I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
Yeah, because you're blinding everyone else. The problem is the next generation will have even brighter lights, and you'll be the one getting blinded.
We've seen this with the size of pick-up trucks in the US; the higher you are, the safer you are, so the bonnets (hoods) are now over 5 feet high.
I'm not blinding the others who have LED headlights. There doesn't have to be an arms race and one can be prevented by legislation; all it needs is everyone on roughly the same standard.
Everyone has to meet the same specification. The issue *may be* the specification needs changing. The review will look at that.
All vehicle lights are checked on the MOT and if they don’t meet the standard they will fail,the car.
If it's been the same specification forever then it clearly failed to anticipate LEDs (unsurprisingly) but now that they're there's zero point in changing it, the genie is out of the bottle. We just wait for almost all cars to have LEDs as older ones are scrapped.
But it hasn’t been the same ‘forever’. It is regularly updated and has been updated to account for LED lights. Last updated five years ago.
In that case there was no excuse for ending up in this situation, as the blinding effects of superior lights have been obvious at least since xenons came out.
I still see zero point in revising it given where we are now though. Stopping installing bright lights in new cars is about the worst possible thing that can be done as it means decades of intermittent blinding till today's LED cars die...
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
I'm 42 and drive a modern car.
You are incorrect in your imagining.
If you are still having visual issues while having LED lights yourself, have you looked at e.g. Zeiss Drivesafe?
Never heard of it. What is it?
Edit - on checking this appears to be something to do with a lens for your glasses. But I don't wear glasses, so it's not likely to be terribly helpful.
Have you had the eye stuff looked at? AIUI night issues are quite common and often not properly looked for by optoms..
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
Yeah, because you're blinding everyone else. The problem is the next generation will have even brighter lights, and you'll be the one getting blinded.
We've seen this with the size of pick-up trucks in the US; the higher you are, the safer you are, so the bonnets (hoods) are now over 5 feet high.
I'm not blinding the others who have LED headlights. There doesn't have to be an arms race and one can be prevented by legislation; all it needs is everyone on roughly the same standard.
Everyone has to meet the same specification. The issue *may be* the specification needs changing. The review will look at that.
All vehicle lights are checked on the MOT and if they don’t meet the standard they will fail,the car.
If it's been the same specification forever then it clearly failed to anticipate LEDs (unsurprisingly) but now that they're there's zero point in changing it, the genie is out of the bottle. We just wait for almost all cars to have LEDs as older ones are scrapped.
But it hasn’t been the same ‘forever’. It is regularly updated and has been updated to account for LED lights. Last updated five years ago.
In that case there was no excuse for ending up in this situation, as the blinding effects of superior lights have been obvious at least since xenons came out.
I still see zero point in revising it given where we are now though. Stopping installing bright lights in new cars is about the worst possible thing that can be done as it means decades of intermittent blinding till today's LED cars die...
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
I'm 42 and drive a modern car.
You are incorrect in your imagining.
If you are still having visual issues while having LED lights yourself, have you looked at e.g. Zeiss Drivesafe?
Never heard of it. What is it?
Edit - on checking this appears to be something to do with a lens for your glasses. But I don't wear glasses, so it's not likely to be terribly helpful.
Have you had the eye stuff looked at? AIUI night issues are quite common and often not properly looked for by optoms..
I have very thorough annual eye tests paid for by the NHS as my father had glaucoma.
No I do not have eyesight problems.
I have a problem with lights that are ridiculously bright whatever the expectation of the other driver.
The big question of One Foot in the Grave: are Victor and Margaret meant to be Scottish? (My interpretation is that they’re Scots who’ve spent their whole adult life down south)
Labour and the Tories now tied and only just ahead of the Greens and LDs shows that both the main parties are finding it difficult to distinguish themselves. Labour are losing votes to their left to the Greens and to the centre to the LDs and the Tories have already lost the right to Reform and under Kemi are losing centrist voters to the LDs as well.
Reform ahead clearly but only on 27% so still very vulnerable to anti Farage tactical voting
It's a fascinating time to be involved in politics! There is a very simple message from the electorate - they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. The party who can offer the most convincing fix for the mess will win.
You don't think the winner will be the Party offering the most attractive illusion?
I think there are two more cycles: Reform and then radical left (Green or Sultana) And then we may consider facing up to our problems. But we are not at rock bottom yet.
Radical Left would be apocalyptic.
No-one would come out with any private assets intact out the other side, and it'd take us decades to recover, and many of us never would.
Interesting question? Would we prefer a Corbyn/Foot type government or Farage/Trump type of Government?
I appreciate it sounds like a choice of which foot would you like to shoot, but if I had to choose I would go for Corbyn/Foot because although they might be worse at running the economy (maybe?) they aren't obviously destroying the democracy. Further left and of course that is also a possibilty
I'd go for Farage/Trump every time, and it's not even close.
So would most of the country.
I’d vote for the hard left on the basis they are less likely to deport me.
They would see your wealth and class, not your race.
FWIW, the Trump/Farage stuff is hugely overblown on deportation.
Maybe very few will be deported, but millions will fear deportation and feel insecure and unwelcome.
As Jews would under Your Party.
It is the job of politicians to set the tone, and for others to sensibly engage with the issues they raise. I think there are points to be made on returning those who've taken the biscuit, radically reforming international treaties, and challenging the absurd metropolitanism that sets the tone of acceptable discourse in Britain.
But, I think Jenrick and Pochin have put their foot across the line recently. You have to be very careful how you do it.
For balance, I think the chorus of shouts of 'racist' the other way has been childish too.
Your Party are never going to gain power. Farage or Jenrick will. That is the difference.
Corbyn came close in GE2017, and we never know what the future holds.
Is this the same CR as the one who said "I'd go for Farage/Trump every time, and it's not even close. So would most of the country." earlier today? He was correct in thinking the country won't go for Corbyn.
So I did, but if Corbyn had secured just 15 more seats he'd have been PM, not Theresa May.
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
It amazes me that people make this argument. It has always seemed to me like they think they’re making a really clever point while missing the blindingly obvious.
The whiter the area the more likely it is to have a Reform problem. Immigration isn’t the problem, otherwise you’d get Reform in more diverse areas - it’s fear of change among older people.
It’s one of those arguments that people make to feel good about themselves.
In big urban areas, the British-born population skews towards the very rich, public sector professionals, people working in media, university workers, students. These are all groups that Reform underperforms with - regardless of the number of immigrants.
Reform’s voters skew towards working and lower middle class, the retired, and private sector workers, regardless of the number of immigrants.
London and core cities, like their equivalents across the West, are simply a lot more left wing than their hinterlands are.
I've never seen a fully convincing narrative as to why, though. The upper middle class (outside a very narrow intelligensia) used to be anything but.
It's one of the most fascinating political developments of the last 30 years.
The most interesting poll I saw recently was one that showed that the only section of the population that Labour has a clear lead among, is the privately-educated.
I think many would change their tune, if they actually got a radically redistributionist left wing government.
Reform led amongst comprehensive and academy educated voters though with Labour second. Reform also led with grammar school educated voters with the Conservatives a close second.
Amongst the privately educated as you say Labour led Reform with the Conservatives and LDs doing better than the national average and Reform worse
It's a case of people simply voting in line with their own interests.
I am still baffled why so many privately educated people think Labour is on their side.
I can understand Conservative/LD.
The old Conservatives, yes. Indeed, the "I'm not very political and that's why I'm a Conservative" archetype was an archetype for a reason. Civic duty, paying a bit of my privilege forward, that sort of thing. Rory Stewart was probably the last of them standing. Respect to people still trying to fly the flag for the old ways, but it looks like it's over.
The natural home of such people now is the Lib Dems, with their shared interest in fixing the parish church roof. But Lib Dems barely exist in most of the country, so Labour become the placebo.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, picked a side in the generational fiscal and culture wars, and well-bred people of working age have mostly taken the hint.
Rory Stewart is the Conservative non-Conservatives love.
He is an ex Conservative but rare in that he is also a conservative. Modern Conservatives seem to hate the establishment which they are supposed to be conserving. No wonder their support has splintered off to the more coherent Reform.
Even though i do think he is a genuine conservative it always seemed weird to me how Rees-Mogg for instance would suddenly become a radical constitutional revolutionary, without acknowledging it, when he'd invent new constitutional principles for political convenience. But that still feels a long way from the new right (tory or reform) which is more about smashing the system*.
Obviously conservatism does encompass change at times, but that's a bit different.
* to a degree, i think Farage is less rigid on that than many supporters.
The big question of One Foot in the Grave: are Victor and Margaret meant to be Scottish? (My interpretation is that they’re Scots who’ve spent their whole adult life down south)
The hurricane offers a chance for savvy politicians to do the right things -- and to make political gains. Both the American president and the UK PM can -- and should -- find some competent officials to coordinate and deliver the aid Jamaica will desperately need.
Immediately.
The latest official NHC forecast says "hide under a mattress and wear a helmet". That is .... not good.
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
I have donated my body to medical students. There is a chance it won't be needed eg if mangled. Then it is the black bin for me (or possibly the recycling).
Pochin is obviously a nutter, but she has simply noted that advertising (and broadcast media in general) works very hard to represent metropolitan values.
Per usual in Britain this now dominates the airwaves, while the economy continues to descend into insignificance.
She did not simply note that advertising works hard to represent metropolitan values. She said she was driven mad by seeing black people in adverts.
It amazes me that people make this argument. It has always seemed to me like they think they’re making a really clever point while missing the blindingly obvious.
The whiter the area the more likely it is to have a Reform problem. Immigration isn’t the problem, otherwise you’d get Reform in more diverse areas - it’s fear of change among older people.
It’s one of those arguments that people make to feel good about themselves.
In big urban areas, the British-born population skews towards the very rich, public sector professionals, people working in media, university workers, students. These are all groups that Reform underperforms with - regardless of the number of immigrants.
Reform’s voters skew towards working and lower middle class, the retired, and private sector workers, regardless of the number of immigrants.
London and core cities, like their equivalents across the West, are simply a lot more left wing than their hinterlands are.
I've never seen a fully convincing narrative as to why, though. The upper middle class (outside a very narrow intelligensia) used to be anything but.
It's one of the most fascinating political developments of the last 30 years.
The most interesting poll I saw recently was one that showed that the only section of the population that Labour has a clear lead among, is the privately-educated.
I think many would change their tune, if they actually got a radically redistributionist left wing government.
Reform led amongst comprehensive and academy educated voters though with Labour second. Reform also led with grammar school educated voters with the Conservatives a close second.
Amongst the privately educated as you say Labour led Reform with the Conservatives and LDs doing better than the national average and Reform worse
It's a case of people simply voting in line with their own interests.
I am still baffled why so many privately educated people think Labour is on their side.
I can understand Conservative/LD.
The old Conservatives, yes. Indeed, the "I'm not very political and that's why I'm a Conservative" archetype was an archetype for a reason. Civic duty, paying a bit of my privilege forward, that sort of thing. Rory Stewart was probably the last of them standing. Respect to people still trying to fly the flag for the old ways, but it looks like it's over.
The natural home of such people now is the Lib Dems, with their shared interest in fixing the parish church roof. But Lib Dems barely exist in most of the country, so Labour become the placebo.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, picked a side in the generational fiscal and culture wars, and well-bred people of working age have mostly taken the hint.
Rory Stewart is the Conservative non-Conservatives love.
He gives the impression of not despising people who disagree with him which helps.
I've always had the impression that most Tories hate me.
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
I have donated my body to medical students. There is a chance it won't be needed eg if mangled. Then it is the black bin for me (or possibly the recycling).
I was reading about that the other day. It's another temptation. You can have a funeral and, importantly, a wake but without the hole in the ground or the fire. Which, ever since that case in Hull, I'm suspicious about.
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
Yeah, because you're blinding everyone else. The problem is the next generation will have even brighter lights, and you'll be the one getting blinded.
We've seen this with the size of pick-up trucks in the US; the higher you are, the safer you are, so the bonnets (hoods) are now over 5 feet high.
I'm not blinding the others who have LED headlights. There doesn't have to be an arms race and one can be prevented by legislation; all it needs is everyone on roughly the same standard.
Everyone has to meet the same specification. The issue *may be* the specification needs changing. The review will look at that.
All vehicle lights are checked on the MOT and if they don’t meet the standard they will fail,the car.
If it's been the same specification forever then it clearly failed to anticipate LEDs (unsurprisingly) but now that they're there's zero point in changing it, the genie is out of the bottle. We just wait for almost all cars to have LEDs as older ones are scrapped.
But it hasn’t been the same ‘forever’. It is regularly updated and has been updated to account for LED lights. Last updated five years ago.
In that case there was no excuse for ending up in this situation, as the blinding effects of superior lights have been obvious at least since xenons came out.
I still see zero point in revising it given where we are now though. Stopping installing bright lights in new cars is about the worst possible thing that can be done as it means decades of intermittent blinding till today's LED cars die...
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
I'm 42 and drive a modern car.
You are incorrect in your imagining.
If you are still having visual issues while having LED lights yourself, have you looked at e.g. Zeiss Drivesafe?
Never heard of it. What is it?
Edit - on checking this appears to be something to do with a lens for your glasses. But I don't wear glasses, so it's not likely to be terribly helpful.
Have you had the eye stuff looked at? AIUI night issues are quite common and often not properly looked for by optoms..
I have very thorough annual eye tests paid for by the NHS as my father had glaucoma.
No I do not have eyesight problems.
I have a problem with lights that are ridiculously bright whatever the expectation of the other driver.
@Dumbosaurus I realise that was unnecessarily curt and you are trying to be constructive in your responses. My apologies.
But I still contend you are in the wrong. It’s not about relative glare, otherwise this would have been an issue before LED lights.
I have always found it painful driving into undipped headlights - who doesn’t? - and LED lights *on dip* are frequently as bright as undipped halogen lights.
That is crazy and it is dangerous. And I am glad the government are at least looking at it.
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
Yeah, because you're blinding everyone else. The problem is the next generation will have even brighter lights, and you'll be the one getting blinded.
We've seen this with the size of pick-up trucks in the US; the higher you are, the safer you are, so the bonnets (hoods) are now over 5 feet high.
I'm not blinding the others who have LED headlights. There doesn't have to be an arms race and one can be prevented by legislation; all it needs is everyone on roughly the same standard.
Everyone has to meet the same specification. The issue *may be* the specification needs changing. The review will look at that.
All vehicle lights are checked on the MOT and if they don’t meet the standard they will fail,the car.
If it's been the same specification forever then it clearly failed to anticipate LEDs (unsurprisingly) but now that they're there's zero point in changing it, the genie is out of the bottle. We just wait for almost all cars to have LEDs as older ones are scrapped.
But it hasn’t been the same ‘forever’. It is regularly updated and has been updated to account for LED lights. Last updated five years ago.
In that case there was no excuse for ending up in this situation, as the blinding effects of superior lights have been obvious at least since xenons came out.
I still see zero point in revising it given where we are now though. Stopping installing bright lights in new cars is about the worst possible thing that can be done as it means decades of intermittent blinding till today's LED cars die...
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
I'm 42 and drive a modern car.
You are incorrect in your imagining.
If you are still having visual issues while having LED lights yourself, have you looked at e.g. Zeiss Drivesafe?
Never heard of it. What is it?
Edit - on checking this appears to be something to do with a lens for your glasses. But I don't wear glasses, so it's not likely to be terribly helpful.
Have you had the eye stuff looked at? AIUI night issues are quite common and often not properly looked for by optoms..
I have very thorough annual eye tests paid for by the NHS as my father had glaucoma.
No I do not have eyesight problems.
I have a problem with lights that are ridiculously bright whatever the expectation of the other driver.
You're literally describing having an eyesight problem. Either that or a drivers around where you live problem.
The big question of One Foot in the Grave: are Victor and Margaret meant to be Scottish? (My interpretation is that they’re Scots who’ve spent their whole adult life down south)
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
Yeah, because you're blinding everyone else. The problem is the next generation will have even brighter lights, and you'll be the one getting blinded.
We've seen this with the size of pick-up trucks in the US; the higher you are, the safer you are, so the bonnets (hoods) are now over 5 feet high.
I'm not blinding the others who have LED headlights. There doesn't have to be an arms race and one can be prevented by legislation; all it needs is everyone on roughly the same standard.
Everyone has to meet the same specification. The issue *may be* the specification needs changing. The review will look at that.
All vehicle lights are checked on the MOT and if they don’t meet the standard they will fail,the car.
If it's been the same specification forever then it clearly failed to anticipate LEDs (unsurprisingly) but now that they're there's zero point in changing it, the genie is out of the bottle. We just wait for almost all cars to have LEDs as older ones are scrapped.
But it hasn’t been the same ‘forever’. It is regularly updated and has been updated to account for LED lights. Last updated five years ago.
In that case there was no excuse for ending up in this situation, as the blinding effects of superior lights have been obvious at least since xenons came out.
I still see zero point in revising it given where we are now though. Stopping installing bright lights in new cars is about the worst possible thing that can be done as it means decades of intermittent blinding till today's LED cars die...
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
I'm 42 and drive a modern car.
You are incorrect in your imagining.
If you are still having visual issues while having LED lights yourself, have you looked at e.g. Zeiss Drivesafe?
Never heard of it. What is it?
Edit - on checking this appears to be something to do with a lens for your glasses. But I don't wear glasses, so it's not likely to be terribly helpful.
Have you had the eye stuff looked at? AIUI night issues are quite common and often not properly looked for by optoms..
I have very thorough annual eye tests paid for by the NHS as my father had glaucoma.
No I do not have eyesight problems.
I have a problem with lights that are ridiculously bright whatever the expectation of the other driver.
I very rarely drive at night anymore as I don’t need to, will get a cab if going out and manage to be organised enough to do what I need to in daylight but when I was younger I would be driving at night and found that wearing yellow lensed glasses really helped take the edge off oncoming headlights (and most of the roads here are v unforgiving as narrow and just a granite wall or earth bank at the sides so very little margin for error as you get your vision back).
The big problem was that you looked like your were modelling yourself on Bono but worth it for the safety angle.
Labour and the Tories now tied and only just ahead of the Greens and LDs shows that both the main parties are finding it difficult to distinguish themselves. Labour are losing votes to their left to the Greens and to the centre to the LDs and the Tories have already lost the right to Reform and under Kemi are losing centrist voters to the LDs as well.
Reform ahead clearly but only on 27% so still very vulnerable to anti Farage tactical voting
It's a fascinating time to be involved in politics! There is a very simple message from the electorate - they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. The party who can offer the most convincing fix for the mess will win.
You don't think the winner will be the Party offering the most attractive illusion?
I think there are two more cycles: Reform and then radical left (Green or Sultana) And then we may consider facing up to our problems. But we are not at rock bottom yet.
Radical Left would be apocalyptic.
No-one would come out with any private assets intact out the other side, and it'd take us decades to recover, and many of us never would.
Interesting question? Would we prefer a Corbyn/Foot type government or Farage/Trump type of Government?
I appreciate it sounds like a choice of which foot would you like to shoot, but if I had to choose I would go for Corbyn/Foot because although they might be worse at running the economy (maybe?) they aren't obviously destroying the democracy. Further left and of course that is also a possibilty
I'd go for Farage/Trump every time, and it's not even close.
So would most of the country.
I’d vote for the hard left on the basis they are less likely to deport me.
They might put you up against the wall as a capitalist running dog, though.
If the next general election looked like being a choice between Reform or the Greens/Your Party I suspect TSE would buy himself an emergency bolt hole in Switzerland, Monaco, the UAE or Singapore.
As would many non white or liberal wealthy high earners
Certainly, in Luton South, where I live, it seems like a choice between Your Party and Reform.
Ah, the old syphilis vs gonnoreah option again.
Ah, the old pretending you don't know how to spell "gonorrhoea" move.
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
To my mind taking out a funeral plan is like making a solicitor's firm an actual formal executor. You never know what will happen, and are stuck with the actual occupants of the role when the time comes.
The hurricane offers a chance for savvy politicians to do the right things -- and to make political gains. Both the American president and the UK PM can -- and should -- find some competent officials to coordinate and deliver the aid Jamaica will desperately need.
Immediately.
Perhaps we could send the GOP congress members? They are the perfect blend of jerk and chicken…
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
Yeah, because you're blinding everyone else. The problem is the next generation will have even brighter lights, and you'll be the one getting blinded.
We've seen this with the size of pick-up trucks in the US; the higher you are, the safer you are, so the bonnets (hoods) are now over 5 feet high.
I'm not blinding the others who have LED headlights. There doesn't have to be an arms race and one can be prevented by legislation; all it needs is everyone on roughly the same standard.
Everyone has to meet the same specification. The issue *may be* the specification needs changing. The review will look at that.
All vehicle lights are checked on the MOT and if they don’t meet the standard they will fail,the car.
If it's been the same specification forever then it clearly failed to anticipate LEDs (unsurprisingly) but now that they're there's zero point in changing it, the genie is out of the bottle. We just wait for almost all cars to have LEDs as older ones are scrapped.
But it hasn’t been the same ‘forever’. It is regularly updated and has been updated to account for LED lights. Last updated five years ago.
In that case there was no excuse for ending up in this situation, as the blinding effects of superior lights have been obvious at least since xenons came out.
I still see zero point in revising it given where we are now though. Stopping installing bright lights in new cars is about the worst possible thing that can be done as it means decades of intermittent blinding till today's LED cars die...
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
I'm 42 and drive a modern car.
You are incorrect in your imagining.
If you are still having visual issues while having LED lights yourself, have you looked at e.g. Zeiss Drivesafe?
Never heard of it. What is it?
Edit - on checking this appears to be something to do with a lens for your glasses. But I don't wear glasses, so it's not likely to be terribly helpful.
Have you had the eye stuff looked at? AIUI night issues are quite common and often not properly looked for by optoms..
I have very thorough annual eye tests paid for by the NHS as my father had glaucoma.
No I do not have eyesight problems.
I have a problem with lights that are ridiculously bright whatever the expectation of the other driver.
@Dumbosaurus I realise that was unnecessarily curt and you are trying to be constructive in your responses. My apologies.
But I still contend you are in the wrong. It’s not about relative glare, otherwise this would have been an issue before LED lights.
I have always found it painful driving into undipped headlights - who doesn’t? - and LED lights *on dip* are frequently as bright as undipped halogen lights.
That is crazy and it is dangerous. And I am glad the government are at least looking at it.
IMO it was an issue before LED lights, Xenons started it (and maybe before them when we went off oil lamps, who knows).
If you drove towards a car on full beam (any type of lights) in the daytime, it would be fine, right? So presumably we agree that there is some level of own-headlight brightness where there wouldn't be a problem?
The key question I suppose is whether that brightness has to be greater than the oncoming vehicles or not. I contend it doesn't - but even if it did, if it were only by a little bit then that ought to be fine as you'd be on full beam most of the time.
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
Yeah, because you're blinding everyone else. The problem is the next generation will have even brighter lights, and you'll be the one getting blinded.
We've seen this with the size of pick-up trucks in the US; the higher you are, the safer you are, so the bonnets (hoods) are now over 5 feet high.
I'm not blinding the others who have LED headlights. There doesn't have to be an arms race and one can be prevented by legislation; all it needs is everyone on roughly the same standard.
Everyone has to meet the same specification. The issue *may be* the specification needs changing. The review will look at that.
All vehicle lights are checked on the MOT and if they don’t meet the standard they will fail,the car.
If it's been the same specification forever then it clearly failed to anticipate LEDs (unsurprisingly) but now that they're there's zero point in changing it, the genie is out of the bottle. We just wait for almost all cars to have LEDs as older ones are scrapped.
But it hasn’t been the same ‘forever’. It is regularly updated and has been updated to account for LED lights. Last updated five years ago.
In that case there was no excuse for ending up in this situation, as the blinding effects of superior lights have been obvious at least since xenons came out.
I still see zero point in revising it given where we are now though. Stopping installing bright lights in new cars is about the worst possible thing that can be done as it means decades of intermittent blinding till today's LED cars die...
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
I'm 42 and drive a modern car.
You are incorrect in your imagining.
If you are still having visual issues while having LED lights yourself, have you looked at e.g. Zeiss Drivesafe?
Never heard of it. What is it?
Edit - on checking this appears to be something to do with a lens for your glasses. But I don't wear glasses, so it's not likely to be terribly helpful.
Have you had the eye stuff looked at? AIUI night issues are quite common and often not properly looked for by optoms..
I have very thorough annual eye tests paid for by the NHS as my father had glaucoma.
No I do not have eyesight problems.
I have a problem with lights that are ridiculously bright whatever the expectation of the other driver.
You're literally describing having an eyesight problem. Either that or a drivers around where you live problem.
The eyesight tests for glaucoma do include tests for light sensitivity as well as pressure, focus etc. They all came back fine.
Yes, my eyes are unusually sensitive to light because I have abnormally good eyesight. But that’s a separate issue in a sense. It exacerbates the problem from my point of view, but it’s not the root cause of it.
I’m not sure what the second part about a problem where I live means?
It amazes me that people make this argument. It has always seemed to me like they think they’re making a really clever point while missing the blindingly obvious.
The whiter the area the more likely it is to have a Reform problem. Immigration isn’t the problem, otherwise you’d get Reform in more diverse areas - it’s fear of change among older people.
It’s one of those arguments that people make to feel good about themselves.
In big urban areas, the British-born population skews towards the very rich, public sector professionals, people working in media, university workers, students. These are all groups that Reform underperforms with - regardless of the number of immigrants.
Reform’s voters skew towards working and lower middle class, the retired, and private sector workers, regardless of the number of immigrants.
London and core cities, like their equivalents across the West, are simply a lot more left wing than their hinterlands are.
I've never seen a fully convincing narrative as to why, though. The upper middle class (outside a very narrow intelligensia) used to be anything but.
It's one of the most fascinating political developments of the last 30 years.
The most interesting poll I saw recently was one that showed that the only section of the population that Labour has a clear lead among, is the privately-educated.
I think many would change their tune, if they actually got a radically redistributionist left wing government.
Reform led amongst comprehensive and academy educated voters though with Labour second. Reform also led with grammar school educated voters with the Conservatives a close second.
Amongst the privately educated as you say Labour led Reform with the Conservatives and LDs doing better than the national average and Reform worse
It's a case of people simply voting in line with their own interests.
I am still baffled why so many privately educated people think Labour is on their side.
I can understand Conservative/LD.
Surely the privately educated are a very small subsample - at only 7% of the population smaller even than a Scottish subsample. In fact, shouldn't this entire discussion be illegal under PB rules?
TL:DR enough people may vote tactically to keep Reform out in 2029.
I wouldn't have beleeeved it before Caerphilly, but afterwards I have to concede it is at least possible.
Tsk, I have been talking about it on here for a while.
Fact 1: Reform are currently the country’s most popular party
Fact 2: Reform are currently the country’s most hated party
It’s why I tipped Plaid Cymru to win the by-election.
I’ve said for a long time that a lot of people vote for the least worst party with a chance of winning.
And there are a lot of voters who will regard Reform as so far beyond acceptable that they will actually go out and vote for the not Reform party with a chance of winning
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
Yeah, because you're blinding everyone else. The problem is the next generation will have even brighter lights, and you'll be the one getting blinded.
We've seen this with the size of pick-up trucks in the US; the higher you are, the safer you are, so the bonnets (hoods) are now over 5 feet high.
I'm not blinding the others who have LED headlights. There doesn't have to be an arms race and one can be prevented by legislation; all it needs is everyone on roughly the same standard.
Everyone has to meet the same specification. The issue *may be* the specification needs changing. The review will look at that.
All vehicle lights are checked on the MOT and if they don’t meet the standard they will fail,the car.
If it's been the same specification forever then it clearly failed to anticipate LEDs (unsurprisingly) but now that they're there's zero point in changing it, the genie is out of the bottle. We just wait for almost all cars to have LEDs as older ones are scrapped.
But it hasn’t been the same ‘forever’. It is regularly updated and has been updated to account for LED lights. Last updated five years ago.
In that case there was no excuse for ending up in this situation, as the blinding effects of superior lights have been obvious at least since xenons came out.
I still see zero point in revising it given where we are now though. Stopping installing bright lights in new cars is about the worst possible thing that can be done as it means decades of intermittent blinding till today's LED cars die...
I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.
Ad in the rise in the height of headlights (bigger, taller cars, SUVs etc) and the brighter lights and travelling on A roads at night can be a real pain in the arse. The brightness of even dipped lights can be an issue.
Which is ridiculous because articulated lorry headlights are typically well aimed and don’t blind me in my Polo. Tesla are by far the worst, it’s like looking into the sun.
I imagine that most of those being blinded are driving older cars on halogens. I don't drive one of our cars at night for this reason, it has me swearing constantly as I can't see dick on dipped beam. The Tesla otoh is great, I'm never blinded by oncoming traffic and can see everything. Presumably this is because my eyes are habituated driving it to high power LEDs. From this I conclude that the light issue will sort itself out when everyone is on decent headlights in a decade or so's time.
I'm 42 and drive a modern car.
You are incorrect in your imagining.
If you are still having visual issues while having LED lights yourself, have you looked at e.g. Zeiss Drivesafe?
Never heard of it. What is it?
Edit - on checking this appears to be something to do with a lens for your glasses. But I don't wear glasses, so it's not likely to be terribly helpful.
Have you had the eye stuff looked at? AIUI night issues are quite common and often not properly looked for by optoms..
I have very thorough annual eye tests paid for by the NHS as my father had glaucoma.
No I do not have eyesight problems.
I have a problem with lights that are ridiculously bright whatever the expectation of the other driver.
@Dumbosaurus I realise that was unnecessarily curt and you are trying to be constructive in your responses. My apologies.
But I still contend you are in the wrong. It’s not about relative glare, otherwise this would have been an issue before LED lights.
I have always found it painful driving into undipped headlights - who doesn’t? - and LED lights *on dip* are frequently as bright as undipped halogen lights.
That is crazy and it is dangerous. And I am glad the government are at least looking at it.
IMO it was an issue before LED lights, Xenons started it (and maybe before them when we went off oil lamps, who knows).
If you drove towards a car on full beam (any type of lights) in the daytime, it would be fine, right? So presumably we agree that there is some level of own-headlight brightness where there wouldn't be a problem?
I don’t agree at all. I will flash (and if they ignore that, hoot) at anyone using full beam lights during the day, because it’s dazzling. So do other drivers as far as I can see.
If it were OK to have lights as bright as full beam if everyone had them, we would never have needed dippers!
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
To my mind taking out a funeral plan is like making a solicitor's firm an actual formal executor. You never know what will happen, and are stuck with the actual occupants of the role when the time comes.
Yes; we've quite a good local undertaker in our small town, too, who are now run by, I think, about the third generation. I'm more concerned about the 'celebrant'; not bothered about a vicar and it seems macabre to try to meet up with a humanist one.
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
To my mind taking out a funeral plan is like making a solicitor's firm an actual formal executor. You never know what will happen, and are stuck with the actual occupants of the role when the time comes.
Of course, but personally I don't care about that, not expecting to be around at the time.
What I do care about is that my next-of-kin will have professional support at hand all lined up and ready to go.
ydoethur - I don't like the Vanilla quoting system, which is why I have chosen a more standard way for quotes. Vanilla is OK with one level, but quickly becomes hard to follow as the levels accumulate.
Labour and the Tories now tied and only just ahead of the Greens and LDs shows that both the main parties are finding it difficult to distinguish themselves. Labour are losing votes to their left to the Greens and to the centre to the LDs and the Tories have already lost the right to Reform and under Kemi are losing centrist voters to the LDs as well.
Reform ahead clearly but only on 27% so still very vulnerable to anti Farage tactical voting
It's a fascinating time to be involved in politics! There is a very simple message from the electorate - they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. The party who can offer the most convincing fix for the mess will win.
You don't think the winner will be the Party offering the most attractive illusion?
I think there are two more cycles: Reform and then radical left (Green or Sultana) And then we may consider facing up to our problems. But we are not at rock bottom yet.
Radical Left would be apocalyptic.
No-one would come out with any private assets intact out the other side, and it'd take us decades to recover, and many of us never would.
Interesting question? Would we prefer a Corbyn/Foot type government or Farage/Trump type of Government?
I appreciate it sounds like a choice of which foot would you like to shoot, but if I had to choose I would go for Corbyn/Foot because although they might be worse at running the economy (maybe?) they aren't obviously destroying the democracy. Further left and of course that is also a possibilty
I'd go for Farage/Trump every time, and it's not even close.
So would most of the country.
Then most of the country are wrong, as are you.
I don't think so. Plenty of people on here (many reading this now, and even posting) would handwring about it publicly, and then still vote for them in the voting booth.
Farage is a pub bore and a bit of an ass, but I'd far rather him in power than Corbyn/Foot.
My concern with him isn't his shtick, it's that I don't think he could manage a team or do the job and his economics are fantasy land.
I did vote for Corbyn in 2016 (for the regional vote in the Holyrood elections), but I couldn't now vote for anyone who doesn't take the threat from Russia seriously. Not for Corbyn. Not for Polanski. Not for Farage.
I'm surprised at the number of PB Righties prepared to overlook Farage's support for Putin.
The big question of One Foot in the Grave: are Victor and Margaret meant to be Scottish? (My interpretation is that they’re Scots who’ve spent their whole adult life down south)
I think the actor playing Victor is Scottish ands that comes across in his accent. I don't think there was ever much about their past, other than clearly some trauma about children (either a lost child or not able to have them). But thats it.
Called Duncan.
Annette Crosbie is a Scot too.
He was called Victor as he was anything but in life 😂
My favourite role of his will always be Eddie Clockerty in Tutti Frutti.
...and had been suffering from it for some time. IIUC her husband Timothy West stayed with her and cared for her as best he could up to his death, and I thought it spoke well of him. Similarly for Alfred Molina (still alive) and Jill Gascoigne.
And John Lydon, despite him turning into a tediously reactionary old twat.
Labour and the Tories now tied and only just ahead of the Greens and LDs shows that both the main parties are finding it difficult to distinguish themselves. Labour are losing votes to their left to the Greens and to the centre to the LDs and the Tories have already lost the right to Reform and under Kemi are losing centrist voters to the LDs as well.
Reform ahead clearly but only on 27% so still very vulnerable to anti Farage tactical voting
It's a fascinating time to be involved in politics! There is a very simple message from the electorate - they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. The party who can offer the most convincing fix for the mess will win.
You don't think the winner will be the Party offering the most attractive illusion?
I think there are two more cycles: Reform and then radical left (Green or Sultana) And then we may consider facing up to our problems. But we are not at rock bottom yet.
Radical Left would be apocalyptic.
No-one would come out with any private assets intact out the other side, and it'd take us decades to recover, and many of us never would.
Interesting question? Would we prefer a Corbyn/Foot type government or Farage/Trump type of Government?
I appreciate it sounds like a choice of which foot would you like to shoot, but if I had to choose I would go for Corbyn/Foot because although they might be worse at running the economy (maybe?) they aren't obviously destroying the democracy. Further left and of course that is also a possibilty
I'd go for Farage/Trump every time, and it's not even close.
So would most of the country.
I’d vote for the hard left on the basis they are less likely to deport me.
They would see your wealth and class, not your race.
FWIW, the Trump/Farage stuff is hugely overblown on deportation.
It is now US government policy that ICE can arrest you on the basis you look Latino.
Approved by the Supreme Court. Which should be a source of eternal shame to the "conservatives" on the bench.
It amazes me that people make this argument. It has always seemed to me like they think they’re making a really clever point while missing the blindingly obvious.
The whiter the area the more likely it is to have a Reform problem. Immigration isn’t the problem, otherwise you’d get Reform in more diverse areas - it’s fear of change among older people.
It’s one of those arguments that people make to feel good about themselves.
In big urban areas, the British-born population skews towards the very rich, public sector professionals, people working in media, university workers, students. These are all groups that Reform underperforms with - regardless of the number of immigrants.
Reform’s voters skew towards working and lower middle class, the retired, and private sector workers, regardless of the number of immigrants.
London and core cities, like their equivalents across the West, are simply a lot more left wing than their hinterlands are.
I've never seen a fully convincing narrative as to why, though. The upper middle class (outside a very narrow intelligensia) used to be anything but.
It's one of the most fascinating political developments of the last 30 years.
The most interesting poll I saw recently was one that showed that the only section of the population that Labour has a clear lead among, is the privately-educated.
I think many would change their tune, if they actually got a radically redistributionist left wing government.
Reform led amongst comprehensive and academy educated voters though with Labour second. Reform also led with grammar school educated voters with the Conservatives a close second.
Amongst the privately educated as you say Labour led Reform with the Conservatives and LDs doing better than the national average and Reform worse
It's a case of people simply voting in line with their own interests.
I am still baffled why so many privately educated people think Labour is on their side.
I can understand Conservative/LD.
The old Conservatives, yes. Indeed, the "I'm not very political and that's why I'm a Conservative" archetype was an archetype for a reason. Civic duty, paying a bit of my privilege forward, that sort of thing. Rory Stewart was probably the last of them standing. Respect to people still trying to fly the flag for the old ways, but it looks like it's over.
The natural home of such people now is the Lib Dems, with their shared interest in fixing the parish church roof. But Lib Dems barely exist in most of the country, so Labour become the placebo.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, picked a side in the generational fiscal and culture wars, and well-bred people of working age have mostly taken the hint.
Rory Stewart is the Conservative non-Conservatives love.
He gives the impression of not despising people who disagree with him which helps.
I've always had the impression that most Tories hate me.
I think it's symptomatic of one of the things that is very wrong with our politics the derision that Rory Stewart receives for being the Conservative that non-Conservatives love.
Back in the day that sort of crossover appeal would have been viewed as gold dust and super valuable, but now it's like he's not a proper Tory.
Labour and the Tories now tied and only just ahead of the Greens and LDs shows that both the main parties are finding it difficult to distinguish themselves. Labour are losing votes to their left to the Greens and to the centre to the LDs and the Tories have already lost the right to Reform and under Kemi are losing centrist voters to the LDs as well.
Reform ahead clearly but only on 27% so still very vulnerable to anti Farage tactical voting
It's a fascinating time to be involved in politics! There is a very simple message from the electorate - they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. The party who can offer the most convincing fix for the mess will win.
You don't think the winner will be the Party offering the most attractive illusion?
I think there are two more cycles: Reform and then radical left (Green or Sultana) And then we may consider facing up to our problems. But we are not at rock bottom yet.
Radical Left would be apocalyptic.
No-one would come out with any private assets intact out the other side, and it'd take us decades to recover, and many of us never would.
Interesting question? Would we prefer a Corbyn/Foot type government or Farage/Trump type of Government?
I appreciate it sounds like a choice of which foot would you like to shoot, but if I had to choose I would go for Corbyn/Foot because although they might be worse at running the economy (maybe?) they aren't obviously destroying the democracy. Further left and of course that is also a possibilty
I'd go for Farage/Trump every time, and it's not even close.
So would most of the country.
I’d vote for the hard left on the basis they are less likely to deport me.
They would see your wealth and class, not your race.
FWIW, the Trump/Farage stuff is hugely overblown on deportation.
It is now US government policy that ICE can arrest you on the basis you look Latino.
Approved by the Supreme Court. Which should be a source of eternal shame to the "conservatives" on the bench.
Especially Clarence Thomas, given similar statutes were used against his ancestors.
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
To my mind taking out a funeral plan is like making a solicitor's firm an actual formal executor. You never know what will happen, and are stuck with the actual occupants of the role when the time comes.
assuming they’re still around as more than one have collapsed with the funds going astray.
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
To my mind taking out a funeral plan is like making a solicitor's firm an actual formal executor. You never know what will happen, and are stuck with the actual occupants of the role when the time comes.
Yes; we've quite a good local undertaker in our small town, too, who are now run by, I think, about the third generation. I'm more concerned about the 'celebrant'; not bothered about a vicar and it seems macabre to try to meet up with a humanist one.
In my mother's case, I think it was one that my father had encountered at someone else's funeral. So we were sorted for her; I think the second one, for Dad, was someone else the undertaker recommended.
But in both cases I pretty much drafted most of the script anyway. Actually, it's not easy to do in a hurry esp if many contemporaries have already departed. I've also done a full professional obit for a dear friend and colleague, which took ages - simply checking the various dates of successive jobs, and the publication record for one thing; plus the shorter versions which appeared in major newspapers, and the very long and more home-focussed one in one of the few surviving local newspapers of record these days. Even more difficult. And add hunting for photos.
In fact, I ought to do some sort of draft to have ready as a source when the time comes for me.
TL:DR enough people may vote tactically to keep Reform out in 2029.
I wouldn't have beleeeved it before Caerphilly, but afterwards I have to concede it is at least possible.
Tsk, I have been talking about it on here for a while.
Fact 1: Reform are currently the country’s most popular party
Fact 2: Reform are currently the country’s most hated party
It’s why I tipped Plaid Cymru to win the by-election.
I’ve said for a long time that a lot of people vote for the least worst party with a chance of winning.
And there are a lot of voters who will regard Reform as so far beyond acceptable that they will actually go out and vote for the not Reform party with a chance of winning
There are some seats where the only plausible alternative to Reform is Lab or Con. And in those seats Reform is probably going to be a lot more confident of winning given how unpopular both of those parties are atm.
Mr Horwood said once the improvements are completed, residents will be able to drop their recyclables "straight into a compactor". "Part of what we're doing here is to make it more easier to recycle, so people don't have to lift it and drop it into a skip," he added. The site, which is run by the council's not-for-profit company Ubico, has been operational since the 1990s and was last upgraded in 2019. Other work includes resurfacing public tarmac areas, installing a canopy to protect certain skips and electric charring points for Ubico vehicles.
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
To my mind taking out a funeral plan is like making a solicitor's firm an actual formal executor. You never know what will happen, and are stuck with the actual occupants of the role when the time comes.
assuming they’re still around as more than one have collapsed with the funds going astray.
TBF some (Most?) major funeral plans are FSCS protected. But there is small print and what you get might not be what is expected. It is, in any case, the first charge on the estate of the deceased - so not paying for the funeral is hardly likely to be an issue in many cases.
Actually, this reminds me I cashed in what was effecxtively my father's funeral plan - 1d or 2d weekly with the Pru, from when he was born in 1925 - the point being the high rates of child mortality in the pre-antibiotic era. Happily he survived till a few years ago. The Pru did very kindly let him off further payments some decades back, but even so a rough consideration of input vs output was an interesting one. Noit least the point it only paid a quarter of the cost - or would have if it hadn't been payable to his mother and so shared out, 30 years after her demise, amongst the wider cousins.
I was wondering about the aircraft which flew through the hurricane (and disappeared for twenty minutes or so before reappearing), and came across this story from Hurricane Hugo*, where they made the mistake of trying the exercise at 1500 ft (!)
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-5 ...Sustained winds now 185 mph, gusting to 196 mph. Pressure plummeting, down to 930 millibars. Hugo is a category five hurricane, and we are in the eyewall at 1500 feet! One strong downdraft has the power to send us plunging into the ocean. We have no options other than to gut it out and make it to the eye, where we can climb to a safer altitude...
Then, disaster. Thick dark clouds suddenly envelop the aircraft. A titanic fist of wind, three times the force of gravity, smashes us. I am thrown into the computer console, bounce off, and for one terrifying instant find myself looking DOWN at a precipitous angle at Sean across the aisle from me.
A second massive jolt rocks the aircraft. Gear loosened by the previous turbulence flies about the inside the aircraft, bouncing off walls, ceiling, and crew members. Next to Terry Schricker, our 200-pound life raft breaks loose and hurtles into the ceiling. Neil Rain fends off screwdrivers, wrenches, and his airborne toolbox with his arms. The locked drawers in the galley rip open, and a cooler loaded with soft drink cans explodes into the air, showering Alan Goldstein with ice and 12-ounce cans. Hugh Willoughby watches as invisible fingers pry loose his portable computer from its mounting, and hurl it into the ceiling, ripping a gash in the tough ceiling fabric. At the radar station, Peter Dodge shields himself and the Barbados reporter from two flying briefcases. Next to them, Bob Burpee grabs two airborne boxes of computer tapes, but has no more hands to grab a third box of tapes that smashes against the ceiling, sending the tapes caroming through the cabin.
A third terrific blow, almost six times the force of gravity, staggers the airplane. Clip boards, flight bags, and headsets sail past my head as I am hurled into the console. Terrible thundering crashing sounds boom through the cabin; I hear crew members crying out. I scream inwardly. "This is what it feels like to die in battle", I think. We are going down. The final moments of the five hurricane hunter missions that never returned must have been like this.
The aircraft lurches out of control into a hard right bank. We plunge towards the ocean, our number three engine in flames. Debris hangs from the number four engine.
The turbulence suddenly stops. The clouds part. The darkness lifts. We fall into the eye of Hurricane Hugo...
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
I have donated my body to medical students. There is a chance it won't be needed eg if mangled. Then it is the black bin for me (or possibly the recycling).
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
Don't forget the chairs that tip you out... Love those ones.
Ooh, and Craftmatic Adjustable beds.
And the baths with a door in them.
Who knew it was the habit of ladies "d'une certaine age" to take their baths in a swimming costume.
I am never ever going to trust a bath with a door in it.
Quite. Look at how many German submarines survived WW2 - they were just accidents waiting to happen with doors that open under water...
And loos. OK - one loo. The captain used it without advice, and pulled the levers in the wrong order in a high-tech loo in U1206, and the water came in rather than the poo going out.
It reached the batteries -> chlorine, so it had to surface, and we sunk it.
Speaking of mixed race families -- and elections -- I think the second most interesting race in the US this year is between Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell, and challenger Katie Wilson:
Judging by his record, Harrell lives mostly in the real world; judging by what I have learned during the campaign, Wilson does not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Wilson
If Harrell wins, it will be a sign that ordinary Democrats are more willing to tolerate candidates, especially candidates from favored minorities, who live mostly in the real world.
(Unimportant, but it amuses me: Judging by the pictures I've seen, Wilson doesn't apppear to get out often for exercise. )
Another interesting one, Virginia Governor.
Abigail Spanberger vs Winsome Earle-Sears. The black lady is the Republican.
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
I have donated my body to medical students. There is a chance it won't be needed eg if mangled. Then it is the black bin for me (or possibly the recycling).
You leave it to a particular health authority so I suspect my remains will be safe (so to speak), but frankly IU don't care if they cut me up or blow me up (as long as they have really checked I am dead).
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
I think insisting people use it is dumb and makes no sense, but getting angry about it or refusing out of spite just looks petty and dumb.
Starmer is no stranger to obsequiousness in any case, but if there's a time to do belt and braces sucking up it's while selling a whole shitload of British stuff to foreigners.
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
That is of course all we spend money on
And purportedly upmarket ready-cooked meals.
And I forgot cash for gold, sending off some trinkets to get the money to then go on a cruise.
And dodgy health insurance plans. (My mother signed up to one, and we only found out after her demise. Bastards wouldn't refund the unexpired portion of the subscription, either. Mrs C (who knows about these things) was very interested to see that the magnitude of the payouts for suffering X or Y was inversely proportional to the actual probability of the condition.
I was going to add the leaflets from unfamiliar animal welfare operations with a winsome kitten/puppy on the cover and big lettering saying "Nice puppy, shame about what happens if you don't make a donation pronto". But perhaps that's for all ages.
From looking at the stuff she was sent, and which we checked, I was left with the feeling that old folk are being very deliberately targeted. Not just for the obvious reason, but some firms are aiming for folk of wavering mental sense.
My Dad had a Sun Life over 50 plan. Utter waste of money. He assumed, from the ads at the time, it would pay for the funeral as it was implied it was a funeral plan. Didn’t even pay for half.
Just look at the ads for it. How it’s pitched. Even today. I think you’re absolutely right as to the targetting.
He’d have been better putting it in the bank, even with their miserly interest rates.
Yes. My mother was not incapax - quite the reverse - so it was a bit of a surprise when she fell for the health insurance thing. But that probably indicates how well they are done.
Mrs C & I are very tempted by the funeral plans. But only tempted.
I have donated my body to medical students. There is a chance it won't be needed eg if mangled. Then it is the black bin for me (or possibly the recycling).
You leave it to a particular health authority so I suspect my remains will be safe (so to speak), but frankly IU don't care if they cut me up or blow me up (as long as they have really checked I am dead).
The Alistair Cooke (Letter from America Alistair Cooke) case is a cautionary tale:
Labour and the Tories now tied and only just ahead of the Greens and LDs shows that both the main parties are finding it difficult to distinguish themselves. Labour are losing votes to their left to the Greens and to the centre to the LDs and the Tories have already lost the right to Reform and under Kemi are losing centrist voters to the LDs as well.
Reform ahead clearly but only on 27% so still very vulnerable to anti Farage tactical voting
It's a fascinating time to be involved in politics! There is a very simple message from the electorate - they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. The party who can offer the most convincing fix for the mess will win.
You don't think the winner will be the Party offering the most attractive illusion?
I think there are two more cycles: Reform and then radical left (Green or Sultana) And then we may consider facing up to our problems. But we are not at rock bottom yet.
Radical Left would be apocalyptic.
No-one would come out with any private assets intact out the other side, and it'd take us decades to recover, and many of us never would.
Interesting question? Would we prefer a Corbyn/Foot type government or Farage/Trump type of Government?
I appreciate it sounds like a choice of which foot would you like to shoot, but if I had to choose I would go for Corbyn/Foot because although they might be worse at running the economy (maybe?) they aren't obviously destroying the democracy. Further left and of course that is also a possibilty
I'd go for Farage/Trump every time, and it's not even close.
So would most of the country.
Then most of the country are wrong, as are you.
I don't think so. Plenty of people on here (many reading this now, and even posting) would handwring about it publicly, and then still vote for them in the voting booth.
Farage is a pub bore and a bit of an ass, but I'd far rather him in power than Corbyn/Foot.
My concern with him isn't his shtick, it's that I don't think he could manage a team or do the job and his economics are fantasy land.
I did vote for Corbyn in 2016 (for the regional vote in the Holyrood elections), but I couldn't now vote for anyone who doesn't take the threat from Russia seriously. Not for Corbyn. Not for Polanski. Not for Farage.
I'm surprised at the number of PB Righties prepared to overlook Farage's support for Putin.
I think the conflation of Farage and Trump here is unhelpful.
@Casino_Royale I'd be interested in whether you'd go for Trump over Corbyn. I can understand you choosing Farage (populist right, roughly in line with Trump's first term perhaps). But Trump now?
Imv we all need to carefully consider which of the options at our next election are best placed to preserve and strengthen democracy in the face of a pretty crap set of political choices that will need to be made in the next generation or two.
One can have a sensible argument over whether Farage (playing to the gallery, keeping people engaged in politics) or Starmer (stolid respect of the rule of law) are best placed to keep our democracy healthy (neither is a great choice). But Trump is way out on the extremes on this.
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
I think there's a decent chance of a 2030 or 2031 general election.
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
Not only that he’s got to pick potential ministers of state and they need to be subject to scrutiny.
Who’s his chancellor ? Foreign Secretary ? Home Secretary ? Etc etc.
How can we have any confidence in them to manage their briefs ?
Okay, I don’t have confidence in the 3 main parties on the whole in that area but at least we know who they are and they are held to account.
People obsess about Reform at the trivial edge. This is a key issue for me, not what a councillor in Borsetshire SW has said or done.
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
Not only that he’s got to pick potential ministers of state and they need to be subject to scrutiny.
Who’s his chancellor ? Foreign Secretary ? Home Secretary ? Etc etc.
How can we have any confidence in them to manage their briefs ?
Okay, I don’t have confidence in the 3 main parties on the whole in that area but at least we know who they are and they are held to account.
People obsess about Reform at the trivial edge. This is a key issue for me, not what a councillor in Borsetshire SW has said or done.
To be fair, I actually like MPs who are willing to vote against their own parties. But if they exist in record numbers, then the political skills of the cabinet and PM will be tested like never before (well at least not since May failed to shepherd the troops thru Brexit).
The same cultural impulse that delivers massively disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on our screens also ensures that fathers are invariably portrayed as hapless idiots.
As I posted a few days ago, it is probably harmless and you’d sound like a nutter if you were to bang on about it, but it’s a thing and we shouldn’t demonise people who merely point it out.
The only time you see oldies are on ads for cruises, sun life over 50 plans and funeral/cremation plans.
Don't forget the chairs that tip you out... Love those ones.
Ooh, and Craftmatic Adjustable beds.
And the baths with a door in them.
Who knew it was the habit of ladies "d'une certaine age" to take their baths in a swimming costume.
I am never ever going to trust a bath with a door in it.
Quite. Look at how many German submarines survived WW2 - they were just accidents waiting to happen with doors that open under water...
And loos. OK - one loo. The captain used it without advice, and pulled the levers in the wrong order in a high-tech loo in U1206, and the water came in rather than the poo going out.
It reached the batteries -> chlorine, so it had to surface, and we sunk it.
IIRC the first subs to completely automate the toilet flush were the British Amphion class - they used an internal septic tank that was emptied into the sea in a separate operation.
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
These councillors losses are a form of natural selection for that MP selection process. OTOH, doing it this way does actually reduce the chance of the selected candidate actually winning...
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
Not only that he’s got to pick potential ministers of state and they need to be subject to scrutiny.
Who’s his chancellor ? Foreign Secretary ? Home Secretary ? Etc etc.
How can we have any confidence in them to manage their briefs ?
Okay, I don’t have confidence in the 3 main parties on the whole in that area but at least we know who they are and they are held to account.
People obsess about Reform at the trivial edge. This is a key issue for me, not what a councillor in Borsetshire SW has said or done.
When Labour were in the Opposition, what proportion of the public could name, let alone scrutinise, the Labour future ministers of state?
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
Not only that he’s got to pick potential ministers of state and they need to be subject to scrutiny.
Who’s his chancellor ? Foreign Secretary ? Home Secretary ? Etc etc.
How can we have any confidence in them to manage their briefs ?
Okay, I don’t have confidence in the 3 main parties on the whole in that area but at least we know who they are and they are held to account.
People obsess about Reform at the trivial edge. This is a key issue for me, not what a councillor in Borsetshire SW has said or done.
To be fair, I actually like MPs who are willing to vote against their own parties. But if they exist in record numbers, then the political skills of the cabinet and PM will be tested like never before (well at least not since May failed to shepherd the troops thru Brexit).
Earlier this year Labour struggled to get some modest cuts to benefits through with their massive majority. SKS has been tested too.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
Can we declare war on any country that uses England when they mean the UK?
TL:DR enough people may vote tactically to keep Reform out in 2029.
I wouldn't have beleeeved it before Caerphilly, but afterwards I have to concede it is at least possible.
Tsk, I have been talking about it on here for a while.
Fact 1: Reform are currently the country’s most popular party
Fact 2: Reform are currently the country’s most hated party
It’s why I tipped Plaid Cymru to win the by-election.
I’ve said for a long time that a lot of people vote for the least worst party with a chance of winning.
And there are a lot of voters who will regard Reform as so far beyond acceptable that they will actually go out and vote for the not Reform party with a chance of winning
Based on our opinion polls:
The modal voter is Reform.
The median voter is NOT Reform.
The median voter will beat the modal one most of the time in our electoral system.
Its why I expect another Lab majority next time, not that they deserve it.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
Neither are paying us £8bn for a bunch of aircraft. I'm happy to call Türkiye whatever they like on that basis.
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
I'll have to have a look at the various RefUK Councils, and which ones have problems.
Notts have their issues around being bonkers and incompetent and a collation of Captain Mainwarings, but they do not seem to be having civil wars like a home counties version of Gangs of New York.
Part of it is about previous experience (eg Mansfield Independents where our Council Leader had been for 10-20 years), but also about extremists and extremist supporters, and people with a tendency to tantrum, and those who thought it would be easy and they could relax, and people who believed their own rhetoric about waste, or who are trying to cover their butts when there are problems or questions.
I was wondering about the aircraft which flew through the hurricane (and disappeared for twenty minutes or so before reappearing), and came across this story from Hurricane Hugo*, where they made the mistake of trying the exercise at 1500 ft (!)
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-5 ...Sustained winds now 185 mph, gusting to 196 mph. Pressure plummeting, down to 930 millibars. Hugo is a category five hurricane, and we are in the eyewall at 1500 feet! One strong downdraft has the power to send us plunging into the ocean. We have no options other than to gut it out and make it to the eye, where we can climb to a safer altitude...
Then, disaster. Thick dark clouds suddenly envelop the aircraft. A titanic fist of wind, three times the force of gravity, smashes us. I am thrown into the computer console, bounce off, and for one terrifying instant find myself looking DOWN at a precipitous angle at Sean across the aisle from me.
A second massive jolt rocks the aircraft. Gear loosened by the previous turbulence flies about the inside the aircraft, bouncing off walls, ceiling, and crew members. Next to Terry Schricker, our 200-pound life raft breaks loose and hurtles into the ceiling. Neil Rain fends off screwdrivers, wrenches, and his airborne toolbox with his arms. The locked drawers in the galley rip open, and a cooler loaded with soft drink cans explodes into the air, showering Alan Goldstein with ice and 12-ounce cans. Hugh Willoughby watches as invisible fingers pry loose his portable computer from its mounting, and hurl it into the ceiling, ripping a gash in the tough ceiling fabric. At the radar station, Peter Dodge shields himself and the Barbados reporter from two flying briefcases. Next to them, Bob Burpee grabs two airborne boxes of computer tapes, but has no more hands to grab a third box of tapes that smashes against the ceiling, sending the tapes caroming through the cabin.
A third terrific blow, almost six times the force of gravity, staggers the airplane. Clip boards, flight bags, and headsets sail past my head as I am hurled into the console. Terrible thundering crashing sounds boom through the cabin; I hear crew members crying out. I scream inwardly. "This is what it feels like to die in battle", I think. We are going down. The final moments of the five hurricane hunter missions that never returned must have been like this.
The aircraft lurches out of control into a hard right bank. We plunge towards the ocean, our number three engine in flames. Debris hangs from the number four engine.
The turbulence suddenly stops. The clouds part. The darkness lifts. We fall into the eye of Hurricane Hugo...
*I was honeymooning on Nevis at the time.
Yes, these guys are absolutely and certifiably insane.
One of their runs yesterday was abandoned early, after hitting the maximum permitted g-force on their (very heavily modified) plane.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
If they wish us to call them Turkiye, then there's no issues with being polite and respecting that.
However they want to use characters not in our alphabet.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
Neither are paying us £8bn for a bunch of aircraft. I'm happy to call Türkiye whatever they like on that basis.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
Neither are paying us £8bn for a bunch of aircraft. I'm happy to call Türkiye whatever they like on that basis.
If Starmer's doing the deal, that £8bn will probably cost us £10bn and RAF Akrotiri
Speaking of mixed race families -- and elections -- I think the second most interesting race in the US this year is between Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell, and challenger Katie Wilson:
Judging by his record, Harrell lives mostly in the real world; judging by what I have learned during the campaign, Wilson does not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Wilson
If Harrell wins, it will be a sign that ordinary Democrats are more willing to tolerate candidates, especially candidates from favored minorities, who live mostly in the real world.
(Unimportant, but it amuses me: Judging by the pictures I've seen, Wilson doesn't apppear to get out often for exercise. )
Another interesting one, Virginia Governor.
Abigail Spanberger vs Winsome Earle-Sears. The black lady is the Republican.
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
If you consider that the normal career / training path is party activist > councillor > PPC with the vast majority being filtered out then they're going to need significantly more councillors than they have now to get several hundred credible PPCs or a lot more Conservative defections from current and ex-MPs etc. Kent CC could be heading into chaos, a minority Reform rump with a lot of disaffected ex-Reform independents and the more sensible parties unable to get anywhere close to the numbers needed for a working coalition.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
Afaik Turkey hasn't issued any strictures about it, or even cares.
I look forward to the next gammony prolapses over Beijing and Mumbai.
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
I think there's a decent chance of a 2030 or 2031 general election.
Pedantically we have elections at no more than every 5 years, so every year has a 20% chance (making no prior assumptions). So for 2030 + 2031 you'd say 40% chance. Then add in the starting point (from 2024 - 2028/29 giving 2/3 years after). So probably greater than 50% chance I think.
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
I'll have to have a look at the various RefUK Councils, and which ones have problems.
Notts have their issues around being bonkers and incompetent and a collation of Captain Mainwarings, but they do not seem to be having civil wars like a home counties version of Gangs of New York.
Part of it is about previous experience (eg Mansfield Independents where our Council Leader had been for 10-20 years), but also about extremists and extremist supporters, and people with a tendency to tantrum, and those who thought it would be easy and they could relax, and people who believed their own rhetoric about waste, or who are trying to cover their butts when there are problems or questions.
And also those who want to be Attila the Hun.
Beyond disliking the rate of immigration and woke, supporters of Reform don't have a lot in common. Some will be high tax, some low spend, some pro Putin, others anti Putin, some massively anti green energy, others happy with it etc.
Without decades of established tribal loyalty (that Labour and the Conservatives have built up), factional splintering seems pretty inevitable. As with Starmer, Farage probably won't spend much time thinking about what to do with power, when he can spend it on the easier job of gaining power instead.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
Can we declare war on any country that uses England when they mean the UK?
Yes, but we have very little to fight with, sadly.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
If they wish us to call them Turkiye, then there's no issues with being polite and respecting that.
However they want to use characters not in our alphabet.
Would you adopt the same practice for people with foreign names with special characters, such as Oisín?
What if they were a customer of a business that you ran?
TL:DR enough people may vote tactically to keep Reform out in 2029.
I wouldn't have beleeeved it before Caerphilly, but afterwards I have to concede it is at least possible.
Tsk, I have been talking about it on here for a while.
Fact 1: Reform are currently the country’s most popular party
Fact 2: Reform are currently the country’s most hated party
It’s why I tipped Plaid Cymru to win the by-election.
I’ve said for a long time that a lot of people vote for the least worst party with a chance of winning.
And there are a lot of voters who will regard Reform as so far beyond acceptable that they will actually go out and vote for the not Reform party with a chance of winning
Based on our opinion polls:
The modal voter is Reform.
The median voter is NOT Reform.
The median voter will beat the modal one most of the time in our electoral system.
Its why I expect another Lab majority next time, not that they deserve it.
it depends which is the bigger electoral bloc, Labour/Lib Dem/Green or Conservative/Reform.
I do not see a realistic path to Labour winning a majority, although they could certainly hold on to largest party status.
If the right bloc is bigger, then I expect Reform to be the largest party. If the Left bloc is bigger, then I would expect it to be Labour.
"An Afghan national has been arrested after a triple stabbing left a man dead. The 22-year-old was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, the Metropolitan Police said. Police and ambulance crews were called to Midhurst Gardens in Uxbridge at around 5pm on Monday where the three victims were stabbed. A 49-year-old man was treated at the scene but died, while another man, aged 45, suffered life-changing injuries. A 14-year-old’s injuries were not life-threatening or changing."
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
Afaik Turkey hasn't issued any strictures about it, or even cares.
I look forward to the next gammony prolapses over Beijing and Mumbai.
'Save our Bombay and Peking ducks!'
Turkey wants to be called Türkiye in rebranding move Published 2 June 2022
ByTiffany Wertheimer BBC News
Turkey will be known as Türkiye at the United Nations from now on, after it agreed to a formal request from Ankara.
Several international bodies will be asked to make the name change as part of a rebranding campaign launched by the Turkish president late last year.
"Türkiye is the best representation and expression of the Turkish people's culture, civilization, and values," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in December.
The UN says it made the change as soon as it received the request this week.
Most Turks already know their country as Türkiye. However the anglicised form Turkey is widely used, even within the country.
State broadcaster TRT was quick to make the change as soon as it was announced last year, explaining that among the reasons for the image rebrand was the association with the bird traditionally associated with Christmas, New Year or Thanksgiving.
It also pointed out the Cambridge English Dictionary's definition of one of the meanings of the word as "something that fails badly" or "a stupid or silly person".
As part of the re-branding, "Made in Türkiye" will feature on all exported products, and in January a tourism campaign was launched with the catch-phrase "Hello Türkiye".
The move has been met with a mixed reaction online. While government officials support it, others say it is an ineffective distraction as the president gears up for elections next year, amid an economic crisis.
It is not uncommon for countries to change their names.
In 2020, The Netherlands dropped Holland in a rebranding move. And before that, Macedonia changed its name to North Macedonia due to a political dispute with Greece, and Swaziland became Eswatini in 2018.
Further back in history, Iran used to be called Persia, Siam is now Thailand, and Rhodesia was changed to Zimbabwe.
The Ü may be tricky for most of the international audience who don't have that letter in their alphabet but it's the same as the German Ü, like the U in pure or cue. So for an English-speaker, changing the first vowel of Turkey to a Ü and adding an E to the end (as in pet) is enough to pronounce the new name perfectly.
But why was this necessary? President Erdogan was pushing for this move for years, arguing that the country would be better represented with the Turkish name instead of sharing the same word with a bird.
Turkey the bird is called by a different name in many languages, such as "peru" in Portuguese, while in Turkish it is "hindi".
Many social media users refer to this fact to criticise the Turkish government's move as absurd, while others agree that it was a necessary rebranding.
We have to wait and see if people around the world will accept Türkiye instead of Turkey, Turquie or Twrci.
Speaking of mixed race families -- and elections -- I think the second most interesting race in the US this year is between Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell, and challenger Katie Wilson:
Judging by his record, Harrell lives mostly in the real world; judging by what I have learned during the campaign, Wilson does not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Wilson
If Harrell wins, it will be a sign that ordinary Democrats are more willing to tolerate candidates, especially candidates from favored minorities, who live mostly in the real world.
(Unimportant, but it amuses me: Judging by the pictures I've seen, Wilson doesn't apppear to get out often for exercise. )
Another interesting one, Virginia Governor.
Abigail Spanberger vs Winsome Earle-Sears. The black lady is the Republican.
Speaking of mixed race families -- and elections -- I think the second most interesting race in the US this year is between Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell, and challenger Katie Wilson:
Judging by his record, Harrell lives mostly in the real world; judging by what I have learned during the campaign, Wilson does not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Wilson
If Harrell wins, it will be a sign that ordinary Democrats are more willing to tolerate candidates, especially candidates from favored minorities, who live mostly in the real world.
(Unimportant, but it amuses me: Judging by the pictures I've seen, Wilson doesn't apppear to get out often for exercise. )
Another interesting one, Virginia Governor.
Abigail Spanberger vs Winsome Earle-Sears. The black lady is the Republican.
Speaking of mixed race families -- and elections -- I think the second most interesting race in the US this year is between Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell, and challenger Katie Wilson:
Judging by his record, Harrell lives mostly in the real world; judging by what I have learned during the campaign, Wilson does not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Wilson
If Harrell wins, it will be a sign that ordinary Democrats are more willing to tolerate candidates, especially candidates from favored minorities, who live mostly in the real world.
(Unimportant, but it amuses me: Judging by the pictures I've seen, Wilson doesn't apppear to get out often for exercise. )
Another interesting one, Virginia Governor.
Abigail Spanberger vs Winsome Earle-Sears. The black lady is the Republican.
There's a big scandal with the Democrat candidate for Attorney General in Virginia, so that's a market to really watch. (I may write a header, and it *might* imapct the Governor race.)
I was wondering about the aircraft which flew through the hurricane (and disappeared for twenty minutes or so before reappearing), and came across this story from Hurricane Hugo*, where they made the mistake of trying the exercise at 1500 ft (!)
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-5 ...Sustained winds now 185 mph, gusting to 196 mph. Pressure plummeting, down to 930 millibars. Hugo is a category five hurricane, and we are in the eyewall at 1500 feet! One strong downdraft has the power to send us plunging into the ocean. We have no options other than to gut it out and make it to the eye, where we can climb to a safer altitude...
Then, disaster. Thick dark clouds suddenly envelop the aircraft. A titanic fist of wind, three times the force of gravity, smashes us. I am thrown into the computer console, bounce off, and for one terrifying instant find myself looking DOWN at a precipitous angle at Sean across the aisle from me.
A second massive jolt rocks the aircraft. Gear loosened by the previous turbulence flies about the inside the aircraft, bouncing off walls, ceiling, and crew members. Next to Terry Schricker, our 200-pound life raft breaks loose and hurtles into the ceiling. Neil Rain fends off screwdrivers, wrenches, and his airborne toolbox with his arms. The locked drawers in the galley rip open, and a cooler loaded with soft drink cans explodes into the air, showering Alan Goldstein with ice and 12-ounce cans. Hugh Willoughby watches as invisible fingers pry loose his portable computer from its mounting, and hurl it into the ceiling, ripping a gash in the tough ceiling fabric. At the radar station, Peter Dodge shields himself and the Barbados reporter from two flying briefcases. Next to them, Bob Burpee grabs two airborne boxes of computer tapes, but has no more hands to grab a third box of tapes that smashes against the ceiling, sending the tapes caroming through the cabin.
A third terrific blow, almost six times the force of gravity, staggers the airplane. Clip boards, flight bags, and headsets sail past my head as I am hurled into the console. Terrible thundering crashing sounds boom through the cabin; I hear crew members crying out. I scream inwardly. "This is what it feels like to die in battle", I think. We are going down. The final moments of the five hurricane hunter missions that never returned must have been like this.
The aircraft lurches out of control into a hard right bank. We plunge towards the ocean, our number three engine in flames. Debris hangs from the number four engine.
The turbulence suddenly stops. The clouds part. The darkness lifts. We fall into the eye of Hurricane Hugo...
*I was honeymooning on Nevis at the time.
Yes, these guys are absolutely and certifiably insane.
One of their runs yesterday was abandoned early, after hitting the maximum permitted g-force on their (very heavily modified) plane.
.. I had a can of Coke Zero on my desk the entire time and never even had to hold onto it to keep from spilling. NOAA mentioned they over G’d their plane but we didn’t have any problems.. https://x.com/FlynonymousWX/status/1982926862319006015
Incidentally there's quite a lot of margin on the g-limits. The Hugo plane exceeded them massively, and was back in service quite soon after checks and engine repair.
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
I think there's a decent chance of a 2030 or 2031 general election.
Pedantically we have elections at no more than every 5 years, so every year has a 20% chance (making no prior assumptions). So for 2030 + 2031 you'd say 40% chance. Then add in the starting point (from 2024 - 2028/29 giving 2/3 years after). So probably greater than 50% chance I think.
I think that given we know there was a GE in 2024, that was won by a landslide majority, and that government is now super unpopular, we can be pretty confident there will be a GE in 2029.
I haven't done the actual stats on this, but I think that four and five year Parliaments happen more often than chance, and so, a priori, an election in 2030 or 2031 would be contra-indicated.
Except that I think that the more likely outcomes of the GE in 2029 are likely to result in a short-lived Parliament.
TL:DR enough people may vote tactically to keep Reform out in 2029.
I wouldn't have beleeeved it before Caerphilly, but afterwards I have to concede it is at least possible.
Tsk, I have been talking about it on here for a while.
Fact 1: Reform are currently the country’s most popular party
Fact 2: Reform are currently the country’s most hated party
It’s why I tipped Plaid Cymru to win the by-election.
I’ve said for a long time that a lot of people vote for the least worst party with a chance of winning.
And there are a lot of voters who will regard Reform as so far beyond acceptable that they will actually go out and vote for the not Reform party with a chance of winning
Based on our opinion polls:
The modal voter is Reform.
The median voter is NOT Reform.
The median voter will beat the modal one most of the time in our electoral system.
Its why I expect another Lab majority next time, not that they deserve it.
it depends which is the bigger electoral bloc, Labour/Lib Dem/Green or Conservative/Reform.
I do not see a realistic path to Labour winning a majority, although they could certainly hold on to largest party status.
If the right bloc is bigger, then I expect Reform to be the largest party. If the Left bloc is bigger, then I would expect it to be Labour.
In normal times, sure. But don't forget that Labour is led by Keir Starmer. I'm not sure there is a floor on the Labour vote share while he remains in Number Ten.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
Neither are paying us £8bn for a bunch of aircraft. I'm happy to call Türkiye whatever they like on that basis.
If Starmer's doing the deal, that £8bn will probably cost us £10bn and RAF Akrotiri
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
If they wish us to call them Turkiye, then there's no issues with being polite and respecting that.
However they want to use characters not in our alphabet.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
If they wish us to call them Turkiye, then there's no issues with being polite and respecting that.
However they want to use characters not in our alphabet.
Would you adopt the same practice for people with foreign names with special characters, such as Oisín?
What if they were a customer of a business that you ran?
Anglicised names are normal for translations. Just as our country's name is translated in their language.
Farage is going to have to choose 400 people to be potential MPs and hope over 90% of them stay loyal for at least a couple of years to have any chance of governing effectively. Chances?
I think there's a decent chance of a 2030 or 2031 general election.
Pedantically we have elections at no more than every 5 years, so every year has a 20% chance (making no prior assumptions). So for 2030 + 2031 you'd say 40% chance. Then add in the starting point (from 2024 - 2028/29 giving 2/3 years after). So probably greater than 50% chance I think.
I think that given we know there was a GE in 2024, that was won by a landslide majority, and that government is now super unpopular, we can be pretty confident there will be a GE in 2029.
I haven't done the actual stats on this, but I think that four and five year Parliaments happen more often than chance, and so, a priori, an election in 2030 or 2031 would be contra-indicated.
Except that I think that the more likely outcomes of the GE in 2029 are likely to result in a short-lived Parliament.
I'm less confident of it being 2029 than you. Recall Thatcher's travails in 1981 etc. We are there with Starmer, yet she won resoundingly in 1983.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
If they wish us to call them Turkiye, then there's no issues with being polite and respecting that.
However they want to use characters not in our alphabet.
I don't have the figures for other parties, but I'm pretty confident this isn't normal.
Possible causes:
Unexpected winners who don't really have the time/energy/capacity to do the role.
Flakes who shouldn't have got through vetting.
People getting out of the kitchen because they don't like the heat- it turns out that you can't cut taxes by abolishing wokeness.
Free spirits (who I expect would be attracted to Reform) not liking the authoritarian leadership.
Other stuff I've missed.
(Seriously- anyone got comparable figures for other parties?)
You'd have to compare with other situations where a lot of people won who didn't expect to, as that is surely one of the explanations. Many years ago my wife almost stood for town councillor. Would have bee unlikely to win (independent in a a Tory fiefdom) but the risk of actually winning was too much.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
If they wish us to call them Turkiye, then there's no issues with being polite and respecting that.
However they want to use characters not in our alphabet.
Would you adopt the same practice for people with foreign names with special characters, such as Oisín?
What if they were a customer of a business that you ran?
Anglicised names are normal for translations. Just as our country's name is translated in their language.
Anglicised names are normal in translation, yes. And people using Deutschland or Éire in English are being silly.
But, if someone tells you that their name is Oisín (or Türkiye) and you insist on using an anglicisation, then you're being rude.
For what it's worth, I continue to use Turkey because I don't have a problem with being rude to Erdogan.
Speaking of mixed race families -- and elections -- I think the second most interesting race in the US this year is between Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell, and challenger Katie Wilson:
Judging by his record, Harrell lives mostly in the real world; judging by what I have learned during the campaign, Wilson does not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Wilson
If Harrell wins, it will be a sign that ordinary Democrats are more willing to tolerate candidates, especially candidates from favored minorities, who live mostly in the real world.
(Unimportant, but it amuses me: Judging by the pictures I've seen, Wilson doesn't apppear to get out often for exercise. )
Another interesting one, Virginia Governor.
Abigail Spanberger vs Winsome Earle-Sears. The black lady is the Republican.
There's a big scandal with the Democrat candidate for Attorney General in Virginia, so that's a market to really watch. (I may write a header, and it *might* imapct the Governor race.)
Ah yes, Jay Jones, who sounds like an absolute scumbag given the role for which he’s standing.
Republican incumbents in both positions, that in a normal election would expect to go Dem given a Republican President.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
If they wish us to call them Turkiye, then there's no issues with being polite and respecting that.
However they want to use characters not in our alphabet.
Would you adopt the same practice for people with foreign names with special characters, such as Oisín?
What if they were a customer of a business that you ran?
Anglicised names are normal for translations. Just as our country's name is translated in their language.
Everything seems such a drama these days.
It is fine for them to ask us to call them Turkiye or indeed Türkiye. It is fine for us to say yes/no/be divided on whether to do so.
I see the lads are being driven mad by Türkiye. Prerhaps there need to be quotas for foreign words in public use.
If Turkey wishes to call itself Türkiye that's up to them. If we want to call them Turkey still thats up to us. Don't the French call us Grande Bretagne? And the Germans Großbritannien?
If they wish us to call them Turkiye, then there's no issues with being polite and respecting that.
However they want to use characters not in our alphabet.
다른 키보드도 사용 가능합니다
And special characters are easily inserted.
I almost flagged that comment.
There speaks a man who has never had to deal with Windows code page issues.
Comments
I still see zero point in revising it given where we are now though. Stopping installing bright lights in new cars is about the worst possible thing that can be done as it means decades of intermittent blinding till today's LED cars die... Have you had the eye stuff looked at? AIUI night issues are quite common and often not properly looked for by optoms..
No I do not have eyesight problems.
I have a problem with lights that are ridiculously bright whatever the expectation of the other driver.
Aren't they both quite obviously Scottish?
Obviously conservatism does encompass change at times, but that's a bit different.
* to a degree, i think Farage is less rigid on that than many supporters.
I've always had the impression that most Tories hate me.
I realise that was unnecessarily curt and you are trying to be constructive in your responses. My apologies.
But I still contend you are in the wrong. It’s not about relative glare, otherwise this would have been an issue before LED lights.
I have always found it painful driving into undipped headlights - who doesn’t? - and LED lights *on dip* are frequently as bright as undipped halogen lights.
That is crazy and it is dangerous. And I am glad the government are at least looking at it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuIH_z5rKcw
The big problem was that you looked like your were modelling yourself on Bono but worth it for the safety angle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones_(novel)
Which had a different name in the UK.
(I've always liked it, but never thought it great.)
Fact 1: Reform are currently the country’s most popular party
Fact 2: Reform are currently the country’s most hated party
It’s why I tipped Plaid Cymru to win the by-election.
If you drove towards a car on full beam (any type of lights) in the daytime, it would be fine, right? So presumably we agree that there is some level of own-headlight brightness where there wouldn't be a problem?
The key question I suppose is whether that brightness has to be greater than the oncoming vehicles or not. I contend it doesn't - but even if it did, if it were only by a little bit then that ought to be fine as you'd be on full beam most of the time.
Yes, my eyes are unusually sensitive to light because I have abnormally good eyesight. But that’s a separate issue in a sense. It exacerbates the problem from my point of view, but it’s not the root cause of it.
I’m not sure what the second part about a problem where I live means?
And there are a lot of voters who will regard Reform as so far beyond acceptable that they will actually go out and vote for the not Reform party with a chance of winning
If it were OK to have lights as bright as full beam if everyone had them, we would never have needed dippers!
What I do care about is that my next-of-kin will have professional support at hand all lined up and ready to go.
I'm surprised at the number of PB Righties prepared to overlook Farage's support for Putin.
Which should be a source of eternal shame to the "conservatives" on the bench.
Back in the day that sort of crossover appeal would have been viewed as gold dust and super valuable, but now it's like he's not a proper Tory.
But in both cases I pretty much drafted most of the script anyway. Actually, it's not easy to do in a hurry esp if many contemporaries have already departed. I've also done a full professional obit for a dear friend and colleague, which took ages - simply checking the various dates of successive jobs, and the publication record for one thing; plus the shorter versions which appeared in major newspapers, and the very long and more home-focussed one in one of the few surviving local newspapers of record these days. Even more difficult. And add hunting for photos.
In fact, I ought to do some sort of draft to have ready as a source when the time comes for me.
I think in a GE it will be harder for the organised tactical voting against them but in a by election that’s a different matter.
Mr Horwood said once the improvements are completed, residents will be able to drop their recyclables "straight into a compactor".
"Part of what we're doing here is to make it more easier to recycle, so people don't have to lift it and drop it into a skip," he added.
The site, which is run by the council's not-for-profit company Ubico, has been operational since the 1990s and was last upgraded in 2019.
Other work includes resurfacing public tarmac areas, installing a canopy to protect certain skips and electric charring points for Ubico vehicles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c867j14ee19o
https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/4-things-to-watch-out-for-when-buying-a-funeral-plan-aTh3Y5G3qz5f
Actually, this reminds me I cashed in what was effecxtively my father's funeral plan - 1d or 2d weekly with the Pru, from when he was born in 1925 - the point being the high rates of child mortality in the pre-antibiotic era. Happily he survived till a few years ago. The Pru did very kindly let him off further payments some decades back, but even so a rough consideration of input vs output was an interesting one. Noit least the point it only paid a quarter of the cost - or would have if it hadn't been payable to his mother and so shared out, 30 years after her demise, amongst the wider cousins.
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-5
...Sustained winds now 185 mph, gusting to 196 mph. Pressure plummeting, down to 930 millibars. Hugo is a category five hurricane, and we are in the eyewall at 1500 feet! One strong downdraft has the power to send us plunging into the ocean. We have no options other than to gut it out and make it to the eye, where we can climb to a safer altitude...
Then, disaster. Thick dark clouds suddenly envelop the aircraft. A titanic fist of wind, three times the force of gravity, smashes us. I am thrown into the computer console, bounce off, and for one terrifying instant find myself looking DOWN at a precipitous angle at Sean across the aisle from me.
A second massive jolt rocks the aircraft. Gear loosened by the previous turbulence flies about the inside the aircraft, bouncing off walls, ceiling, and crew members. Next to Terry Schricker, our 200-pound life raft breaks loose and hurtles into the ceiling. Neil Rain fends off screwdrivers, wrenches, and his airborne toolbox with his arms. The locked drawers in the galley rip open, and a cooler loaded with soft drink cans explodes into the air, showering Alan Goldstein with ice and 12-ounce cans. Hugh Willoughby watches as invisible fingers pry loose his portable computer from its mounting, and hurl it into the ceiling, ripping a gash in the tough ceiling fabric. At the radar station, Peter Dodge shields himself and the Barbados reporter from two flying briefcases. Next to them, Bob Burpee grabs two airborne boxes of computer tapes, but has no more hands to grab a third box of tapes that smashes against the ceiling, sending the tapes caroming through the cabin.
A third terrific blow, almost six times the force of gravity, staggers the airplane. Clip boards, flight bags, and headsets sail past my head as I am hurled into the console. Terrible thundering crashing sounds boom through the cabin; I hear crew members crying out. I scream inwardly. "This is what it feels like to die in battle", I think. We are going down. The final moments of the five hurricane hunter missions that never returned must have been like this.
The aircraft lurches out of control into a hard right bank. We plunge towards the ocean, our number three engine in flames. Debris hangs from the number four engine.
The turbulence suddenly stops. The clouds part. The darkness lifts. We fall into the eye of Hurricane Hugo...
*I was honeymooning on Nevis at the time.
The RefUK majority has gone from 33 (57 vs 24) to 9 (45 vs 36) since May.
That's one hell of a drop, and potentially existential for the control of the Council, especially with the budget process about to happen.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2025/england/councils/E10000016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_County_Council
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-suing-body-donation-company-after-mothers-corpse-was-sold-to-military-for-blast-testing/
It reached the batteries -> chlorine, so it had to surface, and we sunk it.
https://uboat.net/boats/u1206.htm
(The Captain was called Herr Schlitt.)
Turks say that you live in İskoçya
Abigail Spanberger vs Winsome Earle-Sears. The black lady is the Republican.
https://x.com/pwcgop/status/1982461716459069925
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/dec/23/bbc.usnews
@Casino_Royale I'd be interested in whether you'd go for Trump over Corbyn. I can understand you choosing Farage (populist right, roughly in line with Trump's first term perhaps). But Trump now?
Imv we all need to carefully consider which of the options at our next election are best placed to preserve and strengthen democracy in the face of a pretty crap set of political choices that will need to be made in the next generation or two.
One can have a sensible argument over whether Farage (playing to the gallery, keeping people engaged in politics) or Starmer (stolid respect of the rule of law) are best placed to keep our democracy healthy (neither is a great choice). But Trump is way out on the extremes on this.
Who’s his chancellor ? Foreign Secretary ? Home Secretary ? Etc etc.
How can we have any confidence in them to manage their briefs ?
Okay, I don’t have confidence in the 3 main parties on the whole in that area but at least we know who they are and they are held to account.
People obsess about Reform at the trivial edge. This is a key issue for me, not what a councillor in Borsetshire SW has said or done.
The modal voter is Reform.
The median voter is NOT Reform.
The median voter will beat the modal one most of the time in our electoral system.
Its why I expect another Lab majority next time, not that they deserve it.
I'm happy to call Türkiye whatever they like on that basis.
Notts have their issues around being bonkers and incompetent and a collation of Captain Mainwarings, but they do not seem to be having civil wars like a home counties version of Gangs of New York.
Part of it is about previous experience (eg Mansfield Independents where our Council Leader had been for 10-20 years), but also about extremists and extremist supporters, and people with a tendency to tantrum, and those who thought it would be easy and they could relax, and people who believed their own rhetoric about waste, or who are trying to cover their butts when there are problems or questions.
And also those who want to be Attila the Hun.
One of their runs yesterday was abandoned early, after hitting the maximum permitted g-force on their (very heavily modified) plane.
However they want to use characters not in our alphabet.
Are they just shouting "Turkey" more loudly ?
Images from the Department of Labor's new social media ad campaign...
https://x.com/Mollyploofkins/status/1982622567757402379
Kent CC could be heading into chaos, a minority Reform rump with a lot of disaffected ex-Reform independents and the more sensible parties unable to get anywhere close to the numbers needed for a working coalition.
I look forward to the next gammony prolapses over Beijing and Mumbai.
'Save our Bombay and Peking ducks!'
Without decades of established tribal loyalty (that Labour and the Conservatives have built up), factional splintering seems pretty inevitable. As with Starmer, Farage probably won't spend much time thinking about what to do with power, when he can spend it on the easier job of gaining power instead.
What if they were a customer of a business that you ran?
I do not see a realistic path to Labour winning a majority, although they could certainly hold on to largest party status.
If the right bloc is bigger, then I expect Reform to be the largest party. If the Left bloc is bigger, then I would expect it to be Labour.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/28/afghan-arrested-triple-stabbing-uxbridge
Published
2 June 2022
ByTiffany Wertheimer
BBC News
Turkey will be known as Türkiye at the United Nations from now on, after it agreed to a formal request from Ankara.
Several international bodies will be asked to make the name change as part of a rebranding campaign launched by the Turkish president late last year.
"Türkiye is the best representation and expression of the Turkish people's culture, civilization, and values," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in December.
The UN says it made the change as soon as it received the request this week.
Most Turks already know their country as Türkiye. However the anglicised form Turkey is widely used, even within the country.
State broadcaster TRT was quick to make the change as soon as it was announced last year, explaining that among the reasons for the image rebrand was the association with the bird traditionally associated with Christmas, New Year or Thanksgiving.
It also pointed out the Cambridge English Dictionary's definition of one of the meanings of the word as "something that fails badly" or "a stupid or silly person".
As part of the re-branding, "Made in Türkiye" will feature on all exported products, and in January a tourism campaign was launched with the catch-phrase "Hello Türkiye".
The move has been met with a mixed reaction online. While government officials support it, others say it is an ineffective distraction as the president gears up for elections next year, amid an economic crisis.
It is not uncommon for countries to change their names.
In 2020, The Netherlands dropped Holland in a rebranding move. And before that, Macedonia changed its name to North Macedonia due to a political dispute with Greece, and Swaziland became Eswatini in 2018.
Further back in history, Iran used to be called Persia, Siam is now Thailand, and Rhodesia was changed to Zimbabwe.
The Ü may be tricky for most of the international audience who don't have that letter in their alphabet but it's the same as the German Ü, like the U in pure or cue. So for an English-speaker, changing the first vowel of Turkey to a Ü and adding an E to the end (as in pet) is enough to pronounce the new name perfectly.
But why was this necessary? President Erdogan was pushing for this move for years, arguing that the country would be better represented with the Turkish name instead of sharing the same word with a bird.
Turkey the bird is called by a different name in many languages, such as "peru" in Portuguese, while in Turkish it is "hindi".
Many social media users refer to this fact to criticise the Turkish government's move as absurd, while others agree that it was a necessary rebranding.
We have to wait and see if people around the world will accept Türkiye instead of Turkey, Turquie or Twrci.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61671913
https://x.com/FlynonymousWX/status/1982926862319006015
Incidentally there's quite a lot of margin on the g-limits.
The Hugo plane exceeded them massively, and was back in service quite soon after checks and engine repair.
I haven't done the actual stats on this, but I think that four and five year Parliaments happen more often than chance, and so, a priori, an election in 2030 or 2031 would be contra-indicated.
Except that I think that the more likely outcomes of the GE in 2029 are likely to result in a short-lived Parliament.
https://bsky.app/profile/samfr.bsky.social/post/3m4aikslnus26
I don't have the figures for other parties, but I'm pretty confident this isn't normal.
Possible causes:
Unexpected winners who don't really have the time/energy/capacity to do the role.
Flakes who shouldn't have got through vetting.
People getting out of the kitchen because they don't like the heat- it turns out that you can't cut taxes by abolishing wokeness.
Free spirits (who I expect would be attracted to Reform) not liking the authoritarian leadership.
Other stuff I've missed.
(Seriously- anyone got comparable figures for other parties?)
But, if someone tells you that their name is Oisín (or Türkiye) and you insist on using an anglicisation, then you're being rude.
For what it's worth, I continue to use Turkey because I don't have a problem with being rude to Erdogan.
Republican incumbents in both positions, that in a normal election would expect to go Dem given a Republican President.
It is fine for them to ask us to call them Turkiye or indeed Türkiye.
It is fine for us to say yes/no/be divided on whether to do so.
There speaks a man who has never had to deal with Windows code page issues.