NEW: Ed Miliband says pubs should serve warm beer to cut high energy costs
Typical GB lies. Milliband actually said turn the coolers off at night. According to the article I looked up, a pilot system last year was saving pubs 1000s.
But a bit of a misfire by GB News, this. I am very much of the demographic that GB News is trying to appeal to. I think Ed Miliband is a misguided buffoon. But I also think beer should be served at cellar temperature and chilled beer is, by and large, an abomination. And as I am sure Ed M is not actually proposing that beer be warmed up - just not chilled - my interpretation is that 'warm' is being used pejoratively here. And people who use 'warm' pejoratively for beer can safely be discarded in their views about beer. (Eight degrees is not warm. Go swimming in the Atlantic when the water temperature is eight degrees and see how warm you feel.)
This thread feels less like an argument about banknotes than an argument about whether Britain can still agree on anything worth putting on them.
The animals v people row is really about whether we’ve still got enough shared identity and historical confidence to celebrate figures, places or traditions without instantly vanishing up our own backsides in a culture-war hissy fit. For some, wildlife is nicely neutral. For others, it’s just official greige, chosen because it avoids saying anything more contentious than “otters are there”.
The Iran stuff is the same pattern in another form: not just what happened, but which story people want to retrofit onto it afterwards.
The overall mood is cultural pessimism with one-liners. We’re supposedly discussing banknotes, but really we’re asking whether a country that can’t agree on heroes now settles for animals because at least badgers don’t answer back.
The EU attempting to strongarm Ukraine into allowing Russia to transfer oil through Ukraine in order to finance its war machine is one of the most shameful chapters of this war to date.
The price for getting Hungary and Slovakia to allow the EU to provide a €90 billion funding package to Ukraine, as Ukraine itself recognises. The shameful parties in this business are Orbán and Fico, as always.
NEW: Ed Miliband says pubs should serve warm beer to cut high energy costs
Typical GB lies. Milliband actually said turn the coolers off at night. According to the article I looked up, a pilot system last year was saving pubs 1000s.
But a bit of a misfire by GB News, this. I am very much of the demographic that GB News is trying to appeal to. I think Ed Miliband is a misguided buffoon. But I also think beer should be served at cellar temperature and chilled beer is, by and large, an abomination. And as I am sure Ed M is not actually proposing that beer be warmed up - just not chilled - my interpretation is that 'warm' is being used pejoratively here. And people who use 'warm' pejoratively for beer can safely be discarded in their views about beer. (Eight degrees is not warm. Go swimming in the Atlantic when the water temperature is eight degrees and see how warm you feel.)
Some beer has to be served ice cold to hide the fact it tastes like pish.
I am very rarely a grumpy old man, railing at modernity.
But I'm struggling to understand: why you would want to change famous Brits for generic animals?
Is it because we're unable to agree on historical people we admire any more? If so, how terribly sad.
We should go for specific famous British animals: Shergar (ignore the Irishness), Pickles, Bobby (of Greyfriars)... Um...The octopus who used to predict football results...
NEW: Ed Miliband says pubs should serve warm beer to cut high energy costs
Typical GB lies. Milliband actually said turn the coolers off at night. According to the article I looked up, a pilot system last year was saving pubs 1000s.
Turning refrigeration on and off is a good way to break it - wonder about the long term costs.
Usually the best options for cheaper refrigeration are replacing the newer systems, better insulation and aggregating systems to a single large refrigerated store rather than multiple small ones.
UK security adviser attended US-Iran talks and judged deal was within reach
Jonathan Powell thought Tehran’s ‘surprising’ offer on its nuclear programme could prevent rush to war
Britain’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, attended the final talks between the US and Iran and judged that the offer made by Tehran on its nuclear programme was significant enough to prevent a rush to war, the Guardian can reveal.
Powell thought that progress had been made in Geneva and that the deal proposed by Iran was “surprising”, according to sources.
Two days after the talks ended, and after a date had been agreed for a further round of technical talks in Vienna, Donald Trump and Israel launched the attack on Iran.
I've assumed from the start that Israel launched the attack on Iran because the Geneva talks were going too well, rather than that the negotiations were going badly. An agreement would have lost Netanyahu the excuse he craved. And, of course, Trump was easily persuadable.
Thsy werent even sat face to face. The talks were a sham whilst they all spent 2 months putting shit in place to fight
What is clear from that account, and from others, is that the US wasn't clear about what they might be asking for (just as they have been extremely unclear about their war aims).
Whether the Iranian regime would have been prepared to offer sufficient concessions for a deal to be possible is questionable, but it is beyond argument that they did move significantly on the nuclear issue.
It's a hard one, but if faced to choose between believing the Omani foreign minister and Powell, or Trump and his real estate representatives (Witkoff and Kushner) ...
2 months of military build up as great as 2003. Both sides knew the talks were filler. Obviously Iran throw a dead cat on the table once the hammer is about to fall and do the 'woe is peaceful us, poor little lambs' schtick. The talks were never going anywhere. Who we blame for that and in what proportion is another question of course
NEW: Ed Miliband says pubs should serve warm beer to cut high energy costs
We supposedly have had Boris Derangement Syndrome and Trump Derangement Syndrome. I'm beginning to think Miliband Derangement Syndrome might actually be a thing. What people project onto him and what he actually does is so wildly at odds.
I am very rarely a grumpy old man, railing at modernity.
But I'm struggling to understand: why you would want to change famous Brits for generic animals?
Is it because we're unable to agree on historical people we admire any more? If so, how terribly sad.
We should go for specific famous British animals: Shergar (ignore the Irishness), Pickles, Bobby (of Greyfriars)... Um...The octopus who used to predict football results...
ETA: Larry the Cat
fictional/literary animals should count too Tarka the Otter, Fiver the Rabbit Mr Toad of Toad Hall The Gruffalo
I'd put ancient standing stone circles on the banknotes. Stonehenge (obvs) but also Callanish, the Ring of Brodgar and (my wife's favourite) Scorhill on Dartmoor.
Excellent idea, but you'd probably get some religious nutters saying they are "pagan" or Wokefucks saying they are "nativist"
Wildlife really is the lowest common denominator. It's pitiful
Personally I'd quite like musicians, from Tallis to Handel to Freddy Mercury. Who could object? We'd also need a woman, who is also dead - but we have the ideal: Amy
Putting a drug addict on cash might be a little on the nose.
Queen Victoria was a laudanum addict; Edward VII had a special chair made so he could have oral and anal sex with multiple different prostitutes simultaneously
They were on our coins for decades between them, I think we can cope with Amy and her smack habit
That would be a detailed scene on the 50p piece...
I am very rarely a grumpy old man, railing at modernity.
But I'm struggling to understand: why you would want to change famous Brits for generic animals?
Is it because we're unable to agree on historical people we admire any more? If so, how terribly sad.
We should go for specific famous British animals: Shergar (ignore the Irishness), Pickles, Bobby (of Greyfriars)... Um...The octopus who used to predict football results...
ETA: Larry the Cat
Rikki Tikki Tavi to celebrate the fictional animals of Empire
On the topic of bank notes, I've been fascinated around the self-justifying narratives being created out of thin air to justify versions of our society that only ever existed in imagined memories (imo a human habit that we all do to some extent). That's Farage to his fingertips.
Dan Hannan at the weekend was exceptional in creating a past that never existed.
I think that the tendency around eg Hannan and Frost would be more successful if they indulged in a modest degree of self-factchecking.
If they did some fact checking, they wouldn't be able to tell the stories they want to tell.
I am very rarely a grumpy old man, railing at modernity.
But I'm struggling to understand: why you would want to change famous Brits for generic animals?
Is it because we're unable to agree on historical people we admire any more? If so, how terribly sad.
We should go for specific famous British animals: Shergar (ignore the Irishness), Pickles, Bobby (of Greyfriars)... Um...The octopus who used to predict football results...
ETA: Larry the Cat
fictional/literary animals should count too Tarka the Otter, Fiver the Rabbit Mr Toad of Toad Hall The Gruffalo
We ought to showcase the nations favourite roadkill
On train from Edinburgh to Kings Cross just about to stop at Peterborough
I would just say that our train journey from Llandudno to Edinburgh and down the east coast evidenced just how wet everywhere is but also the lack of solar panels even on new build is notable by its scarcity
I installed solar 10 years ago and it has been successful despite paying the cost out of capital, as the return far outweighed the loss of investment interest
Good point about the lack of solar. Why isn't it mandatory?
The preference for the UK is usually to set a higher standard, and then let the builder decide how to make it - with the expectation that they will select the most cost-effective method.
As a philosophy I think that is correct, certainly for tactics if less so for strategy, so that for example if extra insulation is a better way to achieve the same goal that can be done.
But I think the game changes when it is either about eg a more rapid pivot away from gas / oil for security or sustainability reasons, or a perceived strategic need - such as Europe rendering the USA's attempts to dominate worldwide oil supplies by military force largely irrelevant.
I think at some stage the USA will realise that 400bn or 500bn extra spent on military every year, to protect their practice of using 3 or 4 times as much oil and gas as countries that are effectively as rich, but more efficient, is quite dodgy long-term economics.
Recently there have been some houses built locally (hesitate to call it an estate) with chimney pots. I have been assured, on quite reasonable authority that they all have central heating, but the planners insisted on chimney pots for aesthetic reasons.
I've forgotten where you are.
Requiring vernacular features is quite common to preserve local character - eg in parts of Derbyshire they will insist on local stone claddings (or eg frontages) and slate roofs. There is a process called "veneer" where stone or brick just 20mm deep can be used as a facing over a more modern construction method.
It's very similar in principle to eg stucco in parts of London, though traditionally that was aiui to hide the stuff it was actually built from.
it's partly why in Scotland they have a lot of "two windows in the roof above two windows downstairs" houses, so may want top promote that form rurally. I'm not sure what the form is called.
Somewhat unexpectedly, the US government has submitted an Article 51 letter to the UNSC articulating the US int'l law justification for attacking Iran.
As someone who used to help draft these letters for the USG, I find the administration's legal arguments completely unconvincing.
The letter also suggests that Iran posed an imminent threat.
Of course, the administration has not shown that Iran posed any such threat.
And the director of the National Counterterrorism Center who just quit says in his resignation letter that "Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation."
NEW: Ed Miliband says pubs should serve warm beer to cut high energy costs
Typical GB lies. Milliband actually said turn the coolers off at night. According to the article I looked up, a pilot system last year was saving pubs 1000s.
But a bit of a misfire by GB News, this. I am very much of the demographic that GB News is trying to appeal to. I think Ed Miliband is a misguided buffoon. But I also think beer should be served at cellar temperature and chilled beer is, by and large, an abomination. And as I am sure Ed M is not actually proposing that beer be warmed up - just not chilled - my interpretation is that 'warm' is being used pejoratively here. And people who use 'warm' pejoratively for beer can safely be discarded in their views about beer. (Eight degrees is not warm. Go swimming in the Atlantic when the water temperature is eight degrees and see how warm you feel.)
GB News demographic? You're being very harsh on yourself there, Cookie!
I am very rarely a grumpy old man, railing at modernity.
But I'm struggling to understand: why you would want to change famous Brits for generic animals?
Is it because we're unable to agree on historical people we admire any more? If so, how terribly sad.
We should go for specific famous British animals: Shergar (ignore the Irishness), Pickles, Bobby (of Greyfriars)... Um...The octopus who used to predict football results...
ETA: Larry the Cat
fictional/literary animals should count too Tarka the Otter, Fiver the Rabbit Mr Toad of Toad Hall The Gruffalo
The Downing Street cat would be a good one, but probably deserves to be a statue outside Downing Street * (the gates). Like Dr Johnson's Cat in Gough Square, Greyfriars Bobby, or Doorkins Magnificat at Southwark Cathedral.
NEW: Ed Miliband says pubs should serve warm beer to cut high energy costs
Typical GB lies. Milliband actually said turn the coolers off at night. According to the article I looked up, a pilot system last year was saving pubs 1000s.
Doesn't the beer need a constant temperature? I thought it went off like food.
NEW: Ed Miliband says pubs should serve warm beer to cut high energy costs
Typical GB lies. Milliband actually said turn the coolers off at night. According to the article I looked up, a pilot system last year was saving pubs 1000s.
Doesn't the beer need a constant temperature? I thought it went off like food.
Proper beer is kept in cellars.
Any exceptions are either not beer, or incorrectly stored.
I'd put ancient standing stone circles on the banknotes. Stonehenge (obvs) but also Callanish, the Ring of Brodgar and (my wife's favourite) Scorhill on Dartmoor.
Excellent idea, but you'd probably get some religious nutters saying they are "pagan" or Wokefucks saying they are "nativist"
Wildlife really is the lowest common denominator. It's pitiful
Personally I'd quite like musicians, from Tallis to Handel to Freddy Mercury. Who could object? We'd also need a woman, who is also dead - but we have the ideal: Amy
Putting a drug addict on cash might be a little on the nose.
Queen Victoria was a laudanum addict; Edward VII had a special chair made so he could have oral and anal sex with multiple different prostitutes simultaneously
They were on our coins for decades between them, I think we can cope with Amy and her smack habit
Comments
More devolution to the regions.
‘ Rachel Reeves announces plans to allow regional leaders to spend a proportion of the income tax raised in their areas
It's not about setting the rates themselves but spending the revenues locally in a targeted way
Reeves says the reforms will represent a 'permanent transfer of power and resources' away from central government to the regions’
https://x.com/steven_swinford/status/2033913396068778396?s=61
And as I am sure Ed M is not actually proposing that beer be warmed up - just not chilled - my interpretation is that 'warm' is being used pejoratively here. And people who use 'warm' pejoratively for beer can safely be discarded in their views about beer. (Eight degrees is not warm. Go swimming in the Atlantic when the water temperature is eight degrees and see how warm you feel.)
The animals v people row is really about whether we’ve still got enough shared identity and historical confidence to celebrate figures, places or traditions without instantly vanishing up our own backsides in a culture-war hissy fit. For some, wildlife is nicely neutral. For others, it’s just official greige, chosen because it avoids saying anything more contentious than “otters are there”.
The Iran stuff is the same pattern in another form: not just what happened, but which story people want to retrofit onto it afterwards.
The overall mood is cultural pessimism with one-liners. We’re supposedly discussing banknotes, but really we’re asking whether a country that can’t agree on heroes now settles for animals because at least badgers don’t answer back.
ETA: Larry the Cat
Usually the best options for cheaper refrigeration are replacing the newer systems, better insulation and aggregating systems to a single large refrigerated store rather than multiple small ones.
The talks were never going anywhere. Who we blame for that and in what proportion is another question of course
Tarka the Otter,
Fiver the Rabbit
Mr Toad of Toad Hall
The Gruffalo
Sir Arthur Harris, or Oliver Cromwell, would be good choices for a banknote.
Requiring vernacular features is quite common to preserve local character - eg in parts of Derbyshire they will insist on local stone claddings (or eg frontages) and slate roofs. There is a process called "veneer" where stone or brick just 20mm deep can be used as a facing over a more modern construction method.
It's very similar in principle to eg stucco in parts of London, though traditionally that was aiui to hide the stuff it was actually built from.
it's partly why in Scotland they have a lot of "two windows in the roof above two windows downstairs" houses, so may want top promote that form rurally. I'm not sure what the form is called.
NEW THREAD
Meaningless soundbite. Once agaon tossed out in a speech rather thsn delivered to the Commons
Somewhat unexpectedly, the US government has submitted an Article 51 letter to the UNSC articulating the US int'l law justification for attacking Iran.
As someone who used to help draft these letters for the USG, I find the administration's legal arguments completely unconvincing.
The letter also suggests that Iran posed an imminent threat.
Of course, the administration has not shown that Iran posed any such threat.
And the director of the National Counterterrorism Center who just quit says in his resignation letter that "Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation."
https://bsky.app/profile/bcfinucane.bsky.social/post/3mhbb3rtnns2r
There are a few in London.
https://londonist.com/london/maps/london-cat-map
Any exceptions are either not beer, or incorrectly stored.
This is straightforward.