“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
Two issues not addressed in there come to my mind -
1. Armour doesn't stop mission kill if the delicate radars and optronics are destroyed by blast, leaving the ship as a partly blinded hulk. 2. What about under-keel torpedo (and diving missile) defence? Torpedo defence took a huge amount of battleshipo volume in WW2 and didn't work very well even then.
1 was an issue even in the heyday of battleships. You can't harden everything, it was common for sighting systems, electrics and hydraulics to get hit and be knocked out. The armour is really there to prevent serious damage to the machinery spaces, magazines and main guns.
You counter 2 by having dedicated ASW ships as escorts, which is what major navies do with their carriers.
WWII type battleships have marginal usefulness today. Their main role would be bombardment - a salvo of 9 x 16" shells every 30 seconds is an incredible amount of firepower. You can't jam, spoof or shoot down a wave of huge steel projectiles travelling at twice the speed of sound. But there's not much call for that now, particularly given even an upgraded battleship would have a firing range of something around 25 miles.
And they only hit something a few percent of the time.
Modern SAM system can easily shoot down 16" shells. A shoot down has been demonstrated on a 4.5" shell...
A modern SAM system a) may be able to hit *a* shell, but it's very much not going to be more than minimally effective when there are 18 shells per minute incoming, and b) it will run out of ammunition in minutes. Even an AA destroyer like the Type 45 could attempt intercepts on 5 salvos - less than 3 minutes of a Battleship firing - before shooting itself dry.
This scenario is based on a WWII era 30-second reload time for the battleship. Given the performance of modern automated naval guns, it's highly probable a modern auto-loading 16" gun could halve that time.
The physics of high speed autoloaders breaks down around the 8" size. At 250Kg shells it is difficult to rapidly accelerate and then stop them. With 1000Kg the breakages in the mechanism become inevitable.
No battleship ever managed 30 seconds in action. Some tried to claim that. But noticeably, when actually in service, they were much much slower. This was because of the fun that moving multiple tons around at high speed, in the confined space of a turret produces.
See the design reports from the US designers of the 8" Mark 16 turrets - who were asked about heavier calibers.
A Type 45 would being rude to the battleship from over the visible horizon. Out of range of the guns. That's the problem with battleship guns. 20 miles is fist fighting range.
You seem to be assuming that even 1% of the battleships shells *need* intercepting. Look up the historic hit rates. Against lines of ships that didn't manoeuvre (because they wanted steady bearings to shoot back).
"Under Siege" (the best Steven Seagal film ever made!)
Interesting point. Even when people put their pronouns in their email signature, I don't think I've ever seen anyone offer their equivalent title.
Dear XXXX, .....
ETA but if you're writing to a known person the issue doesn't arise. What is the suggested new generic form?
I tend to use "Good morning all" if plural, "Good morning Forename" if job title unknown, or "Good morning Professor Surname", if entitled. I've had to look up people on LinkedIn/Facebook to see how they entitle themselves, and just wait until you get to people with multiple titles, like "Professor Dame". If you deal with people in India it can be really complicated, since the names aren't obviously gendered and can be androgynous. I've never had to deal with people in Russia, which is a pity because I've always wanted to use "gospodin".
Now ask me about Spanish, Russian, or Icelandic naming conventions...
I usually go with:
"Hey guys," (which my wife thinks is terribly unprofessional).
Lol it's already started, an idiot lefty school friend has been spouting off on social media that the clashes in Gaza aren't Hamas attempting to purge the opposition but it's actually Mosad and IDF staging it to destabilise the peace process so the occupation can resume. I'm certain that there's plenty of other activists out there with similar views too. Social media has addled the brains of millions of people.
Interesting point. Even when people put their pronouns in their email signature, I don't think I've ever seen anyone offer their equivalent title.
Dear XXXX, .....
ETA but if you're writing to a known person the issue doesn't arise. What is the suggested new generic form?
I tend to use "Good morning all" if plural, "Good morning Forename" if job title unknown, or "Good morning Professor Surname", if entitled. I've had to look up people on LinkedIn/Facebook to see how they entitle themselves, and just wait until you get to people with multiple titles, like "Professor Dame". If you deal with people in India it can be really complicated, since the names aren't obviously gendered and can be androgynous. I've never had to deal with people in Russia, which is a pity because I've always wanted to use "gospodin".
Now ask me about Spanish, Russian, or Icelandic naming conventions...
I usually go with:
"Hey guys," (which my wife thinks is terribly unprofessional).
Interesting point. Even when people put their pronouns in their email signature, I don't think I've ever seen anyone offer their equivalent title.
Dear XXXX, .....
ETA but if you're writing to a known person the issue doesn't arise. What is the suggested new generic form?
I tend to use "Good morning all" if plural, "Good morning Forename" if job title unknown, or "Good morning Professor Surname", if entitled. I've had to look up people on LinkedIn/Facebook to see how they entitle themselves, and just wait until you get to people with multiple titles, like "Professor Dame". If you deal with people in India it can be really complicated, since the names aren't obviously gendered and can be androgynous. I've never had to deal with people in Russia, which is a pity because I've always wanted to use "gospodin".
Now ask me about Spanish, Russian, or Icelandic naming conventions...
I usually go with:
"Hey guys," (which my wife thinks is terribly unprofessional).
A friend of mine goes utterly apeshit at the use of "guys"!
I used to use ‘guys’ all the time leading my running group, which was typically 100% female.
Two issues not addressed in there come to my mind -
1. Armour doesn't stop mission kill if the delicate radars and optronics are destroyed by blast, leaving the ship as a partly blinded hulk. 2. What about under-keel torpedo (and diving missile) defence? Torpedo defence took a huge amount of battleshipo volume in WW2 and didn't work very well even then.
1 was an issue even in the heyday of battleships. You can't harden everything, it was common for sighting systems, electrics and hydraulics to get hit and be knocked out. The armour is really there to prevent serious damage to the machinery spaces, magazines and main guns.
You counter 2 by having dedicated ASW ships as escorts, which is what major navies do with their carriers.
WWII type battleships have marginal usefulness today. Their main role would be bombardment - a salvo of 9 x 16" shells every 30 seconds is an incredible amount of firepower. You can't jam, spoof or shoot down a wave of huge steel projectiles travelling at twice the speed of sound. But there's not much call for that now, particularly given even an upgraded battleship would have a firing range of something around 25 miles.
And they only hit something a few percent of the time.
Modern SAM system can easily shoot down 16" shells. A shoot down has been demonstrated on a 4.5" shell...
A modern SAM system a) may be able to hit *a* shell, but it's very much not going to be more than minimally effective when there are 18 shells per minute incoming, and b) it will run out of ammunition in minutes. Even an AA destroyer like the Type 45 could attempt intercepts on 5 salvos - less than 3 minutes of a Battleship firing - before shooting itself dry.
This scenario is based on a WWII era 30-second reload time for the battleship. Given the performance of modern automated naval guns, it's highly probable a modern auto-loading 16" gun could halve that time.
The physics of high speed autoloaders breaks down around the 8" size. At 250Kg shells it is difficult to rapidly accelerate and then stop them. With 1000Kg the breakages in the mechanism become inevitable.
No battleship ever managed 30 seconds in action. Some tried to claim that. But noticeably, when actually in service, they were much much slower. This was because of the fun that moving multiple tons around at high speed, in the confined space of a turret produces.
See the design reports from the US designers of the 8" Mark 16 turrets - who were asked about heavier calibers.
A Type 45 would being rude to the battleship from over the visible horizon. Out of range of the guns. That's the problem with battleship guns. 20 miles is fist fighting range.
You seem to be assuming that even 1% of the battleships shells *need* intercepting. Look up the historic hit rates. Against lines of ships that didn't manoeuvre (because they wanted steady bearings to shoot back).
"Under Siege" (the best Steven Seagal film ever made!)
I’m just back from a preview showing of “Mr Nobody Against Putin”, a fantastic documentary about the descent of Russia ever deeper into fascism and militarism. It was made by someone working at a school in a small and relatively remote Russian town, and he captured how all these instructions came from Moscow that the children must sing patriotic songs and be taught from a script about the evils of Ukraine and the West. Meanwhile, the school kids’ brothers are being conscripted, the school leavers face conscription. It’s a very personal film, a very touching film. They had to spirit the filmmaker out of Russia before they could release the film and he’s now been given asylum in Europe.
I say a preview, but we weren’t watching it very early, as the film will be up on iPlayer in seven and a half hours, as I write. Watch it on Tuesday evening!
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
I’m just back from a preview showing of “Mr Nobody Against Putin”, a fantastic documentary about the descent of Russia ever deeper into fascism and militarism. It was made by someone working at a school in a small and relatively remote Russian town, and he captured how all these instructions came from Moscow that the children must sing patriotic songs and be taught from a script about the evils of Ukraine and the West. Meanwhile, the school kids’ brothers are being conscripted, the school leavers face conscription. It’s a very personal film, a very touching film. They had to spirit the filmmaker out of Russia before they could release the film and he’s now been given asylum in Europe.
I say a preview, but we weren’t watching it very early, as the film will be up on iPlayer in seven and a half hours, as I write. Watch it on Tuesday evening!
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
Jiminy Cricket, the meth towns of southern Oregon are something else. They make West Virginia look opulent and dainty
You in Medford?
Heading towards Grants Pass
Pass through and go to Medford. That truly is the capital of Meth in Southern Oregon. (Klamuth Falls used to have that title, but apparently it's been cleaned up.)
I dunno. Cave Junction must be up there
Yesterday I went through Eureka, Ca. I cannot imagine a more inapposite name
It turned out “the cycling” was a kind of pedalled individual mini e-train thingummy along the old Skunkrail timber train tracks. Cheesy and touristy but fun - and it delivered me right into the heart of a lovely redwood grove (hence the pics)
But honestly these redwood forests just get more and more spectacular - every time you’ve seen the ultimate they outdo themselves. Laced with mist, exploding with light, cedar-scented visions of the sublime, with some nice coffee stops
I’m off to another now. Jedediah Smith on the Cali Oregon border. Said to be maybe the best. I can’t see how it can be better than stuff I’ve already gasped at. It let’s have a go….
I see. I've been pondering doing some cycling in the US. I'm no great cyclist but I do enjoy it. The Erie canal looks a strong possibility, but was interested by your reference.
PS you can easily hire bikes in any of these redwood forests. I can’t imagine there is much more spectacular cycling anywhere in the world. Aim for this time of year. September/early October
You can also cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. That’s a blast
A few years ago my good lady and I went walking through some redwoods, on the back of coming out of Yosemite on the way down to Carmel by the sea. It was just so incredibly peaceful, and was an unexpected highlight of our trip.
There are far more redwoods in the UK than in the USA.
It's just that as they're relatively young, they haven't grown as tall yet. I'll never live to see if they do.
Hmm, I'm not sure that passes the sniff test, particularly the coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) that Leon is visiting (as opposed to the giant redwoods, Sequoiadendron giganteum). The coastal ones don't do so well in the UK as they get blown down. They have a different growth habit, tending to just go straight up rather than having most of the weight at the bottom.
There are also a lot of secondary growth woodlands in coastal California, even if they haven't yet reached 110m tall.
It's the giant redwoods AIUI. And there's a lot more: half a million in the UK compared to 80,000 in the USA. Though the numbers are estimates. Blame Victorian collectors.
Yes, that seems more likely, at least counting the planted UK population vs native US populations.
I planted a giant redwood in my front garden about 20 years ago, just for the lolz, but sadly it is looking very dead this year having just overtaken all the street trees. Drought, possibly made worse by some fungal infection or other. Bit gutted.
There are several collections that are worth visiting in the UK.
My favourites are at Scone Palace, which also had the first Douglas Fir brought back from the US along with some Sitka Spruce. They all all a decent size now.
Don't Redwood trees have rather shallow root systems and rely on interlinking with the roots of neighbouring Redwoods for support, so they tend not to thrive as single trees? I've seen this adopted as a kind of woke internet meme recently. And now of course the Redwood tree also serves as a metaphor for Travis Kelce's penis. A very on trend tree.
We can't even afford a decent stock of missiles for the platforms we already have..
It was once estimated that you could get a Tomahawk type missile down to the $100K a piece level with mass production. we are talking 10,000+ units.
These days probably less. The main fun bit is the terrain following - the guidance computer is trivial.
["Under Siege": Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey are looking at the Tomahawks]
Tommy: These things are gonna sell like hotcakes! Gary: Absolutely. Tommy: What are you gonna do when you get two hundred million dollars in the bank? Gary: Buy the presidency!
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
I don’t see any way around that demographic data for any political party in the UK. It is dynamite. Even if Starmer stopped all the boats tomorrow and brought net migration down to 3 people and a trained poodle - which he won’t - the demographic trend is now firmly towards native Brits becoming a minority with startling speed
This has never happened before in a peaceful way, as far as I know. I do not believe it will happen in Britain. The locals will vote for parties that deport
This is not a partisan point. It is a factual observation of human nature
Two issues not addressed in there come to my mind -
1. Armour doesn't stop mission kill if the delicate radars and optronics are destroyed by blast, leaving the ship as a partly blinded hulk. 2. What about under-keel torpedo (and diving missile) defence? Torpedo defence took a huge amount of battleshipo volume in WW2 and didn't work very well even then.
1 was an issue even in the heyday of battleships. You can't harden everything, it was common for sighting systems, electrics and hydraulics to get hit and be knocked out. The armour is really there to prevent serious damage to the machinery spaces, magazines and main guns.
You counter 2 by having dedicated ASW ships as escorts, which is what major navies do with their carriers.
WWII type battleships have marginal usefulness today. Their main role would be bombardment - a salvo of 9 x 16" shells every 30 seconds is an incredible amount of firepower. You can't jam, spoof or shoot down a wave of huge steel projectiles travelling at twice the speed of sound. But there's not much call for that now, particularly given even an upgraded battleship would have a firing range of something around 25 miles.
And they only hit something a few percent of the time.
Modern SAM system can easily shoot down 16" shells. A shoot down has been demonstrated on a 4.5" shell...
A modern SAM system a) may be able to hit *a* shell, but it's very much not going to be more than minimally effective when there are 18 shells per minute incoming, and b) it will run out of ammunition in minutes. Even an AA destroyer like the Type 45 could attempt intercepts on 5 salvos - less than 3 minutes of a Battleship firing - before shooting itself dry.
This scenario is based on a WWII era 30-second reload time for the battleship. Given the performance of modern automated naval guns, it's highly probable a modern auto-loading 16" gun could halve that time.
The physics of high speed autoloaders breaks down around the 8" size. At 250Kg shells it is difficult to rapidly accelerate and then stop them. With 1000Kg the breakages in the mechanism become inevitable.
No battleship ever managed 30 seconds in action. Some tried to claim that. But noticeably, when actually in service, they were much much slower. This was because of the fun that moving multiple tons around at high speed, in the confined space of a turret produces.
See the design reports from the US designers of the 8" Mark 16 turrets - who were asked about heavier calibers.
A Type 45 would being rude to the battleship from over the visible horizon. Out of range of the guns. That's the problem with battleship guns. 20 miles is fist fighting range.
You seem to be assuming that even 1% of the battleships shells *need* intercepting. Look up the historic hit rates. Against lines of ships that didn't manoeuvre (because they wanted steady bearings to shoot back).
You and your Type 45!
"Under Siege" (the best Steven Seagal film ever made!) simply wouldn't have worked if they'd substituted a Type 45 (or equivalent) for USS Missouri.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
As someone who couldn't speak a word of English upon arrival in the UK back in 1976*, I think English is the best language in the world!
* probably because I was only 4 months old
My brothers in law arrived in the UK as young children speaking no English and now it's the only language they understand. They're both doctors and are probably rather more useful and productive citizens than Goodwin.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
Lol it's already started, an idiot lefty school friend has been spouting off on social media that the clashes in Gaza aren't Hamas attempting to purge the opposition but it's actually Mosad and IDF staging it to destabilise the peace process so the occupation can resume. I'm certain that there's plenty of other activists out there with similar views too. Social media has addled the brains of millions of people.
Yeah, people that suck up conspiracy theories from the internet about who killed who are mental.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
As someone who couldn't speak a word of English upon arrival in the UK back in 1976*, I think English is the best language in the world!
* probably because I was only 4 months old
My brothers in law arrived in the UK as young children speaking no English and now it's the only language they understand. They're both doctors and are probably rather more useful and productive citizens than Goodwin.
If only they were all doctors. But they’re not, are they? So your point is irrelevant and fatuous
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
It turned out “the cycling” was a kind of pedalled individual mini e-train thingummy along the old Skunkrail timber train tracks. Cheesy and touristy but fun - and it delivered me right into the heart of a lovely redwood grove (hence the pics)
But honestly these redwood forests just get more and more spectacular - every time you’ve seen the ultimate they outdo themselves. Laced with mist, exploding with light, cedar-scented visions of the sublime, with some nice coffee stops
I’m off to another now. Jedediah Smith on the Cali Oregon border. Said to be maybe the best. I can’t see how it can be better than stuff I’ve already gasped at. It let’s have a go….
I see. I've been pondering doing some cycling in the US. I'm no great cyclist but I do enjoy it. The Erie canal looks a strong possibility, but was interested by your reference.
PS you can easily hire bikes in any of these redwood forests. I can’t imagine there is much more spectacular cycling anywhere in the world. Aim for this time of year. September/early October
You can also cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. That’s a blast
A few years ago my good lady and I went walking through some redwoods, on the back of coming out of Yosemite on the way down to Carmel by the sea. It was just so incredibly peaceful, and was an unexpected highlight of our trip.
There are far more redwoods in the UK than in the USA.
It's just that as they're relatively young, they haven't grown as tall yet. I'll never live to see if they do.
Hmm, I'm not sure that passes the sniff test, particularly the coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) that Leon is visiting (as opposed to the giant redwoods, Sequoiadendron giganteum). The coastal ones don't do so well in the UK as they get blown down. They have a different growth habit, tending to just go straight up rather than having most of the weight at the bottom.
There are also a lot of secondary growth woodlands in coastal California, even if they haven't yet reached 110m tall.
It's the giant redwoods AIUI. And there's a lot more: half a million in the UK compared to 80,000 in the USA. Though the numbers are estimates. Blame Victorian collectors.
Yes, that seems more likely, at least counting the planted UK population vs native US populations.
I planted a giant redwood in my front garden about 20 years ago, just for the lolz, but sadly it is looking very dead this year having just overtaken all the street trees. Drought, possibly made worse by some fungal infection or other. Bit gutted.
There are several collections that are worth visiting in the UK.
My favourites are at Scone Palace, which also had the first Douglas Fir brought back from the US along with some Sitka Spruce. They all all a decent size now.
Don't Redwood trees have rather shallow root systems and rely on interlinking with the roots of neighbouring Redwoods for support, so they tend not to thrive as single trees? I've seen this adopted as a kind of woke internet meme recently. And now of course the Redwood tree also serves as a metaphor for Travis Kelce's penis. A very on trend tree.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
Still not watching.
Also, when he arrives on one of his international jollies and is filmed disembarking from the plane, why does he insist on wearing that horrible open-necked dark grey shirt like he's having a pint after work with the rest of the accountancy team?
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
Strangely enough the anti-Trump Dem and ex-Republican YouTube channels I watch noted Trump's insane ramblings, particularly his anti -Biden and "Abraham " confusion monologue, as opposed to the anti-Starmer PBers who see Starmer as the offender. Interesting.
It's Trump's day. He has his win but blimey you guys can't see the wood for the trees.
Lol it's already started, an idiot lefty school friend has been spouting off on social media that the clashes in Gaza aren't Hamas attempting to purge the opposition but it's actually Mosad and IDF staging it to destabilise the peace process so the occupation can resume. I'm certain that there's plenty of other activists out there with similar views too. Social media has addled the brains of millions of people.
Yeah, people that suck up conspiracy theories from the internet about who killed who are mental.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
As someone who couldn't speak a word of English upon arrival in the UK back in 1976*, I think English is the best language in the world!
* probably because I was only 4 months old
My brothers in law arrived in the UK as young children speaking no English and now it's the only language they understand. They're both doctors and are probably rather more useful and productive citizens than Goodwin.
If only they were all doctors. But they’re not, are they? So your point is irrelevant and fatuous
They're more likely to become doctors than white British people are, statistically speaking. And our demographics would be even worse if you were to cut our birthrate by 30%. You're a dinosaur, living in some dead, imaginary, world of "native Britons" that hasn't existed for my lifetime or longer, living in fear of the other when in fact it is race purists with their fantasy of deportations and their dreams of "white babies" who are the threat. If anybody comes for my family or my friends they'd better come armed to the teeth.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
It is brutal. I have to admit it did leave me feeling rather sorry for Starmer, a feeling I don’t get very often, but as much as I’m not a fan the cringe is off the charts. he probably thought he was going to get singled out for some extra praise.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
As someone who couldn't speak a word of English upon arrival in the UK back in 1976*, I think English is the best language in the world!
* probably because I was only 4 months old
My brothers in law arrived in the UK as young children speaking no English and now it's the only language they understand. They're both doctors and are probably rather more useful and productive citizens than Goodwin.
I have a friend whose first language wasn’t English. He speaks English fluently, but he’s very proud of his first language, loves going on about how special a language it is. We tease him about it. But that’s what Welsh speakers can be like!
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
As someone who couldn't speak a word of English upon arrival in the UK back in 1976*, I think English is the best language in the world!
* probably because I was only 4 months old
My brothers in law arrived in the UK as young children speaking no English and now it's the only language they understand. They're both doctors and are probably rather more useful and productive citizens than Goodwin.
If only they were all doctors. But they’re not, are they? So your point is irrelevant and fatuous
They're more likely to become doctors than white British people are, statistically speaking. And our demographics would be even worse if you were to cut our birthrate by 30%. You're a dinosaur, living in some dead, imaginary, world of "native Britons" that hasn't existed for my lifetime or longer, living in fear of the other when in fact it is race purists with their fantasy of deportations and their dreams of "white babies" who are the threat. If anybody comes for my family or my friends they'd better come armed to the teeth.
Tell that to British Jews newly menaced by imported anti Semitism. We had an account of that yesterday, on here
Either way this will be decided democratically - I hope. And I firmly believe the British will democratically vote Reform because of data like this. It’s almost inevitable
It turned out “the cycling” was a kind of pedalled individual mini e-train thingummy along the old Skunkrail timber train tracks. Cheesy and touristy but fun - and it delivered me right into the heart of a lovely redwood grove (hence the pics)
But honestly these redwood forests just get more and more spectacular - every time you’ve seen the ultimate they outdo themselves. Laced with mist, exploding with light, cedar-scented visions of the sublime, with some nice coffee stops
I’m off to another now. Jedediah Smith on the Cali Oregon border. Said to be maybe the best. I can’t see how it can be better than stuff I’ve already gasped at. It let’s have a go….
I see. I've been pondering doing some cycling in the US. I'm no great cyclist but I do enjoy it. The Erie canal looks a strong possibility, but was interested by your reference.
PS you can easily hire bikes in any of these redwood forests. I can’t imagine there is much more spectacular cycling anywhere in the world. Aim for this time of year. September/early October
You can also cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. That’s a blast
A few years ago my good lady and I went walking through some redwoods, on the back of coming out of Yosemite on the way down to Carmel by the sea. It was just so incredibly peaceful, and was an unexpected highlight of our trip.
There are far more redwoods in the UK than in the USA.
It's just that as they're relatively young, they haven't grown as tall yet. I'll never live to see if they do.
Hmm, I'm not sure that passes the sniff test, particularly the coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) that Leon is visiting (as opposed to the giant redwoods, Sequoiadendron giganteum). The coastal ones don't do so well in the UK as they get blown down. They have a different growth habit, tending to just go straight up rather than having most of the weight at the bottom.
There are also a lot of secondary growth woodlands in coastal California, even if they haven't yet reached 110m tall.
It's the giant redwoods AIUI. And there's a lot more: half a million in the UK compared to 80,000 in the USA. Though the numbers are estimates. Blame Victorian collectors.
Yes, that seems more likely, at least counting the planted UK population vs native US populations.
I planted a giant redwood in my front garden about 20 years ago, just for the lolz, but sadly it is looking very dead this year having just overtaken all the street trees. Drought, possibly made worse by some fungal infection or other. Bit gutted.
There are several collections that are worth visiting in the UK.
My favourites are at Scone Palace, which also had the first Douglas Fir brought back from the US along with some Sitka Spruce. They all all a decent size now.
Don't Redwood trees have rather shallow root systems and rely on interlinking with the roots of neighbouring Redwoods for support, so they tend not to thrive as single trees? I've seen this adopted as a kind of woke internet meme recently. And now of course the Redwood tree also serves as a metaphor for Travis Kelce's penis. A very on trend tree.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
As someone who couldn't speak a word of English upon arrival in the UK back in 1976*, I think English is the best language in the world!
* probably because I was only 4 months old
My brothers in law arrived in the UK as young children speaking no English and now it's the only language they understand. They're both doctors and are probably rather more useful and productive citizens than Goodwin.
If only they were all doctors. But they’re not, are they? So your point is irrelevant and fatuous
They're more likely to become doctors than white British people are, statistically speaking. And our demographics would be even worse if you were to cut our birthrate by 30%. You're a dinosaur, living in some dead, imaginary, world of "native Britons" that hasn't existed for my lifetime or longer, living in fear of the other when in fact it is race purists with their fantasy of deportations and their dreams of "white babies" who are the threat. If anybody comes for my family or my friends they'd better come armed to the teeth.
Tell that to British Jews newly menaced by imported anti Semitism. We had an account of that yesterday, on here
Either way this will be decided democratically - I hope. And I firmly believe the British will democratically vote Reform because of data like this. It’s almost inevitable
By your logic the jews wouldn't have been welcomed here either. They were the sinister foreign influence once. People like you lobbied to limit their numbers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Lol it's already started, an idiot lefty school friend has been spouting off on social media that the clashes in Gaza aren't Hamas attempting to purge the opposition but it's actually Mosad and IDF staging it to destabilise the peace process so the occupation can resume. I'm certain that there's plenty of other activists out there with similar views too. Social media has addled the brains of millions of people.
It has. It's a big driver of nutcase conspiracy theories (like that one), extremist identity politics and dumbo populism. Elon Musk has turbocharged this since acquiring X. The whole thing needs a clip but how you'd do that god only knows.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
As someone who couldn't speak a word of English upon arrival in the UK back in 1976*, I think English is the best language in the world!
* probably because I was only 4 months old
My brothers in law arrived in the UK as young children speaking no English and now it's the only language they understand. They're both doctors and are probably rather more useful and productive citizens than Goodwin.
If only they were all doctors. But they’re not, are they? So your point is irrelevant and fatuous
They're more likely to become doctors than white British people are, statistically speaking. And our demographics would be even worse if you were to cut our birthrate by 30%. You're a dinosaur, living in some dead, imaginary, world of "native Britons" that hasn't existed for my lifetime or longer, living in fear of the other when in fact it is race purists with their fantasy of deportations and their dreams of "white babies" who are the threat. If anybody comes for my family or my friends they'd better come armed to the teeth.
Tell that to British Jews newly menaced by imported anti Semitism. We had an account of that yesterday, on here
Either way this will be decided democratically - I hope. And I firmly believe the British will democratically vote Reform because of data like this. It’s almost inevitable
They're not being menaced by primary or nursery school children though are they? I have no concerns about what the first language of primary school children is because children learn their new language incredibly fast. It's the number of adults who don't have a strong command of English that is a cause for concern.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
As someone who couldn't speak a word of English upon arrival in the UK back in 1976*, I think English is the best language in the world!
* probably because I was only 4 months old
My brothers in law arrived in the UK as young children speaking no English and now it's the only language they understand. They're both doctors and are probably rather more useful and productive citizens than Goodwin.
If only they were all doctors. But they’re not, are they? So your point is irrelevant and fatuous
They're more likely to become doctors than white British people are, statistically speaking. And our demographics would be even worse if you were to cut our birthrate by 30%. You're a dinosaur, living in some dead, imaginary, world of "native Britons" that hasn't existed for my lifetime or longer, living in fear of the other when in fact it is race purists with their fantasy of deportations and their dreams of "white babies" who are the threat. If anybody comes for my family or my friends they'd better come armed to the teeth.
Tell that to British Jews newly menaced by imported anti Semitism. We had an account of that yesterday, on here
Either way this will be decided democratically - I hope. And I firmly believe the British will democratically vote Reform because of data like this. It’s almost inevitable
By your logic the jews wouldn't have been welcomed here either. They were the sinister foreign influence once. People like you lobbied to limit their numbers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
And their first language was Yiddish or German or Russian. They even published a daily newspaper in Yiddish in the UK called Die Zeit.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
As someone who couldn't speak a word of English upon arrival in the UK back in 1976*, I think English is the best language in the world!
* probably because I was only 4 months old
My brothers in law arrived in the UK as young children speaking no English and now it's the only language they understand. They're both doctors and are probably rather more useful and productive citizens than Goodwin.
If only they were all doctors. But they’re not, are they? So your point is irrelevant and fatuous
They're more likely to become doctors than white British people are, statistically speaking. And our demographics would be even worse if you were to cut our birthrate by 30%. You're a dinosaur, living in some dead, imaginary, world of "native Britons" that hasn't existed for my lifetime or longer, living in fear of the other when in fact it is race purists with their fantasy of deportations and their dreams of "white babies" who are the threat. If anybody comes for my family or my friends they'd better come armed to the teeth.
Tell that to British Jews newly menaced by imported anti Semitism. We had an account of that yesterday, on here
Either way this will be decided democratically - I hope. And I firmly believe the British will democratically vote Reform because of data like this. It’s almost inevitable
They're not being menaced by primary or nursery school children though are they? I have no concerns about what the first language of primary school children is because children learn their new language incredibly fast. It's the number of adults who don't have a strong command of English that is a cause for concern.
Indeed it's adults. A Sri Lankan friend at university had a doctor father with perfect English. Her mother could barely string a sentence together after 30 years in England. All her friends were Sri Lankan, the TV at home set to a Sri Lankan cable channel, and so on.
It turned out “the cycling” was a kind of pedalled individual mini e-train thingummy along the old Skunkrail timber train tracks. Cheesy and touristy but fun - and it delivered me right into the heart of a lovely redwood grove (hence the pics)
But honestly these redwood forests just get more and more spectacular - every time you’ve seen the ultimate they outdo themselves. Laced with mist, exploding with light, cedar-scented visions of the sublime, with some nice coffee stops
I’m off to another now. Jedediah Smith on the Cali Oregon border. Said to be maybe the best. I can’t see how it can be better than stuff I’ve already gasped at. It let’s have a go….
I see. I've been pondering doing some cycling in the US. I'm no great cyclist but I do enjoy it. The Erie canal looks a strong possibility, but was interested by your reference.
PS you can easily hire bikes in any of these redwood forests. I can’t imagine there is much more spectacular cycling anywhere in the world. Aim for this time of year. September/early October
You can also cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. That’s a blast
A few years ago my good lady and I went walking through some redwoods, on the back of coming out of Yosemite on the way down to Carmel by the sea. It was just so incredibly peaceful, and was an unexpected highlight of our trip.
There are far more redwoods in the UK than in the USA.
It's just that as they're relatively young, they haven't grown as tall yet. I'll never live to see if they do.
Hmm, I'm not sure that passes the sniff test, particularly the coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) that Leon is visiting (as opposed to the giant redwoods, Sequoiadendron giganteum). The coastal ones don't do so well in the UK as they get blown down. They have a different growth habit, tending to just go straight up rather than having most of the weight at the bottom.
There are also a lot of secondary growth woodlands in coastal California, even if they haven't yet reached 110m tall.
It's the giant redwoods AIUI. And there's a lot more: half a million in the UK compared to 80,000 in the USA. Though the numbers are estimates. Blame Victorian collectors.
Yes, that seems more likely, at least counting the planted UK population vs native US populations.
I planted a giant redwood in my front garden about 20 years ago, just for the lolz, but sadly it is looking very dead this year having just overtaken all the street trees. Drought, possibly made worse by some fungal infection or other. Bit gutted.
There are several collections that are worth visiting in the UK.
My favourites are at Scone Palace, which also had the first Douglas Fir brought back from the US along with some Sitka Spruce. They all all a decent size now.
Don't Redwood trees have rather shallow root systems and rely on interlinking with the roots of neighbouring Redwoods for support, so they tend not to thrive as single trees? I've seen this adopted as a kind of woke internet meme recently. And now of course the Redwood tree also serves as a metaphor for Travis Kelce's penis. A very on trend tree.
Yes, that's true of quite a few tall conifers in the western US - they really don't do well as single or scattered trees. The coastal redwoods also dry out when standing alone - tall ones often lose their top if the summer fog fails to materialise.
I'm not going anywhere near the Travis Kelce question.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
As someone who couldn't speak a word of English upon arrival in the UK back in 1976*, I think English is the best language in the world!
* probably because I was only 4 months old
My brothers in law arrived in the UK as young children speaking no English and now it's the only language they understand. They're both doctors and are probably rather more useful and productive citizens than Goodwin.
If only they were all doctors. But they’re not, are they? So your point is irrelevant and fatuous
They're more likely to become doctors than white British people are, statistically speaking. And our demographics would be even worse if you were to cut our birthrate by 30%. You're a dinosaur, living in some dead, imaginary, world of "native Britons" that hasn't existed for my lifetime or longer, living in fear of the other when in fact it is race purists with their fantasy of deportations and their dreams of "white babies" who are the threat. If anybody comes for my family or my friends they'd better come armed to the teeth.
Tell that to British Jews newly menaced by imported anti Semitism. We had an account of that yesterday, on here
Either way this will be decided democratically - I hope. And I firmly believe the British will democratically vote Reform because of data like this. It’s almost inevitable
Oh dear, dear, dear.
Whereas I don't disagree that law abiding Jewish people in Britain going about their business who have been scared for their lives by bullying tactics from Gaza supporting white British people, there is also a symmetry for law abiding Muslim people in Britain going about their business who have been scared for their lives by bullying tactics from Gaza opposing white British people.
And your second paragraph makes no sense whatsoever. I assume you were about to compare and contrast a democratic coup with a violent one but you got tied up in your own hyperbole.
It turned out “the cycling” was a kind of pedalled individual mini e-train thingummy along the old Skunkrail timber train tracks. Cheesy and touristy but fun - and it delivered me right into the heart of a lovely redwood grove (hence the pics)
But honestly these redwood forests just get more and more spectacular - every time you’ve seen the ultimate they outdo themselves. Laced with mist, exploding with light, cedar-scented visions of the sublime, with some nice coffee stops
I’m off to another now. Jedediah Smith on the Cali Oregon border. Said to be maybe the best. I can’t see how it can be better than stuff I’ve already gasped at. It let’s have a go….
I see. I've been pondering doing some cycling in the US. I'm no great cyclist but I do enjoy it. The Erie canal looks a strong possibility, but was interested by your reference.
PS you can easily hire bikes in any of these redwood forests. I can’t imagine there is much more spectacular cycling anywhere in the world. Aim for this time of year. September/early October
You can also cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. That’s a blast
A few years ago my good lady and I went walking through some redwoods, on the back of coming out of Yosemite on the way down to Carmel by the sea. It was just so incredibly peaceful, and was an unexpected highlight of our trip.
There are far more redwoods in the UK than in the USA.
It's just that as they're relatively young, they haven't grown as tall yet. I'll never live to see if they do.
Hmm, I'm not sure that passes the sniff test, particularly the coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) that Leon is visiting (as opposed to the giant redwoods, Sequoiadendron giganteum). The coastal ones don't do so well in the UK as they get blown down. They have a different growth habit, tending to just go straight up rather than having most of the weight at the bottom.
There are also a lot of secondary growth woodlands in coastal California, even if they haven't yet reached 110m tall.
It's the giant redwoods AIUI. And there's a lot more: half a million in the UK compared to 80,000 in the USA. Though the numbers are estimates. Blame Victorian collectors.
Yes, that seems more likely, at least counting the planted UK population vs native US populations.
I planted a giant redwood in my front garden about 20 years ago, just for the lolz, but sadly it is looking very dead this year having just overtaken all the street trees. Drought, possibly made worse by some fungal infection or other. Bit gutted.
There are several collections that are worth visiting in the UK.
My favourites are at Scone Palace, which also had the first Douglas Fir brought back from the US along with some Sitka Spruce. They all all a decent size now.
Don't Redwood trees have rather shallow root systems and rely on interlinking with the roots of neighbouring Redwoods for support, so they tend not to thrive as single trees? I've seen this adopted as a kind of woke internet meme recently. And now of course the Redwood tree also serves as a metaphor for Travis Kelce's penis. A very on trend tree.
Yes, that's true of quite a few tall conifers in the western US - they really don't do well as single or scattered trees. The coastal redwoods also dry out when standing alone - tall ones often lose their top if the summer fog fails to materialise.
I'm not going anywhere near the Travis Kelce question.
By the sounds of things you wouldn't be able to get that near anyway.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
It is brutal. I have to admit it did leave me feeling rather sorry for Starmer, a feeling I don’t get very often, but as much as I’m not a fan the cringe is off the charts. he probably thought he was going to get singled out for some extra praise.
Just watched it. Bloke misunderstands doddery old uncle. Can't see the big deal.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
It is brutal. I have to admit it did leave me feeling rather sorry for Starmer, a feeling I don’t get very often, but as much as I’m not a fan the cringe is off the charts. he probably thought he was going to get singled out for some extra praise.
Just watched it. Bloke misunderstands doddery old uncle. Can't see the big deal.
Yeah, the only big deal is that the doddery old guy is President of a country.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
It is brutal. I have to admit it did leave me feeling rather sorry for Starmer, a feeling I don’t get very often, but as much as I’m not a fan the cringe is off the charts. he probably thought he was going to get singled out for some extra praise.
Just watched it. Bloke misunderstands doddery old uncle. Can't see the big deal.
Yeah, the only big deal is that the doddery old guy is President of a country.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
It is brutal. I have to admit it did leave me feeling rather sorry for Starmer, a feeling I don’t get very often, but as much as I’m not a fan the cringe is off the charts. he probably thought he was going to get singled out for some extra praise.
Just watched it. Bloke misunderstands doddery old uncle. Can't see the big deal.
lol. Starmer is utterly crushed. You can see it in his sad little face, as Meloni laughs, mockingly
It’s so bad it almost makes me feel sorry for him. But, nah
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
It is brutal. I have to admit it did leave me feeling rather sorry for Starmer, a feeling I don’t get very often, but as much as I’m not a fan the cringe is off the charts. he probably thought he was going to get singled out for some extra praise.
Just watched it. Bloke misunderstands rambling, senile and dangerous leader of the Free World. Can't see the big deal.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
It is brutal. I have to admit it did leave me feeling rather sorry for Starmer, a feeling I don’t get very often, but as much as I’m not a fan the cringe is off the charts. he probably thought he was going to get singled out for some extra praise.
Just watched it. Bloke misunderstands doddery old uncle. Can't see the big deal.
lol. Starmer is utterly crushed. You can see it in his sad little face, as Meloni laughs, mockingly
It’s so bad it almost makes me feel sorry for him. But, nah
Drinking again Leon? I've just watched it and it's nothing like you said.
It is quite amazing to me how out of touch John Swinney has been in the last few weeks. Firstly the shambles of the Jewish mourning and now the conference which has done nothing new but rehashed the old play book.
All the projections seem to say that the SNP will run away with Holyrood elections. I am not so sure. Recent byelection results for the SNP have been poor and the buzz about them just seems to have gone flat. The byelections have also shown that outside the core base of the SNP they have little other support except from some of the Green voters. This Thursday North Ayr byelection is a must win for the SNP or time to short the SNP at next May's election.
I don't think they will win it, by elections are free hits on the government, particularly low turnout. This one has a feel of plague on all your houses
I asked: "Are Australian traffic lights like British ones?"
Reply: "No, Australian and British traffic lights are not the same because they have different sequences and meanings for the amber light. Australian lights go directly from red to green, and the amber light means "prepare to stop," whereas in the UK, the sequence includes a red-and-amber combination before green to signal "prepare to go". "
I'm pretty sure this is completely wrong, and Australian traffic lights do have the red+amber sequence that British ones do.
I asked: "Are Australian traffic lights like British ones?"
Reply: "No, Australian and British traffic lights are not the same because they have different sequences and meanings for the amber light. Australian lights go directly from red to green, and the amber light means "prepare to stop," whereas in the UK, the sequence includes a red-and-amber combination before green to signal "prepare to go". "
I'm pretty sure this is completely wrong, and Australian traffic lights do have the red+amber sequence that British ones do.
I was reminding myself how bad Googles best-of-the-best coding agent was last night (they are due to release an even better "it's all over for coders" model in the next week or two).
I've updated the main.py file. However, I missed a few things.
- The main function in main.py is not defined. - The on_ready event in main.py is using datetime without importing it. - The main.py is missing the import datetime. - The main.py is missing the from datetime import datetime.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
It is brutal. I have to admit it did leave me feeling rather sorry for Starmer, a feeling I don’t get very often, but as much as I’m not a fan the cringe is off the charts. he probably thought he was going to get singled out for some extra praise.
Just watched it. Bloke misunderstands doddery old uncle. Can't see the big deal.
lol. Starmer is utterly crushed. You can see it in his sad little face, as Meloni laughs, mockingly
It’s so bad it almost makes me feel sorry for him. But, nah
Truly ridiculous comment. Have you forgotten your SDS tablets again?
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
It is brutal. I have to admit it did leave me feeling rather sorry for Starmer, a feeling I don’t get very often, but as much as I’m not a fan the cringe is off the charts. he probably thought he was going to get singled out for some extra praise.
Just watched it. Bloke misunderstands doddery old uncle. Can't see the big deal.
lol. Starmer is utterly crushed. You can see it in his sad little face, as Meloni laughs, mockingly
It’s so bad it almost makes me feel sorry for him. But, nah
Meloni is laughing even before Starmer makes his move.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
It is brutal. I have to admit it did leave me feeling rather sorry for Starmer, a feeling I don’t get very often, but as much as I’m not a fan the cringe is off the charts. he probably thought he was going to get singled out for some extra praise.
Just watched it. Bloke misunderstands doddery old uncle. Can't see the big deal.
lol. Starmer is utterly crushed. You can see it in his sad little face, as Meloni laughs, mockingly
It’s so bad it almost makes me feel sorry for him. But, nah
It does make me feel a bit sorry for him. Never has a grin been wiped off someone’s face so quickly.
Let’s imagine it were Boris or Farage and wonder what Starmer’s defence team would be saying
I’m at Grave Creek Blockhouse off interstate 5 in the middle of mellow nowhere, Oregon
And yet it marks one of the saddest episodes of the Indian-white wars of the 19th century
When the first settlers came here on the Oregon trail they found an empty yet fertile land, hence the Oregon trail. Thousands of pioneers followed. No natives. No rouble!
But the reason it was empty was because of earlier diseases brought by European sailors and trappers. Measles, smallpox etc. The latter - Englishmen from the Hudson Bay company - brought a form of malaria so virulent it wiped out NINETY SEVEN PERCENT of some tribes. Surely the worst plagues in history, per capita?
So the settlers filled the empty meadows and forests and eventually the remaining tribes fought back - but then they were all massacred by the US army
Pretty dark noom. A poetically inclined soul might see meth and fentanyl as some kind of belated karmic revenge by the old tribal gods
For all those of you who want an explanation of Blade Runner 2049 in Jungian terms - and I'm sure you are queuing up for this - you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5fbQ4hf068
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
Yeah, our kids probably in those stats. Fluent English, fluent German. I'm jealous and wish I'd had their advantages.
All your stirring about everyone voting for mass deporting. Just look at a primary school sometime. Kids who haven't yet learnt to hate based on differences, just playing together, making friends, without all the hangups that come later. It's a refreshing antidote for too much time online.
Lol it's already started, an idiot lefty school friend has been spouting off on social media that the clashes in Gaza aren't Hamas attempting to purge the opposition but it's actually Mosad and IDF staging it to destabilise the peace process so the occupation can resume. I'm certain that there's plenty of other activists out there with similar views too. Social media has addled the brains of millions of people.
It has. It's a big driver of nutcase conspiracy theories (like that one), extremist identity politics and dumbo populism. Elon Musk has turbocharged this since acquiring X. The whole thing needs a clip but how you'd do that god only knows.
I take the optimistic view that we are, as a society, still adjusting to social media, and the relentless decline in informational value.
Over time, we will see it in much the same way one views the people who stand near bus stops yelling about salvation and the second coming at the top of their lungs.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
As someone who couldn't speak a word of English upon arrival in the UK back in 1976*, I think English is the best language in the world!
* probably because I was only 4 months old
My brothers in law arrived in the UK as young children speaking no English and now it's the only language they understand. They're both doctors and are probably rather more useful and productive citizens than Goodwin.
If only they were all doctors. But they’re not, are they? So your point is irrelevant and fatuous
They're more likely to become doctors than white British people are, statistically speaking. And our demographics would be even worse if you were to cut our birthrate by 30%. You're a dinosaur, living in some dead, imaginary, world of "native Britons" that hasn't existed for my lifetime or longer, living in fear of the other when in fact it is race purists with their fantasy of deportations and their dreams of "white babies" who are the threat. If anybody comes for my family or my friends they'd better come armed to the teeth.
Tell that to British Jews newly menaced by imported anti Semitism. We had an account of that yesterday, on here
Either way this will be decided democratically - I hope. And I firmly believe the British will democratically vote Reform because of data like this. It’s almost inevitable
They're not being menaced by primary or nursery school children though are they? I have no concerns about what the first language of primary school children is because children learn their new language incredibly fast. It's the number of adults who don't have a strong command of English that is a cause for concern.
Mrs J was about six when her family were posted to London. She was dumped into a primary school near Regent's Park knowing basically just "Hello" and "thanks". She learnt English incredibly fast, as she needed to. Her English is now of a better standard than mine, despite that stint in the UK only lasting two years, and her not coming back to the UK until she was in her mid-twenties.
Unfortunately the other kids also taught her swear words.
(Oddly enough, her uni in Turkey teaches in English.)
...After conducting their own two-month investigation, prosecutors in Virginia reached the same conclusion as both Durham and the D.C. prosecutors: They'd be unable to prove Comey made false statements to Congress to obstruct their investigation. Presenting their findings in a lengthy declination memo, the prosecutors explicitly mentioned the two other investigations to bolster their recommendation that probable cause does not exist to charge Comey, according to sources familiar with the contents of the memo. ..
Unless you're charging him with being an effing idiot.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
Here in Wales, particularly North Wales, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, loads of primary school children speak English as a second language.
What does your racially loaded point actually demonstrate? Do you want to send the Welsh back from where they came? That would be 1000bc Eastern Central Europe.
“19.2% of children in UK secondary schools, 23.4% in UK primary schools, and 30.2% of children in nursery do not speak English as their first language.
Here in Wales, particularly North Wales, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, loads of primary school children speak English as a second language.
What does your racially loaded point actually demonstrate? Do you want to send the Welsh back from where they came? That would be 1000bc Eastern Central Europe.
One of my regrets in life is being an archetypal Englishman who knows no other language, aside from a little schoolboy French. I have so many friends who are multilingual.
I’m at Grave Creek Blockhouse off interstate 5 in the middle of mellow nowhere, Oregon
And yet it marks one of the saddest episodes of the Indian-white wars of the 19th century
When the first settlers came here on the Oregon trail they found an empty yet fertile land, hence the Oregon trail. Thousands of pioneers followed. No natives. No rouble!
But the reason it was empty was because of earlier diseases brought by European sailors and trappers. Measles, smallpox etc. The latter - Englishmen from the Hudson Bay company - brought a form of malaria so virulent it wiped out NINETY SEVEN PERCENT of some tribes. Surely the worst plagues in history, per capita?
So the settlers filled the empty meadows and forests and eventually the remaining tribes fought back - but then they were all massacred by the US army
Pretty dark noom. A poetically inclined soul might see meth and fentanyl as some kind of belated karmic revenge by the old tribal gods
Dark noom indeed. Of which Trump & Co are proud. This was the Dept of Homeland Security Twitter on July 23, 2025. That's down to Trump's head being in part stuck in around 1890. https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1948150126494482555?lang=en
A long list, but the highlights are several enemy facilities damaged, several kilometers of Ukranian pushback on the front lines, and quite a bit of diplomacy on the sidelines of other events. Zelensky to meet Trump on Friday in Washington, possibly to finalise transfer of Tomahawks, and the EU close to raiding their pile of seized Russian assets to fund more weapons.
Right to repair is really important; and Bosch are taking it away, not to make their goods more reliable, but to make them harder to repair - and hence increase sales. They will not be alone.
Currently a similar cost to nuclear (and far faster to build). As battery prices continue to fall, it will get cheaper.
UAE is fortunate in that power demand matches pretty closely with solar generation, as the biggest load is for air conditioning in the summer. The batteries allow for an evening peak as people arrive home from work.
UAE plans for pretty much their entire grid to be powered by nuclear and solar by 2035. They’re also fortunate in having thousands of square miles of empty desert in which huge solar facilities can be accommodated.
I looked up the stats and 35% of children in my son's primary school do not speak English as their first language. Well above the national average.
At least across our classes, almost all spoke English fluently upon entry in Reception. And 100% have been completely fluent by the start of Year 1.
It may amaze some old folks, but young children's brains are much better adapted to learning languages and it's the best time to learn more than one. They've learnt aged 5 (fluency in 2 or more languages) what it takes years of adults messing around on Duolingo to do.
Some people are just trying to be outraged over nothing in order to extend the culture wars beyond the narrow issue of reducing net migration and onto white English nationalism.
Useful for bombardment of ground defences. Not useful for much else. Would get destroyed in about 15 minutes in the event of an actual war with anyone who has better than WW2 technology.
The first thing I thought of when reading of Swinney's frankly absurd statement was how much it reminded me of the 1720 South Sea Bubble prospectus which lured investors into putting money into “an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.”
The fact is that the SNP have never been straight about the economic deal. The "white paper" of their economic policies pre-Sindyref actually made me very angry- it was deeply unserious and was basically asking us to believe in pixie dust. There was and is no way that we can maintain a currency union with Sterling if we are going to go for independence, it is just the reality of economics. You have to accept it and provide serious answers, not pretending that it doesn't matter.
Had the Yes campaign actually turned round and said "look it won't be easy and things will be tough for a while, but it will be worth it", then I could have respected their position, but by pretending that it would all be sweetness and light from day one, it was basically fraud.
Then there is the SNP and the North East. Earlier today there were a few comments about the A9 and the A96. The fact is that despite bringing home the bacon from the North Sea fro the last 50 years, the North East got no serious infrastructure investment. The AWPR was delayed for over a decade, after Nicol Stephen had already agreed the deal, because the SNP "had other priorities". The Dundee Ring Road was in need of an upgrade 40 years ago- it needs to happen now.
The runway at Dyce is still too short to take jets direct from Houston or the Gulf- and owing to a major balls up with the AWPR there is no way the airport can ever really expand, and anyway the terminal should be moved back to the railway side if you were going to be serious about better public transport links. The Railway is not electrified to Aberdeen- it takes an average of 3 hours 8 minutes to get to Edinburgh- whereas Edinburgh-London generally takes just over 4 hours for more than twice the distance.
Local Police and Fire services are now, like much else, run from the central belt. Forty years ago we were talking about diversifying the local economy, but in fact with the closure of paper mills (like Taits), cloth (Crombie) the Loco works, the Police etc etc etc the fact is that the North East is in a very bad way economically now. The only mercy is that he SNP has been found out- their support is falling across the North east and the Highlands.
Good! They deserve to be punished for their witless, centralizing, incompetence.
Fair enough. If only most English politicians were noticeably more competent or honest ...
Labour seem to think, against all experience, that kicking the private sector in the balls again and again will stimulate growth, the Conservatives seem unsure whether to imitate Labour or Reform, the Lib Dems try to be all things to all men as usual and Reform's policies make the SNP's look realistic.
I think 100% of kids at my daughter's nursery have English as a first language.
I think probably 80% of kids at my son's nursery do but they all speak English in the nursery.
There's a world of difference between what the parents speak at home to each other - which might be what qualifies as "first" - and what they use to each other every day. And I think under that definition Kemi Badenoch's first language might even have been Yoruba.
Nevertheless, 30%+ is very high and worthy of noting. It means in many of our major cities there will be a very clear majority where English is not the first language and they probably don't need to use it much day to day at all.
The Vodafone issue shows the importance of maintaining CASH.
My phone didn't have signal but I was still able to pay with it. OTOH, I did have to spend 45 minutes in Morrisons without a podcast which was mildly horrifying.
It turned out “the cycling” was a kind of pedalled individual mini e-train thingummy along the old Skunkrail timber train tracks. Cheesy and touristy but fun - and it delivered me right into the heart of a lovely redwood grove (hence the pics)
But honestly these redwood forests just get more and more spectacular - every time you’ve seen the ultimate they outdo themselves. Laced with mist, exploding with light, cedar-scented visions of the sublime, with some nice coffee stops
I’m off to another now. Jedediah Smith on the Cali Oregon border. Said to be maybe the best. I can’t see how it can be better than stuff I’ve already gasped at. It let’s have a go….
I see. I've been pondering doing some cycling in the US. I'm no great cyclist but I do enjoy it. The Erie canal looks a strong possibility, but was interested by your reference.
PS you can easily hire bikes in any of these redwood forests. I can’t imagine there is much more spectacular cycling anywhere in the world. Aim for this time of year. September/early October
You can also cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. That’s a blast
A few years ago my good lady and I went walking through some redwoods, on the back of coming out of Yosemite on the way down to Carmel by the sea. It was just so incredibly peaceful, and was an unexpected highlight of our trip.
There are far more redwoods in the UK than in the USA.
It's just that as they're relatively young, they haven't grown as tall yet. I'll never live to see if they do.
Hmm, I'm not sure that passes the sniff test, particularly the coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) that Leon is visiting (as opposed to the giant redwoods, Sequoiadendron giganteum). The coastal ones don't do so well in the UK as they get blown down. They have a different growth habit, tending to just go straight up rather than having most of the weight at the bottom.
There are also a lot of secondary growth woodlands in coastal California, even if they haven't yet reached 110m tall.
It's the giant redwoods AIUI. And there's a lot more: half a million in the UK compared to 80,000 in the USA. Though the numbers are estimates. Blame Victorian collectors.
It's going to eat that steel container in a few years...
I've got a few piccies, taken over fifteen years or so, of a tree engulfing a metal 'no fishing' sign as it grows. On the Nene Way to the east of Wansford.
Sadly, I couldn't find it last time I ran past.
I've seen it on dismantled railways as well, where a Southern Railway wire and post fence is gradually reinforced by oak trees that have grown around it since the line closed in the 60s.
The Vodafone issue shows the importance of maintaining CASH.
Except even cash is very dependent on electronic systems in ATMs, electronic tills etc.
The only thing that I have bought for cash in the last months is a portion of fish and chips.
If an outage such as yesterday’s was to persist for a week, which isn’t impossible, you’d be grateful for that handful of beer tokens you had lying around the house.
It’s worth keeping a couple of weeks’ expected spending in cash, and remember from the pandemic time just how quickly things can go sideways in an emergency with panic buying and hoarding of essentials.
Most children with English as an Additional Language (EAL) speak English to a bilingual standard. The largest cohort until recently at least had Polish as their first language. Their parents mostly speak good English. The children with poor English are mostly refugees - recently Ukrainian and Afghan.
I looked up the stats and 35% of children in my son's primary school do not speak English as their first language. Well above the national average.
At least across our classes, almost all spoke English fluently upon entry in Reception. And 100% have been completely fluent by the start of Year 1.
It may amaze some old folks, but young children's brains are much better adapted to learning languages and it's the best time to learn more than one. They've learnt aged 5 (fluency in 2 or more languages) what it takes years of adults messing around on Duolingo to do.
Some people are just trying to be outraged over nothing in order to extend the culture wars beyond the narrow issue of reducing net migration and onto white English nationalism.
My experience of this is families using their languages as a form of privacy, particularly on public transport. They'll have a chat with the bus driver in perfect English.
Youtube is telling me that Trump told Starmer to go away during his speech.
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
It is brutal. I have to admit it did leave me feeling rather sorry for Starmer, a feeling I don’t get very often, but as much as I’m not a fan the cringe is off the charts. he probably thought he was going to get singled out for some extra praise.
Just watched it. Bloke misunderstands doddery old uncle. Can't see the big deal.
lol. Starmer is utterly crushed. You can see it in his sad little face, as Meloni laughs, mockingly
It’s so bad it almost makes me feel sorry for him. But, nah
Meloni is laughing even before Starmer makes his move.
She is, but at something else. You can see her biting her lip and trying not to laugh when Starmer is dismissed (not even dismissed - Trump just turns his back)
I looked up the stats and 35% of children in my son's primary school do not speak English as their first language. Well above the national average.
At least across our classes, almost all spoke English fluently upon entry in Reception. And 100% have been completely fluent by the start of Year 1.
It may amaze some old folks, but young children's brains are much better adapted to learning languages and it's the best time to learn more than one. They've learnt aged 5 (fluency in 2 or more languages) what it takes years of adults messing around on Duolingo to do.
Some people are just trying to be outraged over nothing in order to extend the culture wars beyond the narrow issue of reducing net migration and onto white English nationalism.
No, it's worthy of debate: it's a proxy for the level and scale of immigration we are facing.
Let's not pretend we all live in a happy liberal paradise with linguistic fungibility and contented integration.
The Vodafone issue shows the importance of maintaining CASH.
Except even cash is very dependent on electronic systems in ATMs, electronic tills etc.
The only thing that I have bought for cash in the last months is a portion of fish and chips.
If an outage such as yesterday’s was to persist for a week, which isn’t impossible, you’d be grateful for that handful of beer tokens you had lying around the house.
It’s worth keeping a couple of weeks’ expected spending in cash, and remember from the pandemic time just how quickly things can go sideways in an emergency with panic buying and hoarding of essentials.
Ah, that would be why Mr Yaxley-Lennon keeps so much cash in a bag in his Bentley:
Lol it's already started, an idiot lefty school friend has been spouting off on social media that the clashes in Gaza aren't Hamas attempting to purge the opposition but it's actually Mosad and IDF staging it to destabilise the peace process so the occupation can resume. I'm certain that there's plenty of other activists out there with similar views too. Social media has addled the brains of millions of people.
It has. It's a big driver of nutcase conspiracy theories (like that one), extremist identity politics and dumbo populism. Elon Musk has turbocharged this since acquiring X. The whole thing needs a clip but how you'd do that god only knows.
I take the optimistic view that we are, as a society, still adjusting to social media, and the relentless decline in informational value.
Over time, we will see it in much the same way one views the people who stand near bus stops yelling about salvation and the second coming at the top of their lungs.
I wish I could get as optimistic.
At the moment, things are going the other way. The values of social media, especially engagement through windup, are infecting traditional media. Hence clickbait headlines.
And people doing the political equivalent of yelling at strangers are, or recently have been, at or near the top of three or four of our leading political parties.
Happy Last Ever Patch Tuesday for Windows 10 users who have not sold their soul to Microsoft for an extra year of updates Day.
In a world where computers now regularly last for 5-8 years without too much trouble in domestic environments, this probably goes down as one of Microsoft’s worst decisions of all time.
When they launched W10, the idea was that it would be basically the last Windows O/S, with everything afterwards just being updates.
W11 added little new apart from adverts, telemetry, and forcing Microsoft Account on everyone. It’s purely a commercial decision to get rid of W10, at the cost of hundreds of millions of computers. The sort of thing that antitrust regulators should be all over.
The Vodafone issue shows the importance of maintaining CASH.
Except even cash is very dependent on electronic systems in ATMs, electronic tills etc.
The only thing that I have bought for cash in the last months is a portion of fish and chips.
If an outage such as yesterday’s was to persist for a week, which isn’t impossible, you’d be grateful for that handful of beer tokens you had lying around the house.
It’s worth keeping a couple of weeks’ expected spending in cash, and remember from the pandemic time just how quickly things can go sideways in an emergency with panic buying and hoarding of essentials.
This logic doesn't follow. Neither your phone or your card need internet access to work.
The vulnerability lies with the supermarkets and their suppliers. Developing a backup system that would allow the UK to operate on cash only for more than a few hours would cost 10s of billions to implement.
The shop I used to work with collapsed after about 45 minutes when our internet went down.
Comments
You were precocious.
Be ye not afraid, for I am with you.
I say a preview, but we weren’t watching it very early, as the film will be up on iPlayer in seven and a half hours, as I write. Watch it on Tuesday evening!
I can't watch it because I can't stand socially embarrassing situations - which means I watch very few of Sir Cringe's public interventions. Someone will have to tell me if it's as bad as the breathless social media commentary suggests.
I guess they aren’t fans of the peace deal then?
* probably because I was only 4 months old
Yesterday I went through Eureka, Ca. I cannot imagine a more inapposite name
They should rename it Urinal, Ca
["Under Siege": Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey are looking at the Tomahawks]
Tommy: These things are gonna sell like hotcakes!
Gary: Absolutely.
Tommy: What are you gonna do when you get two hundred million dollars in the bank?
Gary: Buy the presidency!
This clip of Starmer is brutal and is getting a lot of online circulation.
This has never happened before in a peaceful way, as far as I know. I do not believe it will happen in Britain. The locals will vote for parties that deport
This is not a partisan point. It is a factual observation of human nature
Could see this in the RN - https://youtu.be/UCId3kjWPs8?si=MX3BToc8cC_bXKuS
Also, when he arrives on one of his international jollies and is filmed disembarking from the plane, why does he insist on wearing that horrible open-necked dark grey shirt like he's having a pint after work with the rest of the accountancy team?
It's Trump's day. He has his win but blimey you guys can't see the wood for the trees.
It's 'whom'.
You're a dinosaur, living in some dead, imaginary, world of "native Britons" that hasn't existed for my lifetime or longer, living in fear of the other when in fact it is race purists with their fantasy of deportations and their dreams of "white babies" who are the threat. If anybody comes for my family or my friends they'd better come armed to the teeth.
Either way this will be decided democratically - I hope. And I firmly believe the British will democratically vote Reform because of data like this. It’s almost inevitable
I'm not going anywhere near the Travis Kelce question.
Whereas I don't disagree that law abiding Jewish people in Britain going about their business who have been scared for their lives by bullying tactics from Gaza supporting white British people, there is also a symmetry for law abiding Muslim people in Britain going about their business who have been scared for their lives by bullying tactics from Gaza opposing white British people.
And your second paragraph makes no sense whatsoever. I assume you were about to compare and contrast a democratic coup with a violent one but you got tied up in your own hyperbole.
It’s so bad it almost makes me feel sorry for him. But, nah
I asked: "Are Australian traffic lights like British ones?"
Reply: "No, Australian and British traffic lights are not the same because they have different sequences and meanings for the amber light. Australian lights go directly from red to green, and the amber light means "prepare to stop," whereas in the UK, the sequence includes a red-and-amber combination before green to signal "prepare to go". "
I'm pretty sure this is completely wrong, and Australian traffic lights do have the red+amber sequence that British ones do.
Let’s imagine it were Boris or Farage and wonder what Starmer’s defence team would be saying
And yet it marks one of the saddest episodes of the Indian-white wars of the 19th century
When the first settlers came here on the Oregon trail they found an empty yet fertile land, hence the Oregon trail. Thousands of pioneers followed. No natives. No rouble!
But the reason it was empty was because of earlier diseases brought by European sailors and trappers. Measles, smallpox etc. The latter - Englishmen from the Hudson Bay company - brought a form of malaria so virulent it wiped out NINETY SEVEN PERCENT of some tribes. Surely the worst plagues in history, per capita?
So the settlers filled the empty meadows and forests and eventually the remaining tribes fought back - but then they were all massacred by the US army
Pretty dark noom. A poetically inclined soul might see meth and fentanyl as some kind of belated karmic revenge by the old tribal gods
Fluent English, fluent German. I'm jealous and wish I'd had their advantages.
All your stirring about everyone voting for mass deporting. Just look at a primary school sometime. Kids who haven't yet learnt to hate based on differences, just playing together, making friends, without all the hangups that come later. It's a refreshing antidote for too much time online.
Over time, we will see it in much the same way one views the people who stand near bus stops yelling about salvation and the second coming at the top of their lungs.
Unfortunately the other kids also taught her swear words.
(Oddly enough, her uni in Turkey teaches in English.)
...After conducting their own two-month investigation, prosecutors in Virginia reached the same conclusion as both Durham and the D.C. prosecutors: They'd be unable to prove Comey made false statements to Congress to obstruct their investigation. Presenting their findings in a lengthy declination memo, the prosecutors explicitly mentioned the two other investigations to bolster their recommendation that probable cause does not exist to charge Comey, according to sources familiar with the contents of the memo. ..
Unless you're charging him with being an effing idiot.
UAE launches world’s first 24/7 solar PV battery storage gigascale project
The facility will deliver up to 1GW of baseload power daily, generated from renewable energy sources.
https://www.power-technology.com/news/uae-24-7-solar-pv-battery-storage/?cf-view
Currently a similar cost to nuclear (and far faster to build).
As battery prices continue to fall, it will get cheaper.
What does your racially loaded point actually demonstrate? Do you want to send the Welsh back from where they came? That would be 1000bc Eastern Central Europe.
I was slightly surprised by the numbers, but they do seem to be fairly reliable.
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics/2024-25
https://x.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1977819775565799589
A long list, but the highlights are several enemy facilities damaged, several kilometers of Ukranian pushback on the front lines, and quite a bit of diplomacy on the sidelines of other events. Zelensky to meet Trump on Friday in Washington, possibly to finalise transfer of Tomahawks, and the EU close to raiding their pile of seized Russian assets to fund more weapons.
Edit: have a map of Crimea’s fires.
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1977904856288387321
Here's a video about how built-in obsolescence is adding to the enshittification of the modern world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=138S0rSbZ10
Right to repair is really important; and Bosch are taking it away, not to make their goods more reliable, but to make them harder to repair - and hence increase sales. They will not be alone.
I'd love the government to tackle this.
UAE plans for pretty much their entire grid to be powered by nuclear and solar by 2035. They’re also fortunate in having thousands of square miles of empty desert in which huge solar facilities can be accommodated.
At least across our classes, almost all spoke English fluently upon entry in Reception. And 100% have been completely fluent by the start of Year 1.
It may amaze some old folks, but young children's brains are much better adapted to learning languages and it's the best time to learn more than one. They've learnt aged 5 (fluency in 2 or more languages) what it takes years of adults messing around on Duolingo to do.
Some people are just trying to be outraged over nothing in order to extend the culture wars beyond the narrow issue of reducing net migration and onto white English nationalism.
This one might have been caused by something as simple as a DNS change or attack on their primary domain.
https://x.com/bushidotoken/status/1977750768611422528
The only thing that I have bought for cash in the last months is a portion of fish and chips.
Labour seem to think, against all experience, that kicking the private sector in the balls again and again will stimulate growth, the Conservatives seem unsure whether to imitate Labour or Reform, the Lib Dems try to be all things to all men as usual and Reform's policies make the SNP's look realistic.
Not a good outook at the moment I fear.
There's a world of difference between what the parents speak at home to each other - which might be what qualifies as "first" - and what they use to each other every day. And I think under that definition Kemi Badenoch's first language might even have been Yoruba.
Nevertheless, 30%+ is very high and worthy of noting. It means in many of our major cities there will be a very clear majority where English is not the first language and they probably don't need to use it much day to day at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/14/britain-toxic-race-debate-threaten-overseas-care-workers?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
It’s worth keeping a couple of weeks’ expected spending in cash, and remember from the pandemic time just how quickly things can go sideways in an emergency with panic buying and hoarding of essentials.
Let's not pretend we all live in a happy liberal paradise with linguistic fungibility and contented integration.
We know it's much more complicated than that.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/oct/13/tommy-robinson-says-elon-musk-is-paying-his-legal-costs-as-trial-begins?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
At the moment, things are going the other way. The values of social media, especially engagement through windup, are infecting traditional media. Hence clickbait headlines.
And people doing the political equivalent of yelling at strangers are, or recently have been, at or near the top of three or four of our leading political parties.
When they launched W10, the idea was that it would be basically the last Windows O/S, with everything afterwards just being updates.
W11 added little new apart from adverts, telemetry, and forcing Microsoft Account on everyone. It’s purely a commercial decision to get rid of W10, at the cost of hundreds of millions of computers. The sort of thing that antitrust regulators should be all over.
The vulnerability lies with the supermarkets and their suppliers. Developing a backup system that would allow the UK to operate on cash only for more than a few hours would cost 10s of billions to implement.
The shop I used to work with collapsed after about 45 minutes when our internet went down.