I’m surprised that @Leon makes his money from actual travel writing. He’s clearly the best writer on the board but his cultural criticism, such as it is, is painfully mediocre.
His main skill is that he is has a sharp eye for the weird and ironic. And he’s decent at invective.
Matthew Parris discusses travel writing in this week's Speccie. Under the headline 'Never trust a travel writer' (who can he thinking of?) he says: All travel writing is invented to some degree.
Can we just be grateful that. SFAIK, Leon has yet to publish a non ironic book or article with the title 'A time of gifts' or 'The kindness of strangers'.
"Doctor and husband jailed for selling stolen PPE on eBay"
Blimey, to get struck off as a doctor at 45 for £8k worth of stuff? Idiotic does not begin to cover it. I hope she had better judgment in her day job.
And eight months inside for £8,000, so on that scale the Baroness must be facing 60 thousand months or five thousand years. I suppose she must do as much as she can.
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Ofwat to be abolished and replaced with... Ofwat?
They have no idea; they're going to have a "consultation", and a "review".
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Off topic, but of interest to those who bet on American politics: George Will finds a Democratic governor who might be the next US president: The Republican Party was declared moribund after its 1964 presidential nominee, Sen. Barry Goldwater (Arizona), lost 44 states and 61 percent of the popular vote. But the party won five of the next six presidential elections, 1968-1988. Democrats interrupted their losing streak in 1976 by nominating a former Southern governor, Jimmy Carter, and ended their losing ways in 1992 and 1996 by nominating a Southern governor, Arkansas’ Bill Clinton, whose running mate was a Southern senator, Al Gore. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear might remind his party’s nominating electorate of this. Beshear's Wikipedia biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Beshear
Which includes these details: "Beshear and his wife Britainy are deacons at the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denominated Beargrass Christian Church in Louisville."[160] They have two children."
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Worse, they've announced another effing "consultation".
I know noone likes OFWAT, but do they have any actual power ?
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Worse, they've announced another effing "consultation".
I know noone likes OFWAT, but do they have any actual power ?
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Ofwat to be abolished and replaced with... Ofwat?
OfPiss told to Piss Off, more like.
And not before time. More useless than a Cummings eye test.
Although as Nigel says, their replacement will be no better.
Its ironic to see @bondegezou play the "but what about students" card to have universities be shielded from failure, as students are the one group who are never shielded from failure.
If a student fails to get the grades required, they fail. If a student gets caught engaging in plagiarism, they fail. If a student gets caught abusing AI, they fail. If a student breaks the rules, they fail.
Students know the risk of failure is real. They need to work hard to avoid the risk of failure.
Why do universities fail students who have put in poor effort but paid the fees? Why isn't paying the fees sufficient to get a degree even without any effort? Because the risk of failure is needed to have any integrity to the system.
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Ofwat to be abolished and replaced with... Ofwat?
The ORR (Office of the Rail Regulator) was replaced by the ORR (Office of Rail Regulation). It's now the ORR (Office of Rail and Road).
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Ofwat to be abolished and replaced with... Ofwat?
Strangely, 90% of senior management will be the same. But on higher salaries, of course. And then there are the Golden Goodbyes, Golden Hellos and guaranteed bonuses*.
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Worse, they've announced another effing "consultation".
I know noone likes OFWAT, but do they have any actual power ?
Insufficient, but as they've never properly exercised what powers they have, any changes are going to be a time consuming irrelevance.
If government were serious about addressing the problem, ministers would already have pulled the rug from under Thames. They've bottled that.
Its ironic to see @bondegezou play the "but what about students" card to have universities be shielded from failure, as students are the one group who are never shielded from failure.
If a student fails to get the grades required, they fail. If a student gets caught engaging in plagiarism, they fail. If a student gets caught abusing AI, they fail. If a student breaks the rules, they fail.
Students know the risk of failure is real. They need to work hard to avoid the risk of failure.
Why do universities fail students who have put in poor effort but paid the fees? Why isn't paying the fees sufficient to get a degree even without any effort? Because the risk of failure is needed to have any integrity to the system.
What's sauce for the goose . . .
Students fail if they break the rules/don't do the work. Students shouldn't be failed by the system not working.
Or, to put it another way, people should face up to their own failure, not become collateral damage in others' failure.
Its ironic to see @bondegezou play the "but what about students" card to have universities be shielded from failure, as students are the one group who are never shielded from failure.
If a student fails to get the grades required, they fail. If a student gets caught engaging in plagiarism, they fail. If a student gets caught abusing AI, they fail. If a student breaks the rules, they fail.
Students know the risk of failure is real. They need to work hard to avoid the risk of failure.
Why do universities fail students who have put in poor effort but paid the fees? Why isn't paying the fees sufficient to get a degree even without any effort? Because the risk of failure is needed to have any integrity to the system.
What's sauce for the goose . . .
If universities fail it will free up a lot of property for first time buyers. Same wrt high streets failing. The need to build more homes should recede
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Worse, they've announced another effing "consultation".
I know noone likes OFWAT, but do they have any actual power ?
Insufficient, but as they've never properly exercised what powers they have, any changes are going to be a time consuming irrelevance.
If government were serious about addressing the problem, ministers would already have pulled the rug from under Thames. They've bottled that.
Is that to ensure the water people drink has no shit in it, or is it like Jeremy Clarkson's water, full of shit anyway?
A melancholy subtext to this music chat is “what will PBers be nostalgically talking about, musically, in 2047”?
There won’t be any 2020s music for them to nostalge about. The biggest touring band of the moment is Oasis
I guess they could go on and on and on about Taylor Swift until @HYUFD-botX178 threatens to invade the website with royally-approved cybertanks
Culture came to a halt in the mid 90s. Popular music now doesn't really sound very different to how it did 30 years ago. Bands don't really get off the stage any more. We still also have Pulp and Elbow. Indeed, the world in general doesn't really look that different. I look out the window at passers by and they are dressed like they might have been in 1995. Whereas if I looked out the window in 1995, the world would have looked very different to how it would have in 1965; and even more so from 1965 to 1935. And my daughters listen to stuff from the 2020s, but also stuff from the 1990s and 1980s. The equivalent for me at their age in the late 80s would be listening to things from the 40s and 50s. Which I definitely didn't do.
I find this very odd. And yes, counter-examples can be found, and there is tech, and (slightly) different standards of behaviour and the country has far more people and politics is different. But the look and feel of the world we live in is puzzlingly similar to that of 30 years ago in a way which hasn't happened for generations.
I'm not sure I agree with that. The whole shift to online over the past 30 years has completely revolutionised the way people go about their lives. Imagine how lost most of us would be if we were teleported back 30 years. No Amazon, no PB, no Twitter/X, etc. Our kids (early 20s) sometimes ask how on earth we got things done without the internet (yes, I know the internet existsed then, but it had yet to achieve its potential). They really can't imagine life pre-internet. And yes, it probably has had a major negative effect on music.
Things have moved on. Nowadays kids ask “how did you know anything or do anything without ChatGPT”. I’m serious. I do it myself constantly
The only exception to this, perhaps in the world, is my older daughter. She abhors chatbots and devours books. She read all of Kafka’s The Trial on one Ryanair flight to meet me in Beziers last year. She reads EVERYTHING
The other day she said to me “Dad I can’t wait to go back to uni so I can carry on learning. All I want to do is learn things”
I love her to bits. I also love her wryly rebellious sister equally but that’s likely coz shes more like me
Ok. I’m turning off sentimental dad mode, now
ChatGPT was down for a few hours a couple of weeks ago, and Reddit was flooded with posts from people saying they had forgotten how to write emails, etc, without its help, some with a hint of seriousness.
It’s definitely a thing and it is definitely happening. Indeed I’m writing about it - again - for the gazette
Which reminds me. I have lunch with the Gazette editors. I must crack on
I have noted that I am making nice money from the Knapper's Digest, the new US edition
You're effectively a small part of what appears to be a very well funded political influence campaign. It does coincide with your own political proclivities, but it's not entirely journalism.
With all due respect, who the feck are you to decide whether what I do is “journalism” or not?
I’d be interested to know what you DO define as journalism. Sports reporting? Op Eds? Theatre criticism? Or just investigative reporting? If so that’s about 1.7% of “journalists”
My comments applied to the enterprise itself rather than you personally.
Can you do journalism working for an influence campaign ? Sure. But it's not entirely journalism; hence my comment.
I'm pretty sure you'd submit the same sort of copy were you being paid by the Guardian, so it's really not any kind of judgment on your personal journalistic ethics.
In fairness, Travel journalism is better than Food and Drink/Restaurant reviewer. "I went to a place. They gave me food. It was good/bad. I am going/not going there again. Two thumbs up/down!"
Its ironic to see @bondegezou play the "but what about students" card to have universities be shielded from failure, as students are the one group who are never shielded from failure.
If a student fails to get the grades required, they fail. If a student gets caught engaging in plagiarism, they fail. If a student gets caught abusing AI, they fail. If a student breaks the rules, they fail.
Students know the risk of failure is real. They need to work hard to avoid the risk of failure.
Why do universities fail students who have put in poor effort but paid the fees? Why isn't paying the fees sufficient to get a degree even without any effort? Because the risk of failure is needed to have any integrity to the system.
What's sauce for the goose . . .
Students fail if they break the rules/don't do the work. Students shouldn't be failed by the system not working.
Or, to put it another way, people should face up to their own failure, not become collateral damage in others' failure.
Then do your own damned job and don't let them down. But if you do, you deserve to fail.
If a University fails, then it fails. That will cause collateral damage, that's a reason to try to ensure you don't fail but it is not a reason to prevent a failed University from failing.
If there is no risk of failure, then there is no reason to put the effort in. That applies just as much to you and your institution, and any other institution, as it does your students.
"Doctor and husband jailed for selling stolen PPE on eBay"
Blimey, to get struck off as a doctor at 45 for £8k worth of stuff? Idiotic does not begin to cover it. I hope she had better judgment in her day job.
And eight months inside for £8,000, so on that scale the Baroness must be facing 60 thousand months or five thousand years. I suppose she must do as much as she can.
When I was much younger, at the beginning of my career, got into a political infight in the company. Due to me doing some work without regarding the politics.
When the guy in question got my expenses audited, my boss arranged for *him* to be be audited.
Tons of taxi receipts with the same handwriting.
He threw away a career and some very nice job benefits for a few thousands - then went out in the green house he built to throw stones…
If watering down means making it harder to destroy the natural environment, then I am all in favour of watering down.
Unless you live in the natural environment, then your hypocrisy in wanting to have a home of your own but deny others one of their own should be rejected.
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Worse, they've announced another effing "consultation".
I know noone likes OFWAT, but do they have any actual power ?
The point of OFWAT is to have a body that ministers can condemn when the system they have created, or refused to change, fails.
(interior: viewcode kneeling on the floor in the spotlight, rocking back and forth, repeating "they're worse than even I feared" repeatedly. The spotlight dims to black...)
Its ironic to see @bondegezou play the "but what about students" card to have universities be shielded from failure, as students are the one group who are never shielded from failure.
If a student fails to get the grades required, they fail. If a student gets caught engaging in plagiarism, they fail. If a student gets caught abusing AI, they fail. If a student breaks the rules, they fail.
Students know the risk of failure is real. They need to work hard to avoid the risk of failure.
Why do universities fail students who have put in poor effort but paid the fees? Why isn't paying the fees sufficient to get a degree even without any effort? Because the risk of failure is needed to have any integrity to the system.
What's sauce for the goose . . .
Students fail if they break the rules/don't do the work. Students shouldn't be failed by the system not working.
Or, to put it another way, people should face up to their own failure, not become collateral damage in others' failure.
Close them down in the same way we close schools - no new intake, encourage transfer, age out the rest. The assessment elements can be validated by another viable university. That's how (Ripon and) York St. John used to run it's degrees the 90s.
That concession aside, the Bill seems to take some positive steps against NIMBYism, with increased powers for (supplementary vote) directly elected mayors to push things through.
If watering down means making it harder to destroy the natural environment, then I am all in favour of watering down.
Unless you live in the natural environment, then your hypocrisy in wanting to have a home of your own but deny others one of their own should be rejected.
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
If the population hadn't been allowed to balloon, then there would be plenty of homes to go round.
That concession aside, the Bill seems to take some positive steps against NIMBYism, with increased powers for (supplementary vote) directly elected mayors to push things through.
If the mayor doesn't want a second term...
Yep.
Zoning means that if you build to standards within a construction zone you don't need to beg anyone for permission to do it, you just get on with it and do it, within pre-determined legal standards.
Transferring from begging the Councillors for permission to begging the Mayor for permission isn't a major reform.
If watering down means making it harder to destroy the natural environment, then I am all in favour of watering down.
Unless you live in the natural environment, then your hypocrisy in wanting to have a home of your own but deny others one of their own should be rejected.
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
If the population hadn't been allowed to balloon, then there would be plenty of homes to go round.
Well it has. So that's moot.
Unless you want to execute or deport about ten million people we need millions more homes building.
That concession aside, the Bill seems to take some positive steps against NIMBYism, with increased powers for (supplementary vote) directly elected mayors to push things through.
If the mayor doesn't want a second term...
Yep.
Zoning means that if you build to standards within a construction zone you don't need to beg anyone for permission to do it, you just get on with it and do it, within pre-determined legal standards.
Transferring from begging the Councillors for permission to begging the Mayor for permission isn't a major reform.
Taking the power away from the Bradford planning committee would be a very good thing.
If watering down means making it harder to destroy the natural environment, then I am all in favour of watering down.
Unless you live in the natural environment, then your hypocrisy in wanting to have a home of your own but deny others one of their own should be rejected.
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
If the population hadn't been allowed to balloon, then there would be plenty of homes to go round.
Well it has. So that's moot.
Unless you want to execute or deport about ten million people we need millions more homes building.
There's no need for extremism. Net emigration for a few years would fix it.
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
If watering down means making it harder to destroy the natural environment, then I am all in favour of watering down.
Unless you live in the natural environment, then your hypocrisy in wanting to have a home of your own but deny others one of their own should be rejected.
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
If the population hadn't been allowed to balloon, then there would be plenty of homes to go round.
Well it has. So that's moot.
Unless you want to execute or deport about ten million people we need millions more homes building.
There's no need for extremism. Net emigration for a few years would fix it.
We would need net emigration of a few hundred thousand people a year for a decade or more to fix it.
Nobody is proposing that. And it won't do that much for people in the intermediate decade while it happens as the shortage will still be there.
Vast construction is a far more credible solution.
That concession aside, the Bill seems to take some positive steps against NIMBYism, with increased powers for (supplementary vote) directly elected mayors to push things through.
If the mayor doesn't want a second term...
Yep.
Zoning means that if you build to standards within a construction zone you don't need to beg anyone for permission to do it, you just get on with it and do it, within pre-determined legal standards.
Transferring from begging the Councillors for permission to begging the Mayor for permission isn't a major reform.
If watering down means making it harder to destroy the natural environment, then I am all in favour of watering down.
Unless you live in the natural environment, then your hypocrisy in wanting to have a home of your own but deny others one of their own should be rejected.
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
If the population hadn't been allowed to balloon, then there would be plenty of homes to go round.
Well it has. So that's moot.
Unless you want to execute or deport about ten million people we need millions more homes building.
There's no need for extremism. Net emigration for a few years would fix it.
We would need net emigration of a few hundred thousand people a year for a decade or more to fix it.
Nobody is proposing that. And it won't do that much for people in the intermediate decade while it happens as the shortage will still be there.
Vast construction is a far more credible solution.
Do we have a problem with people living on the streets due to a lack of available shelter?
If watering down means making it harder to destroy the natural environment, then I am all in favour of watering down.
Unless you live in the natural environment, then your hypocrisy in wanting to have a home of your own but deny others one of their own should be rejected.
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
If the population hadn't been allowed to balloon, then there would be plenty of homes to go round.
Well it has. So that's moot.
Unless you want to execute or deport about ten million people we need millions more homes building.
There's no need for extremism. Net emigration for a few years would fix it.
We would need net emigration of a few hundred thousand people a year for a decade or more to fix it.
Nobody is proposing that. And it won't do that much for people in the intermediate decade while it happens as the shortage will still be there.
Vast construction is a far more credible solution.
Do we have a problem with people living on the streets due to a lack of available shelter?
Yes.
There's also insufficient vacant homes and overcrowding due to a lack of available shelter.
LOL that “Coldplay concert” is the #1 trend this morning, and it’s all because a billionaire is about to get divorced.
Imagine being so bad to your wife that you went to a Coldplay concert.
Imagine being her divorce lawyers, you’d be happier than a pig in muck.
“Give my client what she wants or we will publicly reveal it’s actually the second time you’ve been to a Coldplay concert.”
Why are people so absurdly snooty about Coldplay
It’s a middle middle class affectation, I think. A slightly insecure signalling of “superior” taste, done by people who are, perhaps subconsciously, nervous of their social status
We had the same with Bee Gees. It was fashionable amongst the middlebrow to diss them. Now we all accept they were musical geniuses. Which they were
Rush of Blood to the Head is a legitimately good album. I never cared for their music before or since. I mean it's fine, inoffensive stuff, there's just far far better stuff out there. But that's true for many artists. The reaction, I think, is more to the Everything Sounds Like Coldplay issue that we had for a while.
Sometimes something mediocre can get really annoying when everywhere and popular. I dislike Turin Brakes with a fair amount of passion as I had a flatmate at uni who was obsessed and played them all the effing time!
But even this isn’t true
Viva La Vida is one of THE great pop-rock songs of the 21st century
If watering down means making it harder to destroy the natural environment, then I am all in favour of watering down.
Unless you live in the natural environment, then your hypocrisy in wanting to have a home of your own but deny others one of their own should be rejected.
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
If the population hadn't been allowed to balloon, then there would be plenty of homes to go round.
Well it has. So that's moot.
Unless you want to execute or deport about ten million people we need millions more homes building.
There's no need for extremism. Net emigration for a few years would fix it.
We would need net emigration of a few hundred thousand people a year for a decade or more to fix it.
Nobody is proposing that. And it won't do that much for people in the intermediate decade while it happens as the shortage will still be there.
Vast construction is a far more credible solution.
Do we have a problem with people living on the streets due to a lack of available shelter?
Yes.
There's also insufficient vacant homes and overcrowding due to a lack of available shelter.
Where are these tent cities?
Housing will always be subject to scarcity no matter how much you build because of the location factor.
If watering down means making it harder to destroy the natural environment, then I am all in favour of watering down.
Unless you live in the natural environment, then your hypocrisy in wanting to have a home of your own but deny others one of their own should be rejected.
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
If the population hadn't been allowed to balloon, then there would be plenty of homes to go round.
Well it has. So that's moot.
Unless you want to execute or deport about ten million people we need millions more homes building.
There's no need for extremism. Net emigration for a few years would fix it.
We would need net emigration of a few hundred thousand people a year for a decade or more to fix it.
Nobody is proposing that. And it won't do that much for people in the intermediate decade while it happens as the shortage will still be there.
Vast construction is a far more credible solution.
Do we have a problem with people living on the streets due to a lack of available shelter?
Yes.
There's also insufficient vacant homes and overcrowding due to a lack of available shelter.
Where are these tent cities?
Housing will always be subject to scarcity no matter how much you build because of the location factor.
That's not the question you asked. There are people living on the streets, you can see it in most towns and cities, but there is also other forms of homelessness where people live on other people's sofas or in overcrowded homes etc
There's not a scarcity of enough homes in the right locations, there's a scarcity of enough homes full stop. We need vastly more homes than there are.
If watering down means making it harder to destroy the natural environment, then I am all in favour of watering down.
Unless you live in the natural environment, then your hypocrisy in wanting to have a home of your own but deny others one of their own should be rejected.
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
If the population hadn't been allowed to balloon, then there would be plenty of homes to go round.
Well it has. So that's moot.
Unless you want to execute or deport about ten million people we need millions more homes building.
There's no need for extremism. Net emigration for a few years would fix it.
We would need net emigration of a few hundred thousand people a year for a decade or more to fix it.
Nobody is proposing that. And it won't do that much for people in the intermediate decade while it happens as the shortage will still be there.
Vast construction is a far more credible solution.
Do we have a problem with people living on the streets due to a lack of available shelter?
Yes.
There's also insufficient vacant homes and overcrowding due to a lack of available shelter.
Where are these tent cities?
Housing will always be subject to scarcity no matter how much you build because of the location factor.
That's not the question you asked. There are people living on the streets, you can see it in most towns and cities, but there is also other forms of homelessness where people live on other people's sofas or in overcrowded homes etc
There's not a scarcity of enough homes in the right locations, there's a scarcity of enough homes full stop. We need vastly more homes than there are.
I used to be sympathetic to the case for building more before hearing your arguments but you've turned me into a NIMBY.
Mike Johnson on Trump: "His approval ratings are skyrocketing. CNN had a story a day or two ago -- he was at a 90 percent approval rating! There's never been a president that high."
A melancholy subtext to this music chat is “what will PBers be nostalgically talking about, musically, in 2047”?
There won’t be any 2020s music for them to nostalge about. The biggest touring band of the moment is Oasis
I guess they could go on and on and on about Taylor Swift until @HYUFD-botX178 threatens to invade the website with royally-approved cybertanks
Culture came to a halt in the mid 90s. Popular music now doesn't really sound very different to how it did 30 years ago. Bands don't really get off the stage any more. We still also have Pulp and Elbow. Indeed, the world in general doesn't really look that different. I look out the window at passers by and they are dressed like they might have been in 1995. Whereas if I looked out the window in 1995, the world would have looked very different to how it would have in 1965; and even more so from 1965 to 1935. And my daughters listen to stuff from the 2020s, but also stuff from the 1990s and 1980s. The equivalent for me at their age in the late 80s would be listening to things from the 40s and 50s. Which I definitely didn't do.
I find this very odd. And yes, counter-examples can be found, and there is tech, and (slightly) different standards of behaviour and the country has far more people and politics is different. But the look and feel of the world we live in is puzzlingly similar to that of 30 years ago in a way which hasn't happened for generations.
I'm not sure I agree with that. The whole shift to online over the past 30 years has completely revolutionised the way people go about their lives. Imagine how lost most of us would be if we were teleported back 30 years. No Amazon, no PB, no Twitter/X, etc. Our kids (early 20s) sometimes ask how on earth we got things done without the internet (yes, I know the internet existsed then, but it had yet to achieve its potential). They really can't imagine life pre-internet. And yes, it probably has had a major negative effect on music.
Things have moved on. Nowadays kids ask “how did you know anything or do anything without ChatGPT”. I’m serious. I do it myself constantly
The only exception to this, perhaps in the world, is my older daughter. She abhors chatbots and devours books. She read all of Kafka’s The Trial on one Ryanair flight to meet me in Beziers last year. She reads EVERYTHING
The other day she said to me “Dad I can’t wait to go back to uni so I can carry on learning. All I want to do is learn things”
I love her to bits. I also love her wryly rebellious sister equally but that’s likely coz shes more like me
Ok. I’m turning off sentimental dad mode, now
ChatGPT was down for a few hours a couple of weeks ago, and Reddit was flooded with posts from people saying they had forgotten how to write emails, etc, without its help, some with a hint of seriousness.
It’s definitely a thing and it is definitely happening. Indeed I’m writing about it - again - for the gazette
Which reminds me. I have lunch with the Gazette editors. I must crack on
I have noted that I am making nice money from the Knapper's Digest, the new US edition
You're effectively a small part of what appears to be a very well funded political influence campaign. It does coincide with your own political proclivities, but it's not entirely journalism.
With all due respect, who the feck are you to decide whether what I do is “journalism” or not?
I’d be interested to know what you DO define as journalism. Sports reporting? Op Eds? Theatre criticism? Or just investigative reporting? If so that’s about 1.7% of “journalists”
My comments applied to the enterprise itself rather than you personally.
Can you do journalism working for an influence campaign ? Sure. But it's not entirely journalism; hence my comment.
I'm pretty sure you'd submit the same sort of copy were you being paid by the Guardian, so it's really not any kind of judgment on your personal journalistic ethics.
In fairness, Travel journalism is better than Food and Drink/Restaurant reviewer. "I went to a place. They gave me food. It was good/bad. I am going/not going there again. Two thumbs up/down!"
Also probably better than a lot of automotive journalism which seems largely aimed at the Top Gear studio audience. Though Clarkson et al prove it’s a great stepping stone to lucrative tv careers.
Mike Johnson on Trump: "His approval ratings are skyrocketing. CNN had a story a day or two ago -- he was at a 90 percent approval rating! There's never been a president that high."
Off topic: George Will finds a Democratic governor who might be the next US president:
The Republican Party was declared moribund after its 1964 presidential nominee, Sen. Barry Goldwater (Arizona), lost 44 states and 61 percent of the popular vote. But the party won five of the next six presidential elections, 1968-1988. Democrats interrupted their losing streak in 1976 by nominating a former Southern governor, Jimmy Carter, and ended their losing ways in 1992 and 1996 by nominating a Southern governor, Arkansas’ Bill Clinton, whose running mate was a Southern senator, Al Gore. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear might remind his party’s nominating electorate of this.
LBJ who beat Goldwater also a southerner of course. Obama was from the MidWest.
Americans rarely elect Democrat presidential nominees from the coasts. Biden was the first since JFK from the coasts to win the presidency but Biden had been elected VP first of course.
Whereas Trump is from New York originally and other Republican Presidents like Nixon, Reagan and Bush 41 were from California or grew up in New England
Off topic: George Will finds a Democratic governor who might be the next US president: The Republican Party was declared moribund after its 1964 presidential nominee, Sen. Barry Goldwater (Arizona), lost 44 states and 61 percent of the popular vote. But the party won five of the next six presidential elections, 1968-1988. Democrats interrupted their losing streak in 1976 by nominating a former Southern governor, Jimmy Carter, and ended their losing ways in 1992 and 1996 by nominating a Southern governor, Arkansas’ Bill Clinton, whose running mate was a Southern senator, Al Gore. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear might remind his party’s nominating electorate of this. (Links omitted.) source$ : https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/16/kentucky-governor-andy-beshear/
I think even PB has been aware of him for quite a while.
A highly unscientific selection of YouTube Tier Lists give Andy Beshear and Josh Shapiro as the top two, with the wildcard of Jon Stewart (?!) - yes, the Daily Show host - on top.
I have long said, when Leon and I have been "discussing" food or drink that food/drink writers don't have a better palate (they might have had broader exposure to different types of food or drink than the general public), it's just that they can write about it with elegance and engagement.
They are better food/drink writers, not better food/drink critics.
And it is an art and very entertaining.
The worst thing, though, is when food critics think they are geopolitical analysts and, because they are successful, say, restaurant critics, are given by their paper a current affairs column. Ghastly and inane.
Meanwhile, there are those writers who defy logic as to why they are employed. Robert Crampton for me being the most notable example.
"Doctor and husband jailed for selling stolen PPE on eBay"
Blimey, to get struck off as a doctor at 45 for £8k worth of stuff? Idiotic does not begin to cover it. I hope she had better judgment in her day job.
And eight months inside for £8,000, so on that scale the Baroness must be facing 60 thousand months or five thousand years. I suppose she must do as much as she can.
Presumably pour encourager les autres, though if I was inclined that way I’d very much aim to be hanged for several flocks of sheep. I dare say that’s the approach of the baroness, though there’s a good chance she won’t get hanged for anything.
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Worse, they've announced another effing "consultation".
The Government is responsible as a last resort in many aspects of life. The privatised rail industry has been found wanting and is slowly being restructured. It just depends on how much shit (literally) the public will put up with.
The government has shown itself unwilling to take any real action against the water companies which have failed. Tinkering with their future regulation is unlikely to change that.
Without (eg) forcing Thames into administration this is performative nonsense.
Worse, they've announced another effing "consultation".
The Government is responsible as a last resort in many aspects of life. The privatised rail industry has been found wanting and is slowly being restructured. It just depends on how much shit (literally) the public will put up with.
Floating voters have already had enough of floaters...
Birds in their little nests are still agreeing ...
Devon County Council. Reform Councillor Ed Hill has been defenestrated from the Party for sending a letter to the "Kingsbridge and Salcombe Gazette" (great name) from all the Councillors. Nigel says something something something; he says he had authorisation.
Ed had reported a colleague for going over the election expenses limit by £170, after (aiuI) the colleague had plotted against him.
I'm beginning to think that the whole thing is a plot by wives of elderly men to get their hubbies away from the pigeons and dominoes.
You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team.’ You must think we’re all thick.
No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you.
You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team.’ You must think we’re all thick.
No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you.
Reform should give you the boot.
It was Zia’s personal X account - which means he’s responsible for what is written on it - so while it’s annoying to have to agree with Jenrick he’s 100% right here
Apologies for going ON-TOPIC yet again, but to point out what I think are the THREE main differences between AV and Exhaustive Ballots:
1. You can change your mind between each round of an Exhaustive Ballot, as I'm sure many Tory MPs do when they vote for their leader. You can't change your mind with AV.
2. As mentioned upthread, you can't rank your choices during each round of an Exhaustive Ballot, like you can with AV.
3. AV is also called Instant Run-off Voting (IRV), so all voting is done in one round. Exhaustive Ballots are usually spread over many days, or even weeks.
Mike Johnson on Trump: "His approval ratings are skyrocketing. CNN had a story a day or two ago -- he was at a 90 percent approval rating! There's never been a president that high."
You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team.’ You must think we’re all thick.
No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you.
Reform should give you the boot.
If Reform start booting people out for racism they'll soon be a very minor party.
Apologies for going ON-TOPIC yet again, but to point out what I think are the THREE main differences between AV and Exhaustive Ballots:
1. You can change your mind between each round of an Exhaustive Ballot, as I'm sure many Tory MPs do when they vote for their leader. You can't change your mind with AV.
2. As mentioned upthread, you can't rank your choices during each round of an Exhaustive Ballot, like you can with AV.
3. AV is also called Instant Run-off Voting (IRV), so all voting is done in one round. Exhaustive Ballots are usually spread over many days, or even weeks.
It's Britain, so we do things on the cheap.
SV is the low budget version of the French runoff system, where you aren't willing to pay for a second election day. Worse, but cheaper.
The same relationship (though probably not as harmful) exists between AV and EB.
You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team.’ You must think we’re all thick.
No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you.
Reform should give you the boot.
It was Zia’s personal X account - which means he’s responsible for what is written on it - so while it’s annoying to have to agree with Jenrick he’s 100% right here
Bobby J is a prat, but I start finding myself getting more and more convinced that if there’s anyone who is going to be able to revive the Tories, it is likely him. Still could fail miserably, but at least he has some fire.
If watering down means making it harder to destroy the natural environment, then I am all in favour of watering down.
Unless you live in the natural environment, then your hypocrisy in wanting to have a home of your own but deny others one of their own should be rejected.
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
If the population hadn't been allowed to balloon, then there would be plenty of homes to go round.
Well it has. So that's moot.
Unless you want to execute or deport about ten million people we need millions more homes building.
There's no need for extremism. Net emigration for a few years would fix it.
We would need net emigration of a few hundred thousand people a year for a decade or more to fix it.
Nobody is proposing that. And it won't do that much for people in the intermediate decade while it happens as the shortage will still be there.
Vast construction is a far more credible solution.
Do we have a problem with people living on the streets due to a lack of available shelter?
Yes.
There's also insufficient vacant homes and overcrowding due to a lack of available shelter.
Where are these tent cities?
Housing will always be subject to scarcity no matter how much you build because of the location factor.
That's not the question you asked. There are people living on the streets, you can see it in most towns and cities, but there is also other forms of homelessness where people live on other people's sofas or in overcrowded homes etc
There's not a scarcity of enough homes in the right locations, there's a scarcity of enough homes full stop. We need vastly more homes than there are.
I used to be sympathetic to the case for building more before hearing your arguments but you've turned me into a NIMBY.
Considering you're a pretty reliable contraindicator of all that is decent lately, I can live with that.
Apologies for going ON-TOPIC yet again, but to point out what I think are the THREE main differences between AV and Exhaustive Ballots:
1. You can change your mind between each round of an Exhaustive Ballot, as I'm sure many Tory MPs do when they vote for their leader. You can't change your mind with AV.
2. As mentioned upthread, you can't rank your choices during each round of an Exhaustive Ballot, like you can with AV.
3. AV is also called Instant Run-off Voting (IRV), so all voting is done in one round. Exhaustive Ballots are usually spread over many days, or even weeks.
In a country where there is a move to reduce the number of civil servants that do the work, and to increase the number of politicians that talk about doing the work - which system generates the fewest number of politicians?
A melancholy subtext to this music chat is “what will PBers be nostalgically talking about, musically, in 2047”?
There won’t be any 2020s music for them to nostalge about. The biggest touring band of the moment is Oasis
I guess they could go on and on and on about Taylor Swift until @HYUFD-botX178 threatens to invade the website with royally-approved cybertanks
Culture came to a halt in the mid 90s. Popular music now doesn't really sound very different to how it did 30 years ago. Bands don't really get off the stage any more. We still also have Pulp and Elbow. Indeed, the world in general doesn't really look that different. I look out the window at passers by and they are dressed like they might have been in 1995. Whereas if I looked out the window in 1995, the world would have looked very different to how it would have in 1965; and even more so from 1965 to 1935. And my daughters listen to stuff from the 2020s, but also stuff from the 1990s and 1980s. The equivalent for me at their age in the late 80s would be listening to things from the 40s and 50s. Which I definitely didn't do.
I find this very odd. And yes, counter-examples can be found, and there is tech, and (slightly) different standards of behaviour and the country has far more people and politics is different. But the look and feel of the world we live in is puzzlingly similar to that of 30 years ago in a way which hasn't happened for generations.
I'm not sure I agree with that. The whole shift to online over the past 30 years has completely revolutionised the way people go about their lives. Imagine how lost most of us would be if we were teleported back 30 years. No Amazon, no PB, no Twitter/X, etc. Our kids (early 20s) sometimes ask how on earth we got things done without the internet (yes, I know the internet existsed then, but it had yet to achieve its potential). They really can't imagine life pre-internet. And yes, it probably has had a major negative effect on music.
Things have moved on. Nowadays kids ask “how did you know anything or do anything without ChatGPT”. I’m serious. I do it myself constantly
The only exception to this, perhaps in the world, is my older daughter. She abhors chatbots and devours books. She read all of Kafka’s The Trial on one Ryanair flight to meet me in Beziers last year. She reads EVERYTHING
The other day she said to me “Dad I can’t wait to go back to uni so I can carry on learning. All I want to do is learn things”
I love her to bits. I also love her wryly rebellious sister equally but that’s likely coz shes more like me
Ok. I’m turning off sentimental dad mode, now
ChatGPT was down for a few hours a couple of weeks ago, and Reddit was flooded with posts from people saying they had forgotten how to write emails, etc, without its help, some with a hint of seriousness.
It’s definitely a thing and it is definitely happening. Indeed I’m writing about it - again - for the gazette
Which reminds me. I have lunch with the Gazette editors. I must crack on
I have noted that I am making nice money from the Knapper's Digest, the new US edition
You're effectively a small part of what appears to be a very well funded political influence campaign. It does coincide with your own political proclivities, but it's not entirely journalism.
With all due respect, who the feck are you to decide whether what I do is “journalism” or not?
I’d be interested to know what you DO define as journalism. Sports reporting? Op Eds? Theatre criticism? Or just investigative reporting? If so that’s about 1.7% of “journalists”
My comments applied to the enterprise itself rather than you personally.
Can you do journalism working for an influence campaign ? Sure. But it's not entirely journalism; hence my comment.
I'm pretty sure you'd submit the same sort of copy were you being paid by the Guardian, so it's really not any kind of judgment on your personal journalistic ethics.
In fairness, Travel journalism is better than Food and Drink/Restaurant reviewer. "I went to a place. They gave me food. It was good/bad. I am going/not going there again. Two thumbs up/down!"
Also probably better than a lot of automotive journalism which seems largely aimed at the Top Gear studio audience. Though Clarkson et al prove it’s a great stepping stone to lucrative tv careers.
Travel journalism gives you the chance to work in some history, and @Leon has an ear for the gruesome historical anecdote.
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team.’ You must think we’re all thick.
No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you.
Reform should give you the boot.
If Reform start booting people out for racism they'll soon be a very minor party.
How can people be thrown out of any party if that party's USP is applied?
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
I have long said, when Leon and I have been "discussing" food or drink that food/drink writers don't have a better palate..
I don't think that's true. They don't have to be super tasters (or whatever the current term is), but they certainly need a palate better than mine, for which some foods (coriander or chilli for example) come across as simply inedible.
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team.’ You must think we’re all thick.
No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you.
Reform should give you the boot.
It was Zia’s personal X account - which means he’s responsible for what is written on it - so while it’s annoying to have to agree with Jenrick he’s 100% right here
That said, everyone does think Jenrick is thick as well. Which must make it doubly embarrassing to be caught bang to rights by him.
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team.’ You must think we’re all thick.
No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you.
Reform should give you the boot.
It was Zia’s personal X account - which means he’s responsible for what is written on it - so while it’s annoying to have to agree with Jenrick he’s 100% right here
That said, everyone does think Jenrick is thick as well. Which must make it doubly embarrassing to be caught bang to rights by him.
"Zia Yusuf turned out to be Rishi Sunak with the political nous removed".
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
The follow up tweet where he posts his "evidence" quoting from the guidance does not imo support his claim. My piccie:
OK, I'm baffled. They said "...New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex"...".
The texts they highlight say "Pupils should be taught the facts and the law about biological sex..." and "they should avoid materials that...encourage pupils to question their gender"
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
The follow up tweet where he posts his "evidence" quoting from the guidance does not imo support his claim. My piccie:
Facts? Who needs those?
"Just William". And Leon's blood pressure.
(And PBers who are insufficiently keen on following links - recognising that I did not follow the further link which would have revealed the pronouns. Clearly @Leftiestats needs to put them in every tweet .)
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
BREAKING | Labour has **banned** schools from teaching children about transgender identities.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
The follow up tweet where he posts his "evidence" quoting from the guidance does not imo support his claim. My piccie:
OK, I'm baffled. They said "...New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex"...".
The texts they highlight say "Pupils should be taught the facts and the law about biological sex..." and "they should avoid materials that...encourage pupils to question their gender"
You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team.’ You must think we’re all thick.
No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you.
Reform should give you the boot.
It was Zia’s personal X account - which means he’s responsible for what is written on it - so while it’s annoying to have to agree with Jenrick he’s 100% right here
That said, everyone does think Jenrick is thick as well. Which must make it doubly embarrassing to be caught bang to rights by him.
"Zia Yusuf turned out to be Rishi Sunak with the political nous removed".
Why would Rishi Sunak be chosen as the comparator to Zia Yusuf? ZY hasn’t been PM yet alone party leader, different backgrounds. Trying to think in what way they are similar. Maybe his colour? Can’t be that, would be a bit Reformy.
DfE has finally noticed that some unis may go bust and exit the HE market.
So what?
Let them go bust - and if they do their assets will still be there and potentially their assets can be taken by a refreshed institution and they could potential reopen as a new university with different management and structures. Who cares?
Businesses fail, we need to get over the hangup that failed entities might fail.
I don't disagree, but is there a danger of some sort of systemic risk here? If one UK uni goes bust, it reflects badly on all the others - perhaps because they are measured against an unreasonable standard. French universities seem to be dissolved and reformed with monotonous regularity ( they even managed to do without the Sorbonne for nearly 100 years) but that seems different somehow.
Its not unreasonable, its a British failing that we refuse to let failed institutions die.
Why the hell has Thames Water not gone bust. We keep the zombie alive, then wonder why we lack productivity.
If an institution fails, let it fail. So long, farewell, no tears, no remorse.
Because every time a minister suggests that, they get hundreds of kilos of documents arguing that it shouldn't happen.
Re-open the fireplace in the Cabinet room.
Not to mention the constant onslaught from the media about all the people concerned/disadvantaged by it.
That's just part of the process. Who do you think is briefing the media, exactly?
I don’t disagree, but modern politicians find it very difficult to face it down.
It’s called mastering a brief
1) the customers are protected by systems already in place. See RBS - the cash machines kept working 2) the suppliers need protecting with government giving prompt payment on bills on the water companies. 3) the pension funds are protected by having written down already. Or they are fuckwits. 4) the bond holders. Fuck em. 5) the shareholders. Fuck em. 6) the management. Fuck em.
Write a two minutes speech on this. Stand up in the commons. Seconds later, managed onslaught on the media. Various pols on the various TV shows. Social media campaign etc.
Can I be in charge, please?
2) The suppliers are protected by systems already in place.
Administration is not a novel concept. If a firm goes bust, it does not shut down overnight, it goes into administration and the administrators pay the suppliers as required.
The point being that the system has to keep running and the suppliers have to keep suplying so carry on getting our water. This is where it is different to a normal bankruptcy because under those circumstances the business may well stop operating and the suppliers will often lose out. The Government - or rather the nation - cannot allow that to happen in this instance.
Personally I think Malmesbury is right. Force Thames into administration, get the Government to back the continued operation until we come up with a better system and let the management, share holders and bond holders all go swivel.
Indeed, however the system already exists it does not need to be created. The continuity of operations is already baked into the system even if they go into administration - indeed that was put in by design when they were privatised.
So the idea that they're "too big to fail" could not be more false. Administration processes exist, and specific continuity of operations administration processes do too, including those already written into the pre-existing legislation.
Ther problem being that as long as the Government - of either or any stripe - refuses to allow them to fail then they are in effect too big to fail. Whatever the law says what matters sadly is what is in the minds of the ministers and as long as they continue to find ways to bail out the water companies either directly or indirectly then 'too big to fail' remains a reality.
Speaking of the estimable LeftieStats (who appears now to be transitioning: I thought they were going to stay non-binary), here is the map from 16th from FindOutNow
Speaking of the estimable LeftieStats (who appears now to be transitioning: I thought they were going to stay non-binary), here is the map from 16th from FindOutNow
You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team.’ You must think we’re all thick.
No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you.
Reform should give you the boot.
If Reform start booting people out for racism they'll soon be a very minor party.
There's actually an interesting three-way dividing line on the right between Zionists, anti-Zionists and nativists.
Speaking of the estimable LeftieStats (who appears now to be transitioning: I thought they were going to stay non-binary), here is the map from 16th from FindOutNow
Comments
Can we just be grateful that. SFAIK, Leon has yet to publish a non ironic book or article with the title 'A time of gifts' or 'The kindness of strangers'.
Utter spineless nonsense.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/5160692#Comment_5160692
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4667523#Comment_4667523
And not before time. More useless than a Cummings eye test.
Although as Nigel says, their replacement will be no better.
If a student fails to get the grades required, they fail.
If a student gets caught engaging in plagiarism, they fail.
If a student gets caught abusing AI, they fail.
If a student breaks the rules, they fail.
Students know the risk of failure is real. They need to work hard to avoid the risk of failure.
Why do universities fail students who have put in poor effort but paid the fees? Why isn't paying the fees sufficient to get a degree even without any effort? Because the risk of failure is needed to have any integrity to the system.
What's sauce for the goose . . .
NEW: Government accept changes to the planning bill put forward by MP Chris Hinchliff, after they suspended him on Wednesday
Hinchliff had spearheaded a rebellion against the planning bill - with his amendment also supported by the three other suspended MPs
https://x.com/MayaBowles6/status/1946173442941690240
*bonus to be paid no matter what happens.
If government were serious about addressing the problem, ministers would already have pulled the rug from under Thames. They've bottled that.
Or, to put it another way, people should face up to their own failure, not become collateral damage in others' failure.
If a University fails, then it fails. That will cause collateral damage, that's a reason to try to ensure you don't fail but it is not a reason to prevent a failed University from failing.
If there is no risk of failure, then there is no reason to put the effort in. That applies just as much to you and your institution, and any other institution, as it does your students.
When the guy in question got my expenses audited, my boss arranged for *him* to be be audited.
Tons of taxi receipts with the same handwriting.
He threw away a career and some very nice job benefits for a few thousands - then went out in the green house he built to throw stones…
Everyone having a home of their own is more important than the natural environment.
It's outsourcing the blame.
(interior: viewcode kneeling on the floor in the spotlight, rocking back and forth, repeating "they're worse than even I feared" repeatedly. The spotlight dims to black...)
And concretes everything.
Zoning means that if you build to standards within a construction zone you don't need to beg anyone for permission to do it, you just get on with it and do it, within pre-determined legal standards.
Transferring from begging the Councillors for permission to begging the Mayor for permission isn't a major reform.
Unless you want to execute or deport about ten million people we need millions more homes building.
Nobody is proposing that. And it won't do that much for people in the intermediate decade while it happens as the shortage will still be there.
Vast construction is a far more credible solution.
There's also insufficient vacant homes and overcrowding due to a lack of available shelter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kVxpsi1XQ4
Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode (my favourite band) here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGSKrC7dGcY
Housing will always be subject to scarcity no matter how much you build because of the location factor.
There's not a scarcity of enough homes in the right locations, there's a scarcity of enough homes full stop. We need vastly more homes than there are.
Aaron Rupar
@atrupar.com
Mike Johnson on Trump: "His approval ratings are skyrocketing. CNN had a story a day or two ago -- he was at a 90 percent approval rating! There's never been a president that high."
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3luaiq67bm52j
Do we reckon it's fentanyl, coke or prescription drugs?
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/16/kentucky-governor-andy-beshear/
Wikipedia biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Beshear
LBJ who beat Goldwater also a southerner of course. Obama was from the MidWest.
Americans rarely elect Democrat presidential nominees from the coasts. Biden was the first since JFK from the coasts to win the presidency but Biden had been elected VP first of course.
Whereas Trump is from New York originally and other Republican Presidents like Nixon, Reagan and Bush 41 were from California or grew up in New England
They are better food/drink writers, not better food/drink critics.
And it is an art and very entertaining.
The worst thing, though, is when food critics think they are geopolitical analysts and, because they are successful, say, restaurant critics, are given by their paper a current affairs column. Ghastly and inane.
Meanwhile, there are those writers who defy logic as to why they are employed. Robert Crampton for me being the most notable example.
Devon County Council. Reform Councillor Ed Hill has been defenestrated from the Party for sending a letter to the "Kingsbridge and Salcombe Gazette" (great name) from all the Councillors. Nigel says something something something; he says he had authorisation.
Ed had reported a colleague for going over the election expenses limit by £170, after (aiuI) the colleague had plotted against him.
I'm beginning to think that the whole thing is a plot by wives of elderly men to get their hubbies away from the pigeons and dominoes.
https://www.kingsbridge-today.co.uk/news/reform-uk-expels-devon-councillor-ed-hill-for-unauthorised-letter-813544
https://x.com/robertjenrick/status/1946203405464056168
I call bullshit.
You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team.’ You must think we’re all thick.
No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you.
Reform should give you the boot.
1. You can change your mind between each round of an Exhaustive Ballot, as I'm sure many Tory MPs do when they vote for their leader. You can't change your mind with AV.
2. As mentioned upthread, you can't rank your choices during each round of an Exhaustive Ballot, like you can with AV.
3. AV is also called Instant Run-off Voting (IRV), so all voting is done in one round. Exhaustive Ballots are usually spread over many days, or even weeks.
SV is the low budget version of the French runoff system, where you aren't willing to pay for a second election day. Worse, but cheaper.
The same relationship (though probably not as harmful) exists between AV and EB.
They'll never gt my vote.
The end result won't be much different; it will just take longer.
New guidance from Bridget Philipson BANS materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" and orders teachers to teach "laws about biological sex".
It's Section 28 again.
https://x.com/leftiestats/status/1946174870271799750?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
And yes, to put @Mexicanpete point a touch differently, where on earth were the Tories on this ?
They don't have to be super tasters (or whatever the current term is), but they certainly need a palate better than mine, for which some foods (coriander or chilli for example) come across as simply inedible.
The texts they highlight say "Pupils should be taught the facts and the law about biological sex..." and "they should avoid materials that...encourage pupils to question their gender"
Where is LeftieStat's error?
(And PBers who are insufficiently keen on following links - recognising that I did not follow the further link which would have revealed the pronouns. Clearly @Leftiestats needs to put them in every tweet
Reform lead by 10pts
➡️ REF – 30% (-1)
🔴 LAB – 20% (-2)
🔵 CON – 17% (-2)
🟠 LD – 13% (-)
🟢 GRN – 12% (+3)
Via @FindoutnowUK, 16 Jul (+/- vs 9 Jul)
https://x.com/LeftieStats/status/1945796920070320145#m