several legal, political and practical obstacles.
Any attempt to return people who have claimed asylum in the UK to France will trigger a challenge in the courts. Is it legal under the UN Refugee Convention?
The previous government attempted to get around that issue with its Nationality and Borders Act, declaring it unlawful for a migrant to claim asylum in the UK if they had travelled through a safe third country such as France. Might Labour keep that controversial element of the Conservative legislation?
The European Union will also have concerns about a scheme which some member states fear will see returnees shifted to the first EU country they entered under the so-called Dublin Convention.
As well as legal challenge to returning people, there will be practical difficulties in deciding which migrants in France should be sent to the UK, as part of the ‘one-in one-out’ deal. Who will make those decisions and on what basis? And will it work?
The pilot scheme being proposed is probably not at a large enough scale to act as a serious deterrent, but officials believe the arrangement has the potential to be powerful weapon in the battle to stop the boats.
If we're going to break the UN refugee convention, we may as well break it good and hard.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
Wilfred Frost has a PPE degree from Oxford, he just chose media rather than being an MP or a banker (his grandfather was also the 17th Duke of Norfolk so he has blue blood as well as being media royalty).
Fred Dimbleby edited Cherwell, the Oxford University student newspaper
WTAF!
In a funny way, this ties into our discussions about the Norman Conquest. The more aristocratic Norman ancestry you have, the better you will do in life, in general.
Just ask Danny Dyer and Frank Gardiner!
WRT Wilfred Frost, you'd have to be quite inept, not to succeed in life, if your father is David Frost, and your grandfather is the Duke of Norfolk.
HYUFD's point related to desert. If one is the son of David Frost and grandson of the Duke of Norfolk one deserves to be the Sky News Breakfast anchor (irrespective of ability).
Is Wilfred's catchphrase " hello, good morning and (checks notes) welcome".
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.
Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city
I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.
My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.
If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?
Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.
Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it
My family have stopped sending all cards
We tend to express happy birthday, anniversary etc on our Whats app or facebook pages
Most everything we do today is by e mail and bcs payments
Indeed my daughters house sale and purchase, plus survey is done entirely by e mail
We receive virtually no post and to be honest, for a couple of oldies, we are quite proud how we have embraced modern tech communications
You still can't send parcels online
You can. I received an eBay item* last week from someone who told me RM picked up the parcel from their address.
[*Er, just some old style Transformer toys for my nephew ]
Your nephew called Prunil Sassanan I assume?
Nah, he's named after an eminent journalist in fact.
"Wimbledon line-calling system leaves spectators in dark With automated calls often drowned out and human line judges now gone, confusion now follows every close call at SW19" (£)
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
Wilfred Frost has a PPE degree from Oxford, he just chose media rather than being an MP or a banker (his grandfather was also the 17th Duke of Norfolk so he has blue blood as well as being media royalty).
Fred Dimbleby edited Cherwell, the Oxford University student newspaper
WTAF!
In a funny way, this ties into our discussions about the Norman Conquest. The more aristocratic Norman ancestry you have, the better you will do in life, in general.
Just ask Danny Dyer and Frank Gardiner!
WRT Wilfred Frost, you'd have to be quite inept, not to succeed in life, if your father is David Frost, and your grandfather is the Duke of Norfolk.
HYUFD's point related to desert. If one is the son of David Frost and grandson of the Duke of Norfolk one deserves to be the Sky News Breakfast anchor (irrespective of ability).
Is Wilfred's catchphrase " hello, good morning and (checks notes) welcome".
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I wish your son well but I never understand why people do degrees in journalism. You can learn the skills of the trade in a few weeks. And on the job
And most of it is raw talent. A nose for a story and the ability to tell it. I would never advise anyone to “study” journalism
My best mate shunned Sixth Form in favour of weekdays in the Magistrate Courts, week nights and ends watching non-league football, and second and third tier RL, and attempting to receive payment for anything that he saw worthy of reporting. He ended up commentating on the World Cup.
Yes indeed. One of the glories (I’m serious) of British journalism is that it’s open to raw talent and dogged persistence. You DON’T need a degree and you DON’T need “connections”
Go out and find a cool story. Write it really well. An editor will publish it, if it is good. That’s it. Then you’re up and running
Do it enough times and you will become a regular relied-on freelancer or you will be offered a staff job
Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...
Why would anyone use snail mail?
Emails are free and instantaneous.
I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.
To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.
Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city
I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.
My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.
If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?
Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.
Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it
My family have stopped sending all cards
We tend to express happy birthday, anniversary etc on our Whats app or facebook pages
Most everything we do today is by e mail and bcs payments
Indeed my daughters house sale and purchase, plus survey is done entirely by e mail
We receive virtually no post and to be honest, for a couple of oldies, we are quite proud how we have embraced modern tech communications
You still can't send parcels online
Yes, you can
Many parcel companies offer an online service to book and collect from your home
So as I said you can't send parcels online, you have to get them collected and delivered even on that example
What a bizarre response
As has been said by other posters you book online and it is collected
Amazon is an online company who deliver to your door
Are you saying they are not an online business
I really do wonder about your thought processes
I think the thought process is something like:
I've made a statement
I won't back down on it
I will contort as necessary to support facts 1 and 2
An important skill in life* is admitting when you're wrong. I may be wrong about this
*but, to be fair, maybe not for those with ambitions of a political career - I don't know whether that applies here
Backing down gracefully in a way which diffuses the argument is a rare skill. I was 18 before I encountered someone who could do it. I remember how impressed I was. One of my daughters mastered this very early, another by the time she reached her teens, though it stillisn't instinctive,and a third will go on arguing black is white until she is blue in the face. It shouldn't be hard. But for most humans, it is.
Digging in, when you're in the wrong, is so silly.
A gracious apology/acknowledgement that the other person is correct, actually enhances one's standing.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
Wilfred Frost has a PPE degree from Oxford, he just chose media rather than being an MP or a banker (his grandfather was also the 17th Duke of Norfolk so he has blue blood as well as being media royalty).
Fred Dimbleby edited Cherwell, the Oxford University student newspaper
WTAF!
In a funny way, this ties into our discussions about the Norman Conquest. The more aristocratic Norman ancestry you have, the better you will do in life, in general.
Just ask Danny Dyer and Frank Gardiner!
WRT Wilfred Frost, you'd have to be quite inept, not to succeed in life, if your father is David Frost, and your grandfather is the Duke of Norfolk.
HYUFD's point related to desert. If one is the son of David Frost and grandson of the Duke of Norfolk one deserves to be the Sky News Breakfast anchor (irrespective of ability).
Is Wilfred's catchphrase " hello, good morning and (checks notes) welcome".
Are you Sahara about your first sentence?
I made a bit of a pudding of myself. Can I blame autocorrect?
BBC Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg detects a cooling towards Trump and sabre-rattling at Europe. (3m45s video)
Hard to see what is in it for Russia provoking Trump - other than 500% tariffs on their oil.
Trump is such a craven coward towards Russia that his response is likely to be to try and find some way to please Putin. Hello have people whispering in his ear that is all Zelensky's fault.
"Wimbledon line-calling system leaves spectators in dark With automated calls often drowned out and human line judges now gone, confusion now follows every close call at SW19" (£)
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I’m sure they are, much as I’m sure that if your son and Dimbleby both decided to go into your career in your part of the world and the interviewers said, “ah, young MexicanBob, your father has done some great work in this county, unlike that wet London posh boy Dimbleby, have the job.”
Life in the shit shovelling game doesn't work like that. My 2:2 in politics from Cardiff counts for nought either. But you are right, son of Mexican Scumbag or David Dimbleby, neither would guarantee a job as say a binman. .
Used to be the case in the old newspaper print industry that to get an apprenticeship one had either to be the son of a print worker or recommended by a couple of them.
Here's the second paragraph of the Hippocratic oath for doctors:
To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the Healer's oath, but to nobody else.
Such is human nature, I doubt we'll ever get away from the idea that advancing the interests of our own children, and our friends' children, is entirely the morally correct thing to do.
It's both hard wired into our evolved status and also the proximity principle about 'who is your neighbour'.
In logic of course helping, quite properly, daughter of friend X to excel in an Oxbridge interview/Goldman Sachs application both assists the daughter and gives a comparative disadvantage to W, Y and Z who happen not to have not to have that help. We are, I think, also hard wired not to notice what Ricardo didn't call 'the law of comparative disadvantage' when it applies to people we shall never meet. Despair awaits those who think too hard about it if you were to reflect hard and long on what is available in your local Tesco, and how it is for Sudanese refugees in Darfur.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I wish your son well but I never understand why people do degrees in journalism. You can learn the skills of the trade in a few weeks. And on the job
And most of it is raw talent. A nose for a story and the ability to tell it. I would never advise anyone to “study” journalism
My best mate shunned Sixth Form in favour of weekdays in the Magistrate Courts, week nights and ends watching non-league football, and second and third tier RL, and attempting to receive payment for anything that he saw worthy of reporting. He ended up commentating on the World Cup.
Yes indeed. One of the glories (I’m serious) of British journalism is that it’s open to raw talent and dogged persistence. You DON’T need a degree and you DON’T need “connections”
Go out and find a cool story. Write it really well. An editor will publish it, if it is good. That’s it. Then you’re up and running
Do it enough times and you will become a regular relied-on freelancer or you will be offered a staff job
So genuine question - is this your experience or that of lots of journalists? I am always wary of learning the secrets of success from successful people as they are often highly specific.
"I became successful because everyday I washed in dog urine and drank cold coffee at 3.00 am" "I became successful because I only had sex on tuesdays" "I became successful because I didn't go to any lectures and just took coke for three years"
I'm trying to think how I'd handle the situation of a cherished old friend who has fallen into the wrong company and gone bad.
Would I keep faith, text, write, pick up the phone, still talk, on account of what we had, hoping they'd see sense and we could have it again? I like to think I would. But there'd come a time when if nothing changed I'd have to write them off.
With America that crux point is the midterms. I'm giving it up to then. That is the last chance saloon for our relationship. If they value it at all, they know what they need to do when they go to the polls. Hand President Donald J Trump his ass on a plate.
The main problem with the latter is that Trump, or rather the powers behind the throne (Trump is just too incompetent to do this), rig the elections such that Republican/Trump voters are kept enfranchised and other voters are disenfranchised. Or even, that everyone is enfranchised but wouldn't you know it, Trump is given a 10 million vote head start by the click of a button on the voting machines.
I remain greatly unconvinced the election and results in 2026 will reflect the true feelings of the people in the United States.
I agree a GOP-rigged election is a risk. However what I think and hope (emphasis on the latter) is the weight of sentiment against Trump by then will be sufficient to sweep over the obstacles.
Sadly a lot of people in the US are quite happy with the way things are going.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
Wilfred Frost has a PPE degree from Oxford, he just chose media rather than being an MP or a banker (his grandfather was also the 17th Duke of Norfolk so he has blue blood as well as being media royalty).
Fred Dimbleby edited Cherwell, the Oxford University student newspaper
WTAF!
In a funny way, this ties into our discussions about the Norman Conquest. The more aristocratic Norman ancestry you have, the better you will do in life, in general.
Just ask Danny Dyer and Frank Gardiner!
WRT Wilfred Frost, you'd have to be quite inept, not to succeed in life, if your father is David Frost, and your grandfather is the Duke of Norfolk.
HYUFD's point related to desert. If one is the son of David Frost and grandson of the Duke of Norfolk one deserves to be the Sky News Breakfast anchor (irrespective of ability).
Is Wilfred's catchphrase " hello, good morning and (checks notes) welcome".
Are you Sahara about your first sentence?
I made a bit of a pudding of myself. Can I blame autocorrect?
"It's being called a "one-in-one" out deal, although the numbers will be greater than that."
Yes, Chris. That's what one-in-one-out means. Christ.
Beth Speech-Impediment was on Sky and explained the potential deal with some unexpected clarity. She said the deal should be good for Starmer, but his critics will misrepresent the "one in one out" condition.
"It's being called a "one-in-one" out deal, although the numbers will be greater than that."
Yes, Chris. That's what one-in-one-out means. Christ.
The ratio won't be one to one though.
What's the bet that the numbers travelling from France to the UK vastly exceed those doing the reverse. I'd say its pretty much certain.
Like Rwanda I expect this to get caught up in lawyers, the ECHR, and practicalities
I think that our (and other European governments') approach to asylum law has to be Alexandrine. Cut through the thicket of existing laws, and rewrite them.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
Yes, he went to Cardiff not Oxford when graduates of the latter like Dimbleby Jr and Cambridge dominate national news media, nothing to do with his parentage otherwise
No. You know nothing!
ALL those with media ambitions like Susannah Reid, Emma Barnett , Jason Mohammed and many, many more do their post graduate degree at Cardiff School of Journalism. Perhaps you don't need to attend if your dad interviewed Richard Nixon.
Susannah Reid presents lifestyle and morning programmes and Emma Barnett Woman's Hour and Jason Mohammed Final Score none are allowed to present the news.
Huw Edwards was ironically one of the few non Oxbridge types to anchor the BBC news and he had a Cardiff degree
Barnett has been promoted to R4’s Today programme which as far as the BBC is concerned is very much the news, though I have ma doots. Barnett’s chortling and gurgling certainly contributes to those doubts.
BREAKING: SBU Colonel Ivan Voronych shot dead in Kyiv
Former Ukrainian MP Ihor Mosiychuk claims that the man seen in the video is indeed Colonel Ivan Voronych of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), who served as a senior operative in the 1st Department of the 16th Directorate of the Special Operations Center.
According to media reports, an unknown assailant fired five shots at Voronych using a pistol with a suppressor and fled the scene. The 50-year-old man died on the spot.
"It's being called a "one-in-one" out deal, although the numbers will be greater than that."
Yes, Chris. That's what one-in-one-out means. Christ.
Beth Speech-Impediment was on Sky and explained the potential deal with some unexpected clarity. She said the deal should be good for Starmer, but his critics will misrepresent the "one in one out" condition.
Yes, they'll be a lot of that.
I hope it works.
Although, to expand it to unlimited returns - and therefore to Stop The Boats (and hence the one-in-one-out), the French will insist we agree a long term deal to take some migrants. Otherwise we'll end up with 0 asylum seekers, and France is never going to allow that.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I wish your son well but I never understand why people do degrees in journalism. You can learn the skills of the trade in a few weeks. And on the job
And most of it is raw talent. A nose for a story and the ability to tell it. I would never advise anyone to “study” journalism
My best mate shunned Sixth Form in favour of weekdays in the Magistrate Courts, week nights and ends watching non-league football, and second and third tier RL, and attempting to receive payment for anything that he saw worthy of reporting. He ended up commentating on the World Cup.
I get the impression a lot of the newer Racing Post writers have journalism degrees. One big problem with journalism as a career is the demise of local papers and increasingly chain publishers paying a pittance for clickbait articles. ETA that's two.
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I wish your son well but I never understand why people do degrees in journalism. You can learn the skills of the trade in a few weeks. And on the job
And most of it is raw talent. A nose for a story and the ability to tell it. I would never advise anyone to “study” journalism
My best mate shunned Sixth Form in favour of weekdays in the Magistrate Courts, week nights and ends watching non-league football, and second and third tier RL, and attempting to receive payment for anything that he saw worthy of reporting. He ended up commentating on the World Cup.
I get the impression a lot of the newer Racing Post writers have journalism degrees. One big problem with journalism as a career is the demise of local papers and increasingly chain publishers paying a pittance for clickbait articles. ETA that's two.
The clickbait articles are going to be all LLM-generated, aren't they?
I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?
My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.
It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.
I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.
Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.
I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.
It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.
Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?
I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.
FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.
I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.
Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.
It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.
I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.
My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.
I wish your son well but I never understand why people do degrees in journalism. You can learn the skills of the trade in a few weeks. And on the job
And most of it is raw talent. A nose for a story and the ability to tell it. I would never advise anyone to “study” journalism
My best mate shunned Sixth Form in favour of weekdays in the Magistrate Courts, week nights and ends watching non-league football, and second and third tier RL, and attempting to receive payment for anything that he saw worthy of reporting. He ended up commentating on the World Cup.
Yes indeed. One of the glories (I’m serious) of British journalism is that it’s open to raw talent and dogged persistence. You DON’T need a degree and you DON’T need “connections”
Go out and find a cool story. Write it really well. An editor will publish it, if it is good. That’s it. Then you’re up and running
Do it enough times and you will become a regular relied-on freelancer or you will be offered a staff job
So genuine question - is this your experience or that of lots of journalists? I am always wary of learning the secrets of success from successful people as they are often highly specific.
"I became successful because everyday I washed in dog urine and drank cold coffee at 3.00 am" "I became successful because I only had sex on tuesdays" "I became successful because I didn't go to any lectures and just took coke for three years"
My experience of course. But also the experience of my peers. I don’t know any that did “a journalism degree”. Indeed I have anti-experience - the few people I know who did journalism degrees (including my own brother) all failed
Now it may have changed a lot since I was working my way up. But I do meet quite a lot of young journalists and I can’t recall any that did a journo degree
For some it is connections (regrettably) for others it’s what I did - persistent nagging and ideas-sending until an editor says Go on then
"It's being called a "one-in-one" out deal, although the numbers will be greater than that."
Yes, Chris. That's what one-in-one-out means. Christ.
Beth Speech-Impediment was on Sky and explained the potential deal with some unexpected clarity. She said the deal should be good for Starmer, but his critics will misrepresent the "one in one out" condition.
Yes, they'll be a lot of that.
I hope it works.
Although, to expand it to unlimited returns - and therefore to Stop The Boats (and hence the one-in-one-out), the French will insist we agree a long term deal to take some migrants. Otherwise we'll end up with 0 asylum seekers, and France is never going to allow that.
Well, no, we will have all the asylum seekers that do not cross by boat (60 to 70,000) plus any returned boat crossers one for one with French processed asylees
"It's being called a "one-in-one" out deal, although the numbers will be greater than that."
Yes, Chris. That's what one-in-one-out means. Christ.
I suppose Chris was making the point that this deal is not just to return one single individual from a small boat in return for one single individual from mainland France and then end of story.
Kind of obvious, I know, but with the Telegraph/Mail/Sun/Express - the 'unipaper', should we call that? - on the prowl you can't be too careful.
Comments
Even in a perfect world, with something like delivery it's not possible to create exactly equal jobs, and even if the now computer aided process has evened up the assumed workload, there will always be differences known to the staff based on which routes are hilly, have houses with steps, or other hidden complexities, and in the old days, posties also knew which routes were better for Xmas gifts and tips.
So it's probable that if you have a diligent, long-serving postie on your round, there is something about it that makes it relatively attractive to deliver. Feel sorry for the people on the rounds always covered by the newbies...
Or, in those countries that split farms and other assets equally between sons, they had fewer people to go off and do new stuff away from farming, and farms got smaller and smaller until they all starved, or emigrated.
ALL those with media ambitions like Susannah Reid, Emma Barnett , Jason Mohammed and many, many more do their post graduate degree at Cardiff School of Journalism. Perhaps you don't need to attend if your dad interviewed Richard Nixon.
Must admit I didn't get a lot of tips, but it taught a middle-class youth a lot about work.
Huw Edwards was ironically one of the few non Oxbridge types to anchor the BBC news and he had a Cardiff degree
Emma Barnett presents BBC News flagship Today, and she's f*****' useless.
You can buy cheaper stuff online and thus pay less VAT.
It's not their Mickey Mouse first degree from Cardiff like mine in politics. It is a prestigious post graduate qualification from a World renowned school of journalism. It compares to whatever you did at Aber, only much, much more prestigious.
Although after Huw you might have a point.
[*Er, just some old style Transformer toys for my nephew
As you say, it's very easy to point at failures so far. That's because there have been so many of them and they are so obviously failures. Maybe everything Trump is doing will somehow come to fruition in a few months and utopia will be achieved. But it doesn't seem very likely judging by events so far!
As for Labour, I didn't vote for them a year ago and I'm not intending to vote for them in the future. That said, they're not rounding up UK citizens and sending them to concentration camps, so I think Starmer is doing a better job than Trump.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/09/im-just-ugly-not-trans-train-driver-told-colleagues/ (£££)
An increase in women being harassed because they do not look ‘feminine’ enough is collateral damage for the successful anti-trans lobby.
Hes on a boat today being all Admiral Sinkem
As has been said by other posters you book online and it is collected
Amazon is an online company who deliver to your door
Are you saying they are not an online business
I really do wonder about your thought processes
Lib'em's?
I remain greatly unconvinced the election and results in 2026 will reflect the true feelings of the people in the United States.
To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the Healer's oath, but to nobody else.
And most of it is raw talent. A nose for a story and the ability to tell it. I would never advise anyone to “study” journalism
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ckg6x4g6gg6t
But if the boats actually stop, it will.
Instead it's going to be '17 in, one-out, one-in'.
They have the President of the United States of America as their poodle. Why not show that off from time to time.
TACO won't do anything to Russia.
I think the full stop tradition should go, but the apostrophe tradition has uses in comprehending. (Fo'c's'le is an extreme example).
This from the BBC
Like the previous government's Rwanda scheme, this proposed returns deal is likely to encounter several legal, political and practical obstacles.
Any attempt to return people who have claimed asylum in the UK to France will trigger a challenge in the courts. Is it legal under the UN Refugee Convention?
The previous government attempted to get around that issue with its Nationality and Borders Act, declaring it unlawful for a migrant to claim asylum in the UK if they had travelled through a safe third country such as France. Might Labour keep that controversial element of the Conservative legislation?
The European Union will also have concerns about a scheme which some member states fear will see returnees shifted to the first EU country they entered under the so-called Dublin Convention.
As well as legal challenge to returning people, there will be practical difficulties in deciding which migrants in France should be sent to the UK, as part of the ‘one-in one-out’ deal. Who will make those decisions and on what basis? And will it work?
The pilot scheme being proposed is probably not at a large enough scale to act as a serious deterrent, but officials believe the arrangement has the potential to be powerful weapon in the battle to stop the boats.
- I've made a statement
- I won't back down on it
- I will contort as necessary to support facts 1 and 2
An important skill in life* is admitting when you're wrong. I may be wrong about this*but, to be fair, maybe not for those with ambitions of a political career - I don't know whether that applies here
He ended up commentating on the World Cup.
One of my daughters mastered this very early, another by the time she reached her teens, though it stillisn't instinctive,and a third will go on arguing black is white until she is blue in the face.
It shouldn't be hard. But for most humans, it is.
Is Wilfred's catchphrase " hello, good morning and (checks notes) welcome".
"Wimbledon line-calling system leaves spectators in dark
With automated calls often drowned out and human line judges now gone, confusion now follows every close call at SW19" (£)
https://www.thetimes.com/sport/tennis/article/wimbledon-line-calling-system-leaves-spectators-in-dark-khw09pbnw
Go out and find a cool story. Write it really well. An editor will publish it, if it is good. That’s it. Then you’re up and running
Do it enough times and you will become a regular relied-on freelancer or you will be offered a staff job
A gracious apology/acknowledgement that the other person is correct, actually enhances one's standing.
The guy never seems to be offline.
"It's being called a "one-in-one" out deal, although the numbers will be greater than that."
Yes, Chris. That's what one-in-one-out means. Christ.
In logic of course helping, quite properly, daughter of friend X to excel in an Oxbridge interview/Goldman Sachs application both assists the daughter and gives a comparative disadvantage to W, Y and Z who happen not to have not to have that help. We are, I think, also hard wired not to notice what Ricardo didn't call 'the law of comparative disadvantage' when it applies to people we shall never meet. Despair awaits those who think too hard about it if you were to reflect hard and long on what is available in your local Tesco, and how it is for Sudanese refugees in Darfur.
What's the bet that the numbers travelling from France to the UK vastly exceed those doing the reverse. I'd say its pretty much certain.
"I became successful because everyday I washed in dog urine and drank cold coffee at 3.00 am"
"I became successful because I only had sex on tuesdays"
"I became successful because I didn't go to any lectures and just took coke for three years"
BREAKING: SBU Colonel Ivan Voronych shot dead in Kyiv
Former Ukrainian MP Ihor Mosiychuk claims that the man seen in the video is indeed Colonel Ivan Voronych of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), who served as a senior operative in the 1st Department of the 16th Directorate of the Special Operations Center.
According to media reports, an unknown assailant fired five shots at Voronych using a pistol with a suppressor and fled the scene. The 50-year-old man died on the spot.
I hope it works.
Although, to expand it to unlimited returns - and therefore to Stop The Boats (and hence the one-in-one-out), the French will insist we agree a long term deal to take some migrants. Otherwise we'll end up with 0 asylum seekers, and France is never going to allow that.
Now it may have changed a lot since I was working my way up. But I do meet quite a lot of young journalists and I can’t recall any that did a journo degree
For some it is connections (regrettably) for others it’s what I did - persistent nagging and ideas-sending until an editor says Go on then
Coastguard responding to multiple incidents in the channel this morning
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/live/cwynepvnyl2t#LiveReporting
At the same time other opportunities have arisen online…
Kind of obvious, I know, but with the Telegraph/Mail/Sun/Express - the 'unipaper', should we call that? - on the prowl you can't be too careful.