There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
Agreed. Except that things are slightly more complicated because for most people, university has always been more of a finishing school than a trade school anyway. It seems eccentric to warn against philosophy degrees because the professional philosopher pipeline has dried up.
It is the closure of graduate recruitment schemes that is of more concern for the reasons you state. One thing I would mention is we saw the same closures 25 years ago when the dot com bubble burst but within a year or three, things returned to normal.
Surprised by the chat on the last thread suggesting that poor people don't use EVs. In Edinburgh it's primarily people in the lowest income deciles who get around in them.
Yup, same in Manchester and Sheffield, you're much more likely to see a Ford Focus/Kuga EV than a Mercedes EV (of which there are plenty.)
I am sure the same PBers who were complaining about the government subsidising EVs complained vigorously when the Tories did the same.
Ful disclosure, this household has two EVs.
No, even poorer. The buses that trundle around Muirhouse, Pilton, Niddrie are electric. You've also got the tram, and I got rescued at 1am by an electric taxi too.
The fact is we have spent very public little cash on the infrastructure for personal EVs - we can't get one because we live in a flat and the council haven't installed any charging points round here. My partner's work does not have a charging point, despite being NHS.
Oddly, the Highlands are actually really good for them, with most accommodation finding a way to get you charged up and quite a few public chargers available. In the end, everyone in the UK lives in a house, so driveway charging is only a very small hurdle to getting there - just needs some cash.
Even my parents are considering it.
My father who drives is very pro EV, my mother who doesn't drive, didn't want an EV as she worried about range anxiety.
My only problem with EVs are that they are too f*cking quiet, my last speeding points was when I thought I was doing below 50mph in a 50 and when the camera flashed I was doing 72mph, the sound car was making felt I was driving close to 45mph.
Range anxiety is both a Big Thing in the minds of skeptics and not a thing in the minds of people who actually drive modern EVs.
I've got a Model 3 Performance for the weekend for filming. Spanked it round the North East 250 yesterday. Had a little power left in the battery so did a few more launches just before arriving home so that it was down to 1%. But looking at the screen showed there is at least 4kWh in there - and a further 3kWh of hard buffer.
So even if it showed 0% there's still miles left in it. Same as with a fuel car when the gauge shows nothing left.
When I worked for an oil company, we had a green division.
Some might say it was green washing - but the people in it, didn’t take that view. At one point the vast majority of solar cells made in Europe were ours.
Every time we talked to the car manufacturers, they would say “the real, working hydrogen fuel cell cars will be a year or two. As are the electric cars.”
Always the future.
And the government would need to spend trillions on the refuelling network. Of course.
Despite all that has followed, the Tesla supercharger network is still a thing of genius. Certainly compared to the competition.
Hydrogen still gets clung to by EV haters. They are the only people still clinging to it...
The petrochemical industry is quite keen on it too. For obvious reasons.
Looks more like Sir Keir to me, to be honest. Got that sort of vacant glare he specialises in. But that might be interesting so I am probably wrong about that.
Buy a fan. They are cheap, don't use much energy, don't dry the air out, unlike aircon, .
Aircon via air sources heat pumps does not "dry the air out".
I recently bought one of those Ranvoo neck aircon gadgets. It is very effective at cooling the neck and therefore brain and body but like all aircon, it vents hot air, in this case onto my ears.
For £200, I'd not recommend it for that reason. Cheaper would be some sort of frozen tie-like material provided you do not wrap it all the way round and risk strangulation.
ASHPs are only of utility if the hot air is vented outside.
Yes and no. I mean yes, but this is for cooling the person, not the room, so the hot air only needs to be vented an inch or so away. However, in my case, this means warm ears. It is a shame because they are nice gadgets (perhaps a tad heavy). Conceptually, it is like cooling a CPU in a PC or laptop, or a fridge. Sure, heat is only transferred but for some purposes, that is enough.
Surprised by the chat on the last thread suggesting that poor people don't use EVs. In Edinburgh it's primarily people in the lowest income deciles who get around in them.
Yup, same in Manchester and Sheffield, you're much more likely to see a Ford Focus/Kuga EV than a Mercedes EV (of which there are plenty.)
I am sure the same PBers who were complaining about the government subsidising EVs complained vigorously when the Tories did the same.
Ful disclosure, this household has two EVs.
No, even poorer. The buses that trundle around Muirhouse, Pilton, Niddrie are electric. You've also got the tram, and I got rescued at 1am by an electric taxi too.
The fact is we have spent very public little cash on the infrastructure for personal EVs - we can't get one because we live in a flat and the council haven't installed any charging points round here. My partner's work does not have a charging point, despite being NHS.
Oddly, the Highlands are actually really good for them, with most accommodation finding a way to get you charged up and quite a few public chargers available. In the end, everyone in the UK lives in a house, so driveway charging is only a very small hurdle to getting there - just needs some cash.
Even my parents are considering it.
My father who drives is very pro EV, my mother who doesn't drive, didn't want an EV as she worried about range anxiety.
My only problem with EVs are that they are too f*cking quiet, my last speeding points was when I thought I was doing below 50mph in a 50 and when the camera flashed I was doing 72mph, the sound car was making felt I was driving close to 45mph.
Range anxiety is both a Big Thing in the minds of skeptics and not a thing in the minds of people who actually drive modern EVs.
I've got a Model 3 Performance for the weekend for filming. Spanked it round the North East 250 yesterday. Had a little power left in the battery so did a few more launches just before arriving home so that it was down to 1%. But looking at the screen showed there is at least 4kWh in there - and a further 3kWh of hard buffer.
So even if it showed 0% there's still miles left in it. Same as with a fuel car when the gauge shows nothing left.
Not everyone can afford a Tesla. If you get an electric Corsa, you get 180 miles and in the real world, probably less. If you are in the second hand car market you are even more constrained, as older cars don't go as far.
Unfortunately manufacturers seem more intent on putting in useless bells and whistles rather than a bigger battery. I have been looking at second hand EVs and often it goes basic model - fancy model - fancy model with longer range, I want basic model with longer range.
You should look at something like a 3 year old eniro. Mine is 5 years old and still has the same range as new, 270 miles in the summer, 240 in the winter and is both the quickest and smoothest car that I have owned.
£15000 would get you a good one, still with 4 years manufacturer's warranty.
Thanks. I have been looking at cars around that price. I think my bottom line is that I want it to do at least 200 miles on a "tank" as I normally stop for a break after 3 hours anyway.
Jaguar iPaces are available extremely cheaply but I presume that means they are a mare to run. And I don't need or want anything that big.
Have been tempted by the MG4. However the biggest block is that since retiring I use the car only 2-3 times a week for short runs and I now begrudge the capital expenditure. Having a senior rail card means I can travel by train cheaply too. However my Megane is 16 years old and feels increasingly clunky, also if I got an EV I am sure I would use it for some trips away.
When a Jaguar goes wrong any repair is expensive.
When an EV goes wrong a lot of the repairs could be expensive.
The combination of a Jaguar and an EV especially their first model would be something anyone sane would avoid,.
Looks more like Sir Keir to me, to be honest. Got that sort of vacant glare he specialises in. But that might be interesting so I am probably wrong about that.
“Starmer often seems like a headmaster in assembly, whereas Nigel Farage comes across as a stand-up comedian.”
From “coercion” to “rigidity,” linguistics expert Dr Geoff Lindsey compares the speech of the “diametric opposites,” Sir Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRqh7_ThUVM
Buy a fan. They are cheap, don't use much energy, don't dry the air out, unlike aircon, .
Aircon via air sources heat pumps does not "dry the air out".
I recently bought one of those Ranvoo neck aircon gadgets. It is very effective at cooling the neck and therefore brain and body but like all aircon, it vents hot air, in this case onto my ears.
For £200, I'd not recommend it for that reason. Cheaper would be some sort of frozen tie-like material provided you do not wrap it all the way round and risk strangulation.
ASHPs are only of utility if the hot air is vented outside.
Yes and no. I mean yes, but this is for cooling the person, not the room, so the hot air only needs to be vented an inch or so away. However, in my case, this means warm ears. It is a shame because they are nice gadgets (perhaps a tad heavy). Conceptually, it is like cooling a CPU in a PC or laptop, or a fridge. Sure, heat is only transferred but for some purposes, that is enough.
It's on days like this that I ponder the merits of aircon.
I've got aircon, I've got Dyson bladeless fans*, it's the bit when I have to go out that's the problem. Yesterday when I left the cinema, the few hundred metres I walked to the car I felt I was being punched by the heat.
The car had been parked out in the heat for four hours, which reminds me I need to write a letter of complaint to Mercedes about their heat resistant steering wheels.
Today I shall be staying at home watching the cricket and Preston v Liverpool.
*Bought at really cheap prices from a website called Only Fans (google it).
*You said it was a Dyson. Are you sure it wasn't a Bush brand unit?
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
Trump is getting absolutely hammered by his supporters 𝙤𝙣 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖 𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙚 for his post last night urging them to ”not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
I think I've been saying for years get a degree apprenticeship or don't bother with uni.
And there is definitely a recession in a number of industries - but the job cuts are just dripping slowly out at the moment...
Looks more like Sir Keir to me, to be honest. Got that sort of vacant glare he specialises in. But that might be interesting so I am probably wrong about that.
“Starmer often seems like a headmaster in assembly, whereas Nigel Farage comes across as a stand-up comedian.”
From “coercion” to “rigidity,” linguistics expert Dr Geoff Lindsey compares the speech of the “diametric opposites,” Sir Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRqh7_ThUVM
Our national array of comedy acts will have to play second fiddle to Trump in the upcoming week.
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
We went to London yesterday; an early start as Mrs J had a run in the Olympic Park starting at 09.30. After that, we went down to my old haunting grounds of Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs.
A few notes: there was not much litter in the areas we went. We waited a maximum of three minutes for every train, bar the first one, which we arrived early for. The Lizzie line is a really useful route wrt connections. London was packed but happy in the sun. We broke the cardinal rule and chatted to strangers on the tube.
Most of all, despite what some on here claim, London was wonderful.
(Me and my son also went up the Cutty Sark's rigging, which you can now climb. It was fairly expensive, but great fun and well worth doing for the views and experience.)
Glad it was a enjoyable. How long did you get up there?
They seem to be trying to recruit members for the Greenwich Museums :
"Membership: Single Membership £65, Joint Membership £85, Family Membership (1+4 sprogs) £75, (2+4 sprogs) £95". +£10 for Credit / Debit card.
I didn't ask how much it cost; our son wanted to go, and Mrs j was knackered after the run. So I was 'volunteered'...
As it was busy, we actually spent over half an hour getting up and down, with plenty of time waiting around on the platforms as they have a strict order of when people go up; they have to wait for someone to come down from the yardarm before they send someone else up. They were impressed when I said that I'd actually climbed rigging on a tall ship *at sea*. When they asked what the difference was, I said that here everything was stationary and dry. At sea, everything was swaying and the harness, rigging and everything you touched was either damp or wet. And often smelling of sick...
I wonder how many people drive an EV as a company car, that would have otherwise chosen an ICE car? Of those who now have an EV, would they now keep choosing EVs or revert to an ICE vehicle? I don’t know of any statistics, but if there are any, someone on here will surely be able to point me in the right direction.
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
Perhaps the result of AI is that we lose our intelligence.
The owners of paper books will be king - they're the only people that can be even close to certain about facts.
I'm currently (and slowly) slinging out my books. Even the recycling centre has given up on the idea of saving them for reuse and resale and now just directs people to the cardboard skip.
But there is an interesting finding that AI makes programmers faster.
Looks more like Sir Keir to me, to be honest. Got that sort of vacant glare he specialises in. But that might be interesting so I am probably wrong about that.
“Starmer often seems like a headmaster in assembly, whereas Nigel Farage comes across as a stand-up comedian.”
From “coercion” to “rigidity,” linguistics expert Dr Geoff Lindsey compares the speech of the “diametric opposites,” Sir Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRqh7_ThUVM
Our national array of comedy acts will have to play second fiddle to Trump in the upcoming week.
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
Because of reasons I spent a good deal of yesterday in one of our ancient cathedrals. I can report that its 900 year old 12th century air conditioning system was doing well.
I wonder how many people drive an EV as a company car, that would have otherwise chosen an ICE car? Of those who now have an EV, would they now keep choosing EVs or revert to an ICE vehicle? I don’t know of any statistics, but if there are any, someone on here will surely be able to point me in the right direction.
I bought a 2 year old Mercedes amg B class petrol and it is fantastic
All the gizmos in the world and amazing acceleration
I have also driven a Mercedes ev which was fantastic but more than twice the cost of my wee car
I think any subsidy for an ev should be directed at the cheapest models, and not a hand out to expensive ones
Ev's account for just 4.6% of the vehicles on the road, and whilst many would no doubt like one, they are generally too expensive not only to buy but repair, and their second hand values are poor
The wider question should be where on earth does the treasury replace the fuel duty presently received and when will the power be available to service these cars
There is a problem that when criticising the subsidises to ev owners, you immediately come under fire from their supporters when these are not anti ev questions, but practical and fair ones
You shouldn’t need a driveway to own an electric car.
My Plan for Change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements.
That’s cheaper, at home charging – putting money back in the pockets of working people.
And already Westminister council have said - we don't do that as the liability issues are far to complex and haven't been solved..
The people a few doors down have a small electric car. They often park it on the pavement, leaving a narrow gap between their wall and the car to get past. Except the cable droops down from the charging point. At night, you can see the black car. You cannot easily see the *black* cable on the ground or in the air.
A simple improvement would be to make the cables a more visible and/or reflective colour, or perhaps even have low-energy LEDs, like some dog leashes?
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
Perhaps the result of AI is that we lose our intelligence.
The owners of paper books will be king - they're the only people that can be even close to certain about facts.
I'm currently (and slowly) slinging out my books. Even the recycling centre has given up on the idea of saving them for reuse and resale and now just directs people to the cardboard skip.
But there is an interesting finding that AI makes programmers faster.
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
Perhaps the result of AI is that we lose our intelligence.
The owners of paper books will be king - they're the only people that can be even close to certain about facts.
I'm currently (and slowly) slinging out my books. Even the recycling centre has given up on the idea of saving them for reuse and resale and now just directs people to the cardboard skip.
But there is an interesting finding that AI makes programmers faster.
My car story of the day. On Wednesday and Thursday me car intruder alarm went off late in the evening. Investigated but could find no reason. Yesterday went to the Toyota dealer for their advice. Was told it was a fairly common problem usually caused by hanging objects moving in the circulating air. I had no such objects. The final conclusion was that it was an insect trapped in the car.
Surprised by the chat on the last thread suggesting that poor people don't use EVs. In Edinburgh it's primarily people in the lowest income deciles who get around in them.
Yup, same in Manchester and Sheffield, you're much more likely to see a Ford Focus/Kuga EV than a Mercedes EV (of which there are plenty.)
I am sure the same PBers who were complaining about the government subsidising EVs complained vigorously when the Tories did the same.
Ful disclosure, this household has two EVs.
No, even poorer. The buses that trundle around Muirhouse, Pilton, Niddrie are electric. You've also got the tram, and I got rescued at 1am by an electric taxi too.
The fact is we have spent very public little cash on the infrastructure for personal EVs - we can't get one because we live in a flat and the council haven't installed any charging points round here. My partner's work does not have a charging point, despite being NHS.
Oddly, the Highlands are actually really good for them, with most accommodation finding a way to get you charged up and quite a few public chargers available. In the end, everyone in the UK lives in a house, so driveway charging is only a very small hurdle to getting there - just needs some cash.
Even my parents are considering it.
My father who drives is very pro EV, my mother who doesn't drive, didn't want an EV as she worried about range anxiety.
My only problem with EVs are that they are too f*cking quiet, my last speeding points was when I thought I was doing below 50mph in a 50 and when the camera flashed I was doing 72mph, the sound car was making felt I was driving close to 45mph.
Range anxiety is both a Big Thing in the minds of skeptics and not a thing in the minds of people who actually drive modern EVs.
I've got a Model 3 Performance for the weekend for filming. Spanked it round the North East 250 yesterday. Had a little power left in the battery so did a few more launches just before arriving home so that it was down to 1%. But looking at the screen showed there is at least 4kWh in there - and a further 3kWh of hard buffer.
So even if it showed 0% there's still miles left in it. Same as with a fuel car when the gauge shows nothing left.
Not everyone can afford a Tesla. If you get an electric Corsa, you get 180 miles and in the real world, probably less. If you are in the second hand car market you are even more constrained, as older cars don't go as far.
Unfortunately manufacturers seem more intent on putting in useless bells and whistles rather than a bigger battery. I have been looking at second hand EVs and often it goes basic model - fancy model - fancy model with longer range, I want basic model with longer range.
Tesla found, and I believe that every other manufacturer has found, that the lower range, cheaper options don’t sell well. To the point that, with several cars, they simply stopped selling them. Not enough volume to justify the option.
I wonder how many people drive an EV as a company car, that would have otherwise chosen an ICE car? Of those who now have an EV, would they now keep choosing EVs or revert to an ICE vehicle? I don’t know of any statistics, but if there are any, someone on here will surely be able to point me in the right direction.
I bought a 2 year old Mercedes amg B class petrol and it is fantastic
All the gizmos in the world and amazing acceleration
I have also driven a Mercedes ev which was fantastic but more than twice the cost of my wee car
I think any subsidy for an ev should be directed at the cheapest models, and not a hand out to expensive ones
Ev's account for just 4.6% of the vehicles on the road, and whilst many would no doubt like one, they are generally too expensive not only to buy but repair, and their second hand values are poor
The wider question should be where on earth does the treasury replace the fuel duty presently received and when will the power be available to service these cars
There is a problem that when criticising the subsidises to ev owners, you immediately come under fire from their supporters when these are not anti ev questions, but practical and fair ones
Yes; EV subsidies are subsidies for the rich; who then look down their noses at us plebs for destroying the planet.
Looks more like Sir Keir to me, to be honest. Got that sort of vacant glare he specialises in. But that might be interesting so I am probably wrong about that.
“Starmer often seems like a headmaster in assembly, whereas Nigel Farage comes across as a stand-up comedian.”
From “coercion” to “rigidity,” linguistics expert Dr Geoff Lindsey compares the speech of the “diametric opposites,” Sir Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRqh7_ThUVM
Our national array of comedy acts will have to play second fiddle to Trump in the upcoming week.
There is a podcast about how the Advert for Dominoes stuffed crust pizza with Donald and Ivana Trump basically saved both Domino’s and Trump.
Stuffed crust was failing and some ad people came up with an idea for an ad with The Trumps who were going through a very public divorce at the time and the hook was about doing things differently (eating the crust first) and the pay off at the end is they both go for the last piece and he tells her she only gets 50% and everyone laughed.
Anyway, Trump was on his uppers at the time and nobody was eating stuffed crust so Dominoes was struggling and the $1m they paid him (was in his bankruptcy stage) and the profile supercharged him and rescued Dominos from a v expensive failure.
So thanks Domino’s, not just grim pizzas but saved Trump.
(it is also the lead article in the print version, for those of you who skin read a 'paper')
It's not a pleasant read, I've posted on here many times if the UK becomes unwelcome for Jews then eventually it will become unwelcome for other minorities.
One thing that has been bubbling away, and I'm not sure what the answer is, I suspect it is complex.
One thing that (rightly) is said that you cannot hold Jews responsible for the actions of the state of Israel, but in that photo in the Telegraph article (and elsewhere) you see Jewish people using the Israeli flag at antisemitism rallies which I think clouds the issue.
I think Edward Leigh (or somebody else) who is a longstanding Friend of Israel has said accusations of antisemitism are thrown when people rightly condemn the genocide in Gaza.
It's complicated, as you say, and ugly.
Leigh is right that the Israeli government has, I think deliberately, blurred the line between criticising their actions and antisemitism.
But equally, antisemites have co-opted opposition to Israeli actions for their own purposes.
True but all politicians manipulate language - there was a particularly disgraceful example this morning where a Cabinet Minister defines working people as people on modest incomes, obviously to allow the government room to steal more money from groups it doesn't like,without breaking their pledge not to rise taxes on "working people".
You also see it with Palestinians calling what's happening in Gaza "genocide" rather than "ethnic cleansing", which is less emotive but fits much better.
And so on.
Of course when you call them out on this you look pedantic, or even, God forbid, lawyerly. And it needs effort, which is why lazy journalists never bother.
Ethnic cleansing is a form of genocide though. Denying it is like the people saying that the Russians aren't carrying out Ukrainian genocide, 'cos there aren't any death camps.
Ethnic cleansing as a warcrime, was extensively studied and legislated against in the wake of the Balkan wars of the 90s, where all sides created “facts on the ground”.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
Surprised by the chat on the last thread suggesting that poor people don't use EVs. In Edinburgh it's primarily people in the lowest income deciles who get around in them.
Yup, same in Manchester and Sheffield, you're much more likely to see a Ford Focus/Kuga EV than a Mercedes EV (of which there are plenty.)
I am sure the same PBers who were complaining about the government subsidising EVs complained vigorously when the Tories did the same.
Ful disclosure, this household has two EVs.
No, even poorer. The buses that trundle around Muirhouse, Pilton, Niddrie are electric. You've also got the tram, and I got rescued at 1am by an electric taxi too.
The fact is we have spent very public little cash on the infrastructure for personal EVs - we can't get one because we live in a flat and the council haven't installed any charging points round here. My partner's work does not have a charging point, despite being NHS.
Oddly, the Highlands are actually really good for them, with most accommodation finding a way to get you charged up and quite a few public chargers available. In the end, everyone in the UK lives in a house, so driveway charging is only a very small hurdle to getting there - just needs some cash.
Even my parents are considering it.
My father who drives is very pro EV, my mother who doesn't drive, didn't want an EV as she worried about range anxiety.
My only problem with EVs are that they are too f*cking quiet, my last speeding points was when I thought I was doing below 50mph in a 50 and when the camera flashed I was doing 72mph, the sound car was making felt I was driving close to 45mph.
Range anxiety is both a Big Thing in the minds of skeptics and not a thing in the minds of people who actually drive modern EVs.
I've got a Model 3 Performance for the weekend for filming. Spanked it round the North East 250 yesterday. Had a little power left in the battery so did a few more launches just before arriving home so that it was down to 1%. But looking at the screen showed there is at least 4kWh in there - and a further 3kWh of hard buffer.
So even if it showed 0% there's still miles left in it. Same as with a fuel car when the gauge shows nothing left.
When I worked for an oil company, we had a green division.
Some might say it was green washing - but the people in it, didn’t take that view. At one point the vast majority of solar cells made in Europe were ours.
Every time we talked to the car manufacturers, they would say “the real, working hydrogen fuel cell cars will be a year or two. As are the electric cars.”
Always the future.
And the government would need to spend trillions on the refuelling network. Of course.
Despite all that has followed, the Tesla supercharger network is still a thing of genius. Certainly compared to the competition.
Not true in China.
This was all predictable - as indeed Musk did - well over a decade ago. The denial by western manufacturers, regularly shows on PB over the years, was off the charts.
The Innovator's Dilemma was published almost three decades ago. It remains one of the best texts in the subject.
Sooner or later, all manufacturing is the tech industry.
Yup. The denialism in western car manufacturing has been epic.
In related news…
It’s a decade since the first orbital rocket first stage landed intact.
It’s 8 years since a landed stage was reused.
We might get a second company reusing first stages next year.
Looks more like Sir Keir to me, to be honest. Got that sort of vacant glare he specialises in. But that might be interesting so I am probably wrong about that.
“Starmer often seems like a headmaster in assembly, whereas Nigel Farage comes across as a stand-up comedian.”
From “coercion” to “rigidity,” linguistics expert Dr Geoff Lindsey compares the speech of the “diametric opposites,” Sir Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRqh7_ThUVM
Our national array of comedy acts will have to play second fiddle to Trump in the upcoming week.
There is a podcast about how the Advert for Dominoes stuffed crust pizza with Donald and Ivana Trump basically saved both Domino’s and Trump.
Stuffed crust was failing and some ad people came up with an idea for an ad with The Trumps who were going through a very public divorce at the time and the hook was about doing things differently (eating the crust first) and the pay off at the end is they both go for the last piece and he tells her she only gets 50% and everyone laughed.
Anyway, Trump was on his uppers at the time and nobody was eating stuffed crust so Dominoes was struggling and the $1m they paid him (was in his bankruptcy stage) and the profile supercharged him and rescued Dominos from a v expensive failure.
So thanks Domino’s, not just grim pizzas but saved Trump.
My car story of the day. On Wednesday and Thursday me car intruder alarm went off late in the evening. Investigated but could find no reason. Yesterday went to the Toyota dealer for their advice. Was told it was a fairly common problem usually caused by hanging objects moving in the circulating air. I had no such objects. The final conclusion was that it was an insect trapped in the car.
My parents have a newish Jeep. It's lovely (though not as good as their larger old one), but they've apparently discovered a quirk; if they both have their keyless entry fobs on them, he can start the car and drive them somewhere. If mum gets out with her card/fob, leaving him inside, then sometimes he cannot drive off, as the car expects her fob, not his. Or summit like that. It's apparently very, very annoying, as he has to go out and find her.
So it sounds like the car unlocks on detecting her fob, but when she leaves the car, it will not accept his. even if he was driving with his fob.
Something that never used to happen with simple mechanical keys...
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
Perhaps the result of AI is that we lose our intelligence.
The owners of paper books will be king - they're the only people that can be even close to certain about facts.
I'm currently (and slowly) slinging out my books. Even the recycling centre has given up on the idea of saving them for reuse and resale and now just directs people to the cardboard skip.
But there is an interesting finding that AI makes programmers faster.
You shouldn’t need a driveway to own an electric car.
My Plan for Change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements.
That’s cheaper, at home charging – putting money back in the pockets of working people.
And already Westminister council have said - we don't do that as the liability issues are far to complex and haven't been solved..
That highlights two issues. The law allowing the stupid to claim compensation for being stupid, instead of being told that only a stupid person would have done something so stupid, go away, and the ambulance chasing lawyer industry that has grown up around them.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
A corollary that needs ramming home to our government with its moral panic about feckless dole bludgers. There just are not enough jobs for the people who want them right now.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
You shouldn’t need a driveway to own an electric car.
My Plan for Change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements.
That’s cheaper, at home charging – putting money back in the pockets of working people.
And already Westminister council have said - we don't do that as the liability issues are far to complex and haven't been solved..
The people a few doors down have a small electric car. They often park it on the pavement, leaving a narrow gap between their wall and the car to get past. Except the cable droops down from the charging point. At night, you can see the black car. You cannot easily see the *black* cable on the ground or in the air.
A simple improvement would be to make the cables a more visible and/or reflective colour, or perhaps even have low-energy LEDs, like some dog leashes?
Caravan charging cables, which run across the grass from the the van to the charging point, are orange. Why not orange for EV cables as well?
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
A corollary that needs ramming home to our government with its moral panic about feckless dole bludgers. There just are not enough jobs for the people who want them right now.
It's a weird tangle we've got ourselves in.
British people are about as rich as we have ever been, there are clearly useful jobs that need doing, but we somehow we don't think we can afford to have them done.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The constituencies will change from Labour or Lib Dem to Reform.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
Out 16 year old grandson has left school and has enrolled in the local FE College for catering and hospitality
He will leave with no student debt and can walk to the college
He is following his dreams, just like a uni student, but it is not fair to mock such ambitions
Indeed I would recommend any young person with practical skills to follow an apprenticeship or FE in building trades, which is where a lot of debt free money and success awaits those choosing this pathway
Surprised by the chat on the last thread suggesting that poor people don't use EVs. In Edinburgh it's primarily people in the lowest income deciles who get around in them.
BEV is going to be the default choice of everyone soon enough, driven by China. They are a large, quickly growing and very important market and they fucking love BEVs. There is no cultural and reactionary attachment to the Otto Cycle such as pertains in the west to hinder their adoption.
The OEMs need a BEV heavy line up to compete in the Chinese market and the Chinese OEMs are starting to dominate in other markets with their own BEV heavy line ups. The direction of travel is one way and it's going to accelerate despite the opinions of gammons who wear their ignorance with the conspicuous hubris of a Pride of Britain awardee.
Lots of Chinese BYD buses in London these days. Single- and double-deckers.
The Boris Buses were designed to be followed on with a full electric version, when batteries got cheaper (which they did). But by then, further orders had been scrapped.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
Nobody in the fish processing industry? Gutting.
It stinks, literally. I can testify to that having worked in a Torry fish house in my school holidays, There’s minimal fish processing in Torry nowadays but there’s still a residual fishy smell about the place. Appropriate given who has adopted it as his lordly title.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
I think I've been saying for years get a degree apprenticeship or don't bother with uni.
And there is definitely a recession in a number of industries - but the job cuts are just dripping slowly out at the moment...
There is still a good case for bright people who want to do subject X at a good university because they love the subject and want to know more. If they become a hermit/shelf stacker they will never pay the loan back, and if they do well they will be no worse off than their vocational fellows and will be a more rounded person.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
Nobody in the fish processing industry? Gutting.
It stinks, literally. I can testify to that having worked in a Torry fish house in my school holidays, There’s minimal fish processing in Torry nowadays but there’s still a residual fishy smell about the place. Appropriate given who has adopted it as his lordly title.
You shouldn’t need a driveway to own an electric car.
My Plan for Change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements.
That’s cheaper, at home charging – putting money back in the pockets of working people.
And already Westminister council have said - we don't do that as the liability issues are far to complex and haven't been solved..
That highlights two issues. The law allowing the stupid to claim compensation for being stupid, instead of being told that only a stupid person would have done something so stupid, go away, and the ambulance chasing lawyer industry that has grown up around them.
tbf cables snaking across the pavement in the dark are dangerous. I found out the hard way.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
Out 16 year old grandson has left school and has enrolled in the local FE College for catering and hospitality
He will leave with no student debt and can walk to the college
He is following his dreams, just like a uni student, but it is not fair to mock such ambitions
Indeed I would recommend any young person with practical skills to follow an apprenticeship or FE in building trades, which is where a lot of debt free money and success awaits those choosing this pathway
Many of the top chefs started in the same way as your grandson. He won’t need a degree to gain three Michelin stars.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
Lol, yes. It's other people's kids who need to make this far-sighted choice. Ours will sacrifice their prospects by insisting on going to uni.
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
Perhaps the result of AI is that we lose our intelligence.
The owners of paper books will be king - they're the only people that can be even close to certain about facts.
I'm currently (and slowly) slinging out my books. Even the recycling centre has given up on the idea of saving them for reuse and resale and now just directs people to the cardboard skip.
But there is an interesting finding that AI makes programmers faster.
You shouldn’t need a driveway to own an electric car.
My Plan for Change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements.
That’s cheaper, at home charging – putting money back in the pockets of working people.
And already Westminister council have said - we don't do that as the liability issues are far to complex and haven't been solved..
That highlights two issues. The law allowing the stupid to claim compensation for being stupid, instead of being told that only a stupid person would have done something so stupid, go away, and the ambulance chasing lawyer industry that has grown up around them.
tbf cables snaking across the pavement in the dark are dangerous. I found out the hard way.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
Out 16 year old grandson has left school and has enrolled in the local FE College for catering and hospitality
He will leave with no student debt and can walk to the college
He is following his dreams, just like a uni student, but it is not fair to mock such ambitions
Indeed I would recommend any young person with practical skills to follow an apprenticeship or FE in building trades, which is where a lot of debt free money and success awaits those choosing this pathway
Many of the top chefs started in the same way as your grandson. He won’t need a degree to gain three Michelin stars.
My cousin attended the same college 50 years ago and became a director of Trust House Forte
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
I think I've been saying for years get a degree apprenticeship or don't bother with uni.
And there is definitely a recession in a number of industries - but the job cuts are just dripping slowly out at the moment...
There is still a good case for bright people who want to do subject X at a good university because they love the subject and want to know more. If they become a hermit/shelf stacker they will never pay the loan back, and if they do well they will be no worse off than their vocational fellows and will be a more rounded person.
Which is why I advocate merging academic subjects, apprenticeships and “blue collar skills”
So you may graduate from Oxbridge with a degree in Poetry & Welding. Or a degree in Welding & Poetry.
Mandate mixing - course are modular already. So every academic degree has some “blue collar skills” and every apprenticeship has some intellectual content.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
Lol, yes. It's other people's kids who need to make this far-sighted choice. Ours will sacrifice their prospects by insisting on going to uni.
But they won’t. Only a few rich kids will go to uni (to get laid and network). Everyone else won’t bother. You don’t learn anything, there are no grad jobs at the end, you rack up debt
You shouldn’t need a driveway to own an electric car.
My Plan for Change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements.
That’s cheaper, at home charging – putting money back in the pockets of working people.
And already Westminister council have said - we don't do that as the liability issues are far to complex and haven't been solved..
That highlights two issues. The law allowing the stupid to claim compensation for being stupid, instead of being told that only a stupid person would have done something so stupid, go away, and the ambulance chasing lawyer industry that has grown up around them.
tbf cables snaking across the pavement in the dark are dangerous. I found out the hard way.
Best answer is probably to put small amounts of ducting under the pavement. Tricky now, because of planning but not intrinsically difficult.
Andrew Hunter-Murray (of QI and Private Eye) has been part of a campaign to simplify and reduce the cost of planning rules on the subject.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
Out 16 year old grandson has left school and has enrolled in the local FE College for catering and hospitality
He will leave with no student debt and can walk to the college
He is following his dreams, just like a uni student, but it is not fair to mock such ambitions
Indeed I would recommend any young person with practical skills to follow an apprenticeship or FE in building trades, which is where a lot of debt free money and success awaits those choosing this pathway
Many of the top chefs started in the same way as your grandson. He won’t need a degree to gain three Michelin stars.
My cousin attended the same college 50 years ago and became a director of Trust House Forte
And in doing the apprenticeship, the young chap (above) will put in thousands of hours of learning. I presume this will include stuff like food safety, kitchen management etc?
So why not call that a degree?
Get rid of the snobbish divide.
Not so very long ago, a degree was awarded, after hanging around a university for a while, on the basis of some chats with the fellows. “Yup, x has absorbed enough knowledge, give him a degree.”
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
A corollary that needs ramming home to our government with its moral panic about feckless dole bludgers. There just are not enough jobs for the people who want them right now.
It's a weird tangle we've got ourselves in.
British people are about as rich as we have ever been, there are clearly useful jobs that need doing, but we somehow we don't think we can afford to have them done.
C'mon boffins, sort it out.
Aren't we rich only in terms of assets? In terms of procuring labour wouldn't this be the poorest we have been, perhaps outside war times, in centuries?
You shouldn’t need a driveway to own an electric car.
My Plan for Change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements.
That’s cheaper, at home charging – putting money back in the pockets of working people.
And already Westminister council have said - we don't do that as the liability issues are far to complex and haven't been solved..
That highlights two issues. The law allowing the stupid to claim compensation for being stupid, instead of being told that only a stupid person would have done something so stupid, go away, and the ambulance chasing lawyer industry that has grown up around them.
tbf cables snaking across the pavement in the dark are dangerous. I found out the hard way.
Best answer is probably to put small amounts of ducting under the pavement. Tricky now, because of planning but not intrinsically difficult.
Andrew Hunter-Murray (of QI and Private Eye) has been part of a campaign to simplify and reduce the cost of planning rules on the subject.
There have already been designs for robust sockets that can be set flush in the edge of pavements.
There are also the growing numbers of lamp post chargers
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
Perhaps the result of AI is that we lose our intelligence.
The owners of paper books will be king - they're the only people that can be even close to certain about facts.
I'm currently (and slowly) slinging out my books. Even the recycling centre has given up on the idea of saving them for reuse and resale and now just directs people to the cardboard skip.
But there is an interesting finding that AI makes programmers faster.
LOL. Scooped by rkrkrk with a different link to the same study.
Got any old linux/unix/C stuff?
Let me know if you have a wishlist. A complete (maybe) set of Stevens, for instance.
For sure, I'm getting into systems programming and find the old stuff v-interesting. Don't want to put you out but I'd love to see what your throwing and maybe save it from the shredder. Anything network, systems programming, kernel stuff, C and advanced C etc etc would work.
Well Done Harry Brook, throwing away another wicket to a completely daft shot like attempting to sweep a pace bowler was just what England need at 87/3.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
I think I've been saying for years get a degree apprenticeship or don't bother with uni.
And there is definitely a recession in a number of industries - but the job cuts are just dripping slowly out at the moment...
There is still a good case for bright people who want to do subject X at a good university because they love the subject and want to know more. If they become a hermit/shelf stacker they will never pay the loan back, and if they do well they will be no worse off than their vocational fellows and will be a more rounded person.
Which is why I advocate merging academic subjects, apprenticeships and “blue collar skills”
So you may graduate from Oxbridge with a degree in Poetry & Welding. Or a degree in Welding & Poetry.
Mandate mixing - course are modular already. So every academic degree has some “blue collar skills” and every apprenticeship has some intellectual content.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
Lol, yes. It's other people's kids who need to make this far-sighted choice. Ours will sacrifice their prospects by insisting on going to uni.
But they won’t. Only a few rich kids will go to uni (to get laid and network). Everyone else won’t bother. You don’t learn anything, there are no grad jobs at the end, you rack up debt
It’s like PB can’t grasp basic economic facts
Your vision for unis is similar to mine for private schools. Either, both or neither could be right. But there's a fair amount of wishful thinking in there from both of us, I think.
I have a 20-something nephew-in-law who studied photography at uni (yes, photography). Let’s call him Todd
He accrued debt and - unsurprisingly - didn’t get a job as a pro tog at the end
Many of his uni peers are still desperately struggling and failing to get into the arts as a job, and working minimum wage in the meantime
Todd decided No, so he retrained as an electrician - and he’s very good - and he’s making £££ a day
Yes, but here is the case for the humanities or liberal arts – why not an electrician who quotes Catullus? You yourself are a travel writer but I'm guessing you did not graduate in joint honours English and Geography. For most graduates over the past hundred years, university never was a trade school so it seems perverse to complain it is not one now.
You shouldn’t need a driveway to own an electric car.
My Plan for Change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements.
That’s cheaper, at home charging – putting money back in the pockets of working people.
And already Westminister council have said - we don't do that as the liability issues are far to complex and haven't been solved..
That highlights two issues. The law allowing the stupid to claim compensation for being stupid, instead of being told that only a stupid person would have done something so stupid, go away, and the ambulance chasing lawyer industry that has grown up around them.
tbf cables snaking across the pavement in the dark are dangerous. I found out the hard way.
Best answer is probably to put small amounts of ducting under the pavement. Tricky now, because of planning but not intrinsically difficult.
Andrew Hunter-Murray (of QI and Private Eye) has been part of a campaign to simplify and reduce the cost of planning rules on the subject.
There have already been designs for robust sockets that can be set flush in the edge of pavements.
There are also the growing numbers of lamp post chargers
Lamp post chargers don’t work around here. There is no dedicated space next to them, so there’s almost always a (non EV) car parked in front blocking access. Plus they’re expensive.
Ducting under pavements is the answer. At the moment I improvise with one of those hi viz cable covers like you get at events, which seems to work well.
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
Perhaps the result of AI is that we lose our intelligence.
The owners of paper books will be king - they're the only people that can be even close to certain about facts.
I'm currently (and slowly) slinging out my books. Even the recycling centre has given up on the idea of saving them for reuse and resale and now just directs people to the cardboard skip.
But there is an interesting finding that AI makes programmers faster.
LOL. Scooped by rkrkrk with a different link to the same study.
Got any old linux/unix/C stuff?
Let me know if you have a wishlist. A complete (maybe) set of Stevens, for instance.
For sure, I'm getting into systems programming and find the old stuff v-interesting. Don't want to put you out but I'd love to see what your throwing and maybe save it from the shredder. Anything network, systems programming, kernel stuff, C and advanced C etc etc would work.
Where roughly in the country are you? Logistics might be a killer.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
Lol, yes. It's other people's kids who need to make this far-sighted choice. Ours will sacrifice their prospects by insisting on going to uni.
But they won’t. Only a few rich kids will go to uni (to get laid and network). Everyone else won’t bother. You don’t learn anything, there are no grad jobs at the end, you rack up debt
It’s like PB can’t grasp basic economic facts
Your vision for unis is similar to mine for private schools. Either, both or neither could be right. But there's a fair amount of wishful thinking in there from both of us, I think.
No there isn’t. This is because I’m smarter than you.
I actively dislike what I’m predicting. I don’t want universities to die. They are wonderful things - I went to a great uni and it changed my life
The difference is I can EXTRAPOLATE and I don’t go into denial, I can see what’s coming down the line - and it’s the end of the university as we have known it, for 80-90% of people
I hope we can find some replacement that is equally enriching. I still like my idea of the government funding some kind of gap year/national service
You’re paid a small wage to do good works overseas for 6 months, in return the government will give you a small stipend to backpack the other 6 months
That would be enriching for all and produce more rounded 20 year olds
I have a 20-something nephew-in-law who studied photography at uni (yes, photography). Let’s call him Todd
He accrued debt and - unsurprisingly - didn’t get a job as a pro tog at the end
Many of his uni peers are still desperately struggling and failing to get into the arts as a job, and working minimum wage in the meantime
Todd decided No, so he retrained as an electrician - and he’s very good - and he’s making £££ a day
Yes, but here is the case for the humanities or liberal arts – why not an electrician who quotes Catullus? You yourself are a travel writer but I'm guessing you did not graduate in joint honours English and Geography. For most graduates over the past hundred years, university never was a trade school so it seems perverse to complain it is not one now.
Because most people want a job and only about 2 people a year can become new travel writers. Literally
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
So she goes back to Poland, an economy on the up, and the UK government has to eat the £90k plus interest at some point in the future.
Surprised by the chat on the last thread suggesting that poor people don't use EVs. In Edinburgh it's primarily people in the lowest income deciles who get around in them.
Yup, same in Manchester and Sheffield, you're much more likely to see a Ford Focus/Kuga EV than a Mercedes EV (of which there are plenty.)
I am sure the same PBers who were complaining about the government subsidising EVs complained vigorously when the Tories did the same.
Ful disclosure, this household has two EVs.
No, even poorer. The buses that trundle around Muirhouse, Pilton, Niddrie are electric. You've also got the tram, and I got rescued at 1am by an electric taxi too.
The fact is we have spent very public little cash on the infrastructure for personal EVs - we can't get one because we live in a flat and the council haven't installed any charging points round here. My partner's work does not have a charging point, despite being NHS.
Oddly, the Highlands are actually really good for them, with most accommodation finding a way to get you charged up and quite a few public chargers available. In the end, everyone in the UK lives in a house, so driveway charging is only a very small hurdle to getting there - just needs some cash.
Even my parents are considering it.
My father who drives is very pro EV, my mother who doesn't drive, didn't want an EV as she worried about range anxiety.
My only problem with EVs are that they are too f*cking quiet, my last speeding points was when I thought I was doing below 50mph in a 50 and when the camera flashed I was doing 72mph, the sound car was making felt I was driving close to 45mph.
Range anxiety is both a Big Thing in the minds of skeptics and not a thing in the minds of people who actually drive modern EVs.
I've got a Model 3 Performance for the weekend for filming. Spanked it round the North East 250 yesterday. Had a little power left in the battery so did a few more launches just before arriving home so that it was down to 1%. But looking at the screen showed there is at least 4kWh in there - and a further 3kWh of hard buffer.
So even if it showed 0% there's still miles left in it. Same as with a fuel car when the gauge shows nothing left.
Not everyone can afford a Tesla. If you get an electric Corsa, you get 180 miles and in the real world, probably less. If you are in the second hand car market you are even more constrained, as older cars don't go as far.
Unfortunately manufacturers seem more intent on putting in useless bells and whistles rather than a bigger battery. I have been looking at second hand EVs and often it goes basic model - fancy model - fancy model with longer range, I want basic model with longer range.
Tesla found, and I believe that every other manufacturer has found, that the lower range, cheaper options don’t sell well. To the point that, with several cars, they simply stopped selling them. Not enough volume to justify the option.
Simply not true. It's just that western manufacturers haven't managed to produce a cheap EV and make a profit on selling them.
That's a function of battery costs.
China has got there earlier because of massive government subsidies and now over hand their new car market (which us the largest in the world) is plug in vehicles.
Western governments and manufacturers got left behind as they didn't want EVs to cannibalise the profitable legacy ICE business. Now imports will do that.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
I think I've been saying for years get a degree apprenticeship or don't bother with uni.
And there is definitely a recession in a number of industries - but the job cuts are just dripping slowly out at the moment...
There is still a good case for bright people who want to do subject X at a good university because they love the subject and want to know more. If they become a hermit/shelf stacker they will never pay the loan back, and if they do well they will be no worse off than their vocational fellows and will be a more rounded person.
Which is why I advocate merging academic subjects, apprenticeships and “blue collar skills”
So you may graduate from Oxbridge with a degree in Poetry & Welding. Or a degree in Welding & Poetry.
Mandate mixing - course are modular already. So every academic degree has some “blue collar skills” and every apprenticeship has some intellectual content.
That's quite a strong vision imo. It's similar to the one that underlies general access comprehensive schools. Break the barriers. Replace silos of class and types of learning with breadth and inclusivity.
I have a 20-something nephew-in-law who studied photography at uni (yes, photography). Let’s call him Todd
He accrued debt and - unsurprisingly - didn’t get a job as a pro tog at the end
Many of his uni peers are still desperately struggling and failing to get into the arts as a job, and working minimum wage in the meantime
Todd decided No, so he retrained as an electrician - and he’s very good - and he’s making £££ a day
Yes, but here is the case for the humanities or liberal arts – why not an electrician who quotes Catullus? You yourself are a travel writer but I'm guessing you did not graduate in joint honours English and Geography. For most graduates over the past hundred years, university never was a trade school so it seems perverse to complain it is not one now.
Other factors have changed over the last hundred years.
For example graduate debt levels and the proportion of each age group going to university.
10% going to university and graduating with no debt is very different to 50% going to university and graduating with £50k debt.
You might add housing costs for graduates as well - what proportion of graduates were home owners by the time they were 25 a generation or two ago compared with now ?
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
It’s extraordinary how little this is discussed
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
The only guaranteed sign of the impending academogeddon will be when PBers proudly boast of their sprogs’ plumbing apprenticeships and thriving careers in the fish processing industry. So far, so no show.
Lol, yes. It's other people's kids who need to make this far-sighted choice. Ours will sacrifice their prospects by insisting on going to uni.
But they won’t. Only a few rich kids will go to uni (to get laid and network). Everyone else won’t bother. You don’t learn anything, there are no grad jobs at the end, you rack up debt
It’s like PB can’t grasp basic economic facts
Your vision for unis is similar to mine for private schools. Either, both or neither could be right. But there's a fair amount of wishful thinking in there from both of us, I think.
No there isn’t. This is because I’m smarter than you.
I actively dislike what I’m predicting. I don’t want universities to die. They are wonderful things - I went to a great uni and it changed my life
The difference is I can EXTRAPOLATE and I don’t go into denial, I can see what’s coming down the line - and it’s the end of the university as we have known it, for 80-90% of people
I hope we can find some replacement that is equally enriching. I still like my idea of the government funding some kind of gap year/national service
You’re paid a small wage to do good works overseas for 6 months, in return the government will give you a small stipend to backpack the other 6 months
That would be enriching for all and produce more rounded 20 year olds
Please resubmit without the risible 1st para and I will read and revert.
There’s a bigger story in the Guardian. The total collapse of entry level graduate jobs. It’s mayhem out there
Universities are doomed. We need to tell our kids to go elsewhere, learn a trade, don’t take on all that debt
Yup, I flashed up the warning signs on here about a year ago and got told I was being ridiculous. I said it again a few months ago that kids today would be better off learning something practical rather than something behind a desk. Again the usual suspects told me I was being alarmist and that "junior lawyers" would still earn more than anyone who did a trade, ignoring the fact that there's only about 300 spots per year for in magic circle graduate schemes.
The talent pipeline in the UK has completely collapsed at the top of the funnel. There's hardly any junior hires for highly skilled careers and we're increasingly relying on the 2015-2019 graduate cohorts to fill mid and senior roles whole those who graduated since 2020 are struggling to get meaningful junior roles to start their careers.
Once again I'll say it, if you've got kids between 12 and 16 you should advise them to pick something practical or vocational that isn't easy to automate. I have two and one on the way, o genuinely have no idea what the world will look like by the time they're 16 and making those big life choices, I just have to hope everything is settled by then and career choices/pathways are easier.
I think I've been saying for years get a degree apprenticeship or don't bother with uni.
And there is definitely a recession in a number of industries - but the job cuts are just dripping slowly out at the moment...
There is still a good case for bright people who want to do subject X at a good university because they love the subject and want to know more. If they become a hermit/shelf stacker they will never pay the loan back, and if they do well they will be no worse off than their vocational fellows and will be a more rounded person.
Which is why I advocate merging academic subjects, apprenticeships and “blue collar skills”
So you may graduate from Oxbridge with a degree in Poetry & Welding. Or a degree in Welding & Poetry.
Mandate mixing - course are modular already. So every academic degree has some “blue collar skills” and every apprenticeship has some intellectual content.
Don't quite a few art students already learn how to weld ?
Surprised by the chat on the last thread suggesting that poor people don't use EVs. In Edinburgh it's primarily people in the lowest income deciles who get around in them.
Yup, same in Manchester and Sheffield, you're much more likely to see a Ford Focus/Kuga EV than a Mercedes EV (of which there are plenty.)
I am sure the same PBers who were complaining about the government subsidising EVs complained vigorously when the Tories did the same.
Ful disclosure, this household has two EVs.
No, even poorer. The buses that trundle around Muirhouse, Pilton, Niddrie are electric. You've also got the tram, and I got rescued at 1am by an electric taxi too.
The fact is we have spent very public little cash on the infrastructure for personal EVs - we can't get one because we live in a flat and the council haven't installed any charging points round here. My partner's work does not have a charging point, despite being NHS.
Oddly, the Highlands are actually really good for them, with most accommodation finding a way to get you charged up and quite a few public chargers available. In the end, everyone in the UK lives in a house, so driveway charging is only a very small hurdle to getting there - just needs some cash.
Even my parents are considering it.
My father who drives is very pro EV, my mother who doesn't drive, didn't want an EV as she worried about range anxiety.
My only problem with EVs are that they are too f*cking quiet, my last speeding points was when I thought I was doing below 50mph in a 50 and when the camera flashed I was doing 72mph, the sound car was making felt I was driving close to 45mph.
Range anxiety is both a Big Thing in the minds of skeptics and not a thing in the minds of people who actually drive modern EVs.
I've got a Model 3 Performance for the weekend for filming. Spanked it round the North East 250 yesterday. Had a little power left in the battery so did a few more launches just before arriving home so that it was down to 1%. But looking at the screen showed there is at least 4kWh in there - and a further 3kWh of hard buffer.
So even if it showed 0% there's still miles left in it. Same as with a fuel car when the gauge shows nothing left.
When I worked for an oil company, we had a green division.
Some might say it was green washing - but the people in it, didn’t take that view. At one point the vast majority of solar cells made in Europe were ours.
Every time we talked to the car manufacturers, they would say “the real, working hydrogen fuel cell cars will be a year or two. As are the electric cars.”
Always the future.
And the government would need to spend trillions on the refuelling network. Of course.
Despite all that has followed, the Tesla supercharger network is still a thing of genius. Certainly compared to the competition.
Hydrogen still gets clung to by EV haters. They are the only people still clinging to it...
The petrochemical industry is quite keen on it too. For obvious reasons.
Surprised by the chat on the last thread suggesting that poor people don't use EVs. In Edinburgh it's primarily people in the lowest income deciles who get around in them.
Yup, same in Manchester and Sheffield, you're much more likely to see a Ford Focus/Kuga EV than a Mercedes EV (of which there are plenty.)
I am sure the same PBers who were complaining about the government subsidising EVs complained vigorously when the Tories did the same.
Ful disclosure, this household has two EVs.
No, even poorer. The buses that trundle around Muirhouse, Pilton, Niddrie are electric. You've also got the tram, and I got rescued at 1am by an electric taxi too.
The fact is we have spent very public little cash on the infrastructure for personal EVs - we can't get one because we live in a flat and the council haven't installed any charging points round here. My partner's work does not have a charging point, despite being NHS.
Oddly, the Highlands are actually really good for them, with most accommodation finding a way to get you charged up and quite a few public chargers available. In the end, everyone in the UK lives in a house, so driveway charging is only a very small hurdle to getting there - just needs some cash.
Even my parents are considering it.
My father who drives is very pro EV, my mother who doesn't drive, didn't want an EV as she worried about range anxiety.
My only problem with EVs are that they are too f*cking quiet, my last speeding points was when I thought I was doing below 50mph in a 50 and when the camera flashed I was doing 72mph, the sound car was making felt I was driving close to 45mph.
Range anxiety is both a Big Thing in the minds of skeptics and not a thing in the minds of people who actually drive modern EVs.
I've got a Model 3 Performance for the weekend for filming. Spanked it round the North East 250 yesterday. Had a little power left in the battery so did a few more launches just before arriving home so that it was down to 1%. But looking at the screen showed there is at least 4kWh in there - and a further 3kWh of hard buffer.
So even if it showed 0% there's still miles left in it. Same as with a fuel car when the gauge shows nothing left.
Not everyone can afford a Tesla. If you get an electric Corsa, you get 180 miles and in the real world, probably less. If you are in the second hand car market you are even more constrained, as older cars don't go as far.
Unfortunately manufacturers seem more intent on putting in useless bells and whistles rather than a bigger battery. I have been looking at second hand EVs and often it goes basic model - fancy model - fancy model with longer range, I want basic model with longer range.
Tesla found, and I believe that every other manufacturer has found, that the lower range, cheaper options don’t sell well. To the point that, with several cars, they simply stopped selling them. Not enough volume to justify the option.
Simply not true. It's just that western manufacturers haven't managed to produce a cheap EV and make a profit on selling them.
That's a function of battery costs.
China has got there earlier because of massive government subsidies and now over hand their new car market (which us the largest in the world) is plug in vehicles.
Western governments and manufacturers got left behind as they didn't want EVs to cannibalise the profitable legacy ICE business. Now imports will do that.
Err… you’ll find that for every EV, the top selling ones are the ones with most range. People want lots of range.
The failure to keep dropping price is actually a different issue. The initial success of the Tesla S convinced a number of manufacturers that they could succeed in selling £60k cars to everyone.
The problem isn’t that people prefer a £70k version with more range to the £60k basic. Which they do.
What more people want is the £38k long range version of the car that has a basic model for £32k.
I have a 20-something nephew-in-law who studied photography at uni (yes, photography). Let’s call him Todd
He accrued debt and - unsurprisingly - didn’t get a job as a pro tog at the end
Many of his uni peers are still desperately struggling and failing to get into the arts as a job, and working minimum wage in the meantime
Todd decided No, so he retrained as an electrician - and he’s very good - and he’s making £££ a day
Yes, but here is the case for the humanities or liberal arts – why not an electrician who quotes Catullus? You yourself are a travel writer but I'm guessing you did not graduate in joint honours English and Geography. For most graduates over the past hundred years, university never was a trade school so it seems perverse to complain it is not one now.
I had my boiler replaced recently and got chatting to the engineer when he took a break. Usual 'what is it you do?' chat. I explained I messed around with computers, and 'AI' at the moment.
Then he showed me the custom GPT's he'd made, raved about 'AI', a custom application he'd "vibe coded" and shared with his other engineers at work to help them plan work, ordering parts, etc. Some of the GPTs have all their training material, safety manuals, tips and tricks embedded in it. Said it could sometimes save hours of a day instead of having to look up terrible, clunky manufacturer websites, or worse - being on the phone to their call-centres.
Really struck me that it was quietly becoming pervasive in ways I don't think are being picked up in surveys - possibly as no-one has thought to survey non-white-collar workers about it.
You shouldn’t need a driveway to own an electric car.
My Plan for Change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements.
That’s cheaper, at home charging – putting money back in the pockets of working people.
And already Westminister council have said - we don't do that as the liability issues are far to complex and haven't been solved..
The people a few doors down have a small electric car. They often park it on the pavement, leaving a narrow gap between their wall and the car to get past. Except the cable droops down from the charging point. At night, you can see the black car. You cannot easily see the *black* cable on the ground or in the air.
A simple improvement would be to make the cables a more visible and/or reflective colour, or perhaps even have low-energy LEDs, like some dog leashes?
On these I turn into Attila the Hun.
A simple solution would be an Sxy (whatever it is) 3 points for Wilfully Obstructing the Highway. Four of those and the problem goes away for 6 months, and the perpetrators learn their lesson.
A visible obstruction is still an obstruction. If a visually impaired person fell over that and was in hospital, they would correctly be liable.
IMO this is a simple "it's OK for me to break the law because it's inconvenient for me to obey it, and I think I am that important" case. It is why we need Neighbourhood PCSOs.
Comments
It is the closure of graduate recruitment schemes that is of more concern for the reasons you state. One thing I would mention is we saw the same closures 25 years ago when the dot com bubble burst but within a year or three, things returned to normal.
Here is one of several reviews on YouTube:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmXLKG_qWXM
When an EV goes wrong a lot of the repairs could be expensive.
The combination of a Jaguar and an EV especially their first model would be something anyone sane would avoid,.
From “coercion” to “rigidity,” linguistics expert Dr Geoff Lindsey compares the speech of the “diametric opposites,” Sir Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRqh7_ThUVM
A third of people in Britain now think the Covid pandemic was exaggerated to control people 🤯🤯
And 22% think the moon landings were staged!
One of many striking findings from new @moreincommonuk.bsky.social report on shattered Britain.
https://bsky.app/profile/tomcalver.bsky.social/post/3lttkum2cok2r
That Guardian article about AI tanking the graduate job market has an interesting comment from a recruitment consultant saying that the ability to read, write, and form an analysis without using the internet are now "elite skills." Wouldn't it be great if we had degree subjects that teach just that?
https://bsky.app/profile/christopherpittard.bsky.social/post/3lttjrfxmdc2k
Trump is getting absolutely hammered by his supporters 𝙤𝙣 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖 𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙚 for his post last night urging them to ”not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”
Literally 𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨 of replies attacking Trump.
https://x.com/gtconway3d/status/1944300129772544493
And there is definitely a recession in a number of industries - but the job cuts are just dripping slowly out at the moment...
The owners of paper books will be king - they're the only people that can be even close to certain about facts.
As it was busy, we actually spent over half an hour getting up and down, with plenty of time waiting around on the platforms as they have a strict order of when people go up; they have to wait for someone to come down from the yardarm before they send someone else up. They were impressed when I said that I'd actually climbed rigging on a tall ship *at sea*. When they asked what the difference was, I said that here everything was stationary and dry. At sea, everything was swaying and the harness, rigging and everything you touched was either damp or wet. And often smelling of sick...
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1944348992545939861
You shouldn’t need a driveway to own an electric car.
My Plan for Change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements.
That’s cheaper, at home charging – putting money back in the pockets of working people.
https://x.com/METR_Evals/status/1943360399220388093
But there is an interesting finding that AI makes programmers faster.
Or so they think but in reality it slows them down.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/11/ai_code_tools_slow_down/
LOL. Scooped by rkrkrk with a different link to the same study.
Domino's Pizza Commercial with Donald Trump (2005)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouG9cVhjPds
All the gizmos in the world and amazing acceleration
I have also driven a Mercedes ev which was fantastic but more than twice the cost of my wee car
I think any subsidy for an ev should be directed at the cheapest models, and not a hand out to expensive ones
Ev's account for just 4.6% of the vehicles on the road, and whilst many would no doubt like one, they are generally too expensive not only to buy but repair, and their second hand values are poor
The wider question should be where on earth does the treasury replace the fuel duty presently received and when will the power be available to service these cars
There is a problem that when criticising the subsidises to ev owners, you immediately come under fire from their supporters when these are not anti ev questions, but practical and fair ones
A simple improvement would be to make the cables a more visible and/or reflective colour, or perhaps even have low-energy LEDs, like some dog leashes?
I'm no great expert on AI, but I have worked on it. We now have what's akin to Victorian Automata pumping out 'knowledge'.
Whoops
Stuffed crust was failing and some ad people came up with an idea for an ad with The Trumps who were going through a very public divorce at the time and the hook was about doing things differently (eating the crust first) and the pay off at the end is they both go for the last piece and he tells her she only gets 50% and everyone laughed.
Anyway, Trump was on his uppers at the time and nobody was eating stuffed crust so Dominoes was struggling and the $1m they paid him (was in his bankruptcy stage) and the profile supercharged him and rescued Dominos from a v expensive failure.
So thanks Domino’s, not just grim pizzas but saved Trump.
Just one outcome is the collapse in the university sector (I know I’ve mentioned it before but look - now it’s coming true)
Kids are not going to take on £££ of debt if they 1. Learning nothing while at uni and 2. There aren’t any jobs at the end anyway
There’s a really compelling quote in that guardian article
“One of the few responses [this new graduate] has received so far was a rejection email explaining that 2,000 other people had applied for the role. “I feel very disheartened and, frankly, lied to,” Martyna said. “Both of my degrees seem useless. My parents came here from Poland, and I have £90,000 in student debt – for what?
“They told us: ‘If you don’t go to university, you could be working in McDonald’s.’ I went to university and applied to be a barista, and was rejected for lack of experience. I have considered going back to Poland.””
We have sold our kids a pup. Many unis will close. Lord knows what that will do to all the towns and cities where the uni is a major or even dominant employer
One is something that occurs very rarely and the other is something to do with cricket.
In related news…
It’s a decade since the first orbital rocket first stage landed intact.
It’s 8 years since a landed stage was reused.
We might get a second company reusing first stages next year.
No redeeming features at all.
So it sounds like the car unlocks on detecting her fob, but when she leaves the car, it will not accept his. even if he was driving with his fob.
Something that never used to happen with simple mechanical keys...
There is too much weary cynicism on PB.com.
My mission is to counter it with positivity and good cheer.
That work starts today.
British people are about as rich as we have ever been, there are clearly useful jobs that need doing, but we somehow we don't think we can afford to have them done.
C'mon boffins, sort it out.
He will leave with no student debt and can walk to the college
He is following his dreams, just like a uni student, but it is not fair to mock such ambitions
Indeed I would recommend any young person with practical skills to follow an apprenticeship or FE in building trades, which is where a lot of debt free money and success awaits those choosing this pathway
They were made in the U.K., as well…
There’s minimal fish processing in Torry nowadays but there’s still a residual fishy smell about the place. Appropriate given who has adopted it as his lordly title.
My mission is to make it cooler.
That work starts tomorrow.
https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1944356332678578609?s=19
So you may graduate from Oxbridge with a degree in Poetry & Welding. Or a degree in Welding & Poetry.
Mandate mixing - course are modular already. So every academic degree has some “blue collar skills” and every apprenticeship has some intellectual content.
It’s like PB can’t grasp basic economic facts
Andrew Hunter-Murray (of QI and Private Eye) has been part of a campaign to simplify and reduce the cost of planning rules on the subject.
So why not call that a degree?
Get rid of the snobbish divide.
Not so very long ago, a degree was awarded, after hanging around a university for a while, on the basis of some chats with the fellows. “Yup, x has absorbed enough knowledge, give him a degree.”
Far less formal than many apprenticeships.
There are also the growing numbers of lamp post chargers
*i am joking.
He accrued debt and - unsurprisingly - didn’t get a job as a pro tog at the end
Many of his uni peers are still desperately struggling and failing to get into the arts as a job, and working minimum wage in the meantime
Todd decided No, so he retrained as an electrician - and he’s very good - and he’s making £££ a day
For sure, I'm getting into systems programming and find the old stuff v-interesting. Don't want to put you out but I'd love to see what your throwing and maybe save it from the shredder. Anything network, systems programming, kernel stuff, C and advanced C etc etc would work.
York Labour MP appears to call for far more mass migration.
https://www.fredmeyer.com/stores/grocery/wa/kirkland/fred-meyer-kirkland/701/00391
It seems like a reasonable solution for some in this area who don't have other easy ways to charge their cars.
I only visit there on week day mornings, so there may be waits at busier times.
Ducting under pavements is the answer. At the moment I improvise with one of those hi viz cable covers like you get at events, which seems to work well.
I actively dislike what I’m predicting. I don’t want universities to die. They are wonderful things - I went to a great uni and it changed my life
The difference is I can EXTRAPOLATE and I don’t go into denial, I can see what’s coming down the line - and it’s the end of the university as we have known it, for 80-90% of people
I hope we can find some replacement that is equally enriching. I still like my idea of the government funding some kind of gap year/national service
You’re paid a small wage to do good works overseas for 6 months, in return the government will give you a small stipend to backpack the other 6 months
That would be enriching for all and produce more rounded 20 year olds
It's just that western manufacturers haven't managed to produce a cheap EV and make a profit on selling them.
That's a function of battery costs.
China has got there earlier because of massive government subsidies and now over hand their new car market (which us the largest in the world) is plug in vehicles.
Western governments and manufacturers got left behind as they didn't want EVs to cannibalise the profitable legacy ICE business.
Now imports will do that.
For example graduate debt levels and the proportion of each age group going to university.
10% going to university and graduating with no debt is very different to 50% going to university and graduating with £50k debt.
You might add housing costs for graduates as well - what proportion of graduates were home owners by the time they were 25 a generation or two ago compared with now ?
https://www.craftcourses.com/courses/welding-workshop-for-artists
The failure to keep dropping price is actually a different issue. The initial success of the Tesla S convinced a number of manufacturers that they could succeed in selling £60k cars to everyone.
The problem isn’t that people prefer a £70k version with more range to the £60k basic. Which they do.
What more people want is the £38k long range version of the car that has a basic model for £32k.
Then he showed me the custom GPT's he'd made, raved about 'AI', a custom application he'd "vibe coded" and shared with his other engineers at work to help them plan work, ordering parts, etc. Some of the GPTs have all their training material, safety manuals, tips and tricks embedded in it. Said it could sometimes save hours of a day instead of having to look up terrible, clunky manufacturer websites, or worse - being on the phone to their call-centres.
Really struck me that it was quietly becoming pervasive in ways I don't think are being picked up in surveys - possibly as no-one has thought to survey non-white-collar workers about it.
A simple solution would be an Sxy (whatever it is) 3 points for Wilfully Obstructing the Highway. Four of those and the problem goes away for 6 months, and the perpetrators learn their lesson.
A visible obstruction is still an obstruction. If a visually impaired person fell over that and was in hospital, they would correctly be liable.
IMO this is a simple "it's OK for me to break the law because it's inconvenient for me to obey it, and I think I am that important" case. It is why we need Neighbourhood PCSOs.