I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
Thank goodness you were there to mansplain to these ignorant women the difference between truth and their 'woke nonsense'
I know, right? I manfully did my bit for Reality. You gotta start somewhere
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
I think you're right, and it's not really something for government to fix.
But if I had to guess, the problem is subcontracting. The ticket checkers aren't employed by the railway, the engineer isn't employed by AEG. So the incentives and moral obligations aren't to the customers, or even to the firms we think are running things.
And whilst the theory is that this is more efficient and cheaper, it's possible that a lot of the savings are just enshittification.
Are we prepared to pay a bit more for integrated organisations that provide better service? I'd love to think so, and it would probably be better for us all, but I suspect that we're wired to go for cheaper, even if it makes us miserable.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
Test the resistance of the compressor windings. The sum of the lowest two values should equal the highest. If they don't your compressor is fucked. Also check your grounds (this applies to any appliance of any type).
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
Why don't young women love me like they used to?
Why don't they smile when I tell them things off the internet like my Twitter friends (who really love me) do?
Why don't they listen when I lecture them at parties?
It's a mystery, I tell you.
And yet we all had a fantastic time. It was one of the nicest trips I’ve done in ages. On the last night we all got roaring drunk until 3 in the morning in the hotel bar and confessed our worst sins - a couple of them had magnificently polyamorous love lives and were happy to gossip
Not all kids are incels
Was the ride home afterwards provided by an Albanian taxi driver?
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
One reason I buy stuff from John Lewis is that they actually do customer service - no quibble returns and replacements.
Which is why you hear politicians occasionally wobbling about making government services more “John Lewis like”.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
One reason I buy stuff from John Lewis is that they actually do customer service - no quibble returns and replacements.
Which is why you hear politicians occasionally wobbling about making government services more “John Lewis like”.
The ticket collector probably just had a crush on Robert Jenrick.
Is that anti-semitic? I don't really see it. As facial caricatures go, it seems quite mild to me.
The premise of the cartoon is thuddingly crass and unfunny - that's what people should be focusing on. "Har har he attacked the police verbally so I'm going to show him attacking them physically har har har."
No, it’s just fake offence and deflection given his and the greens issue on the subject this week
It's at least as anti-semitic as other cartoons in UK press that were deemed anti-semitic. A hooked nose is definitely an anti-semitic trope.
I agree. I despise Polanski, he’s a fool and a useful idiot for islamism. But you can’t pick and choose where you see anti Semitism and I see it in that cartoon as we’ve seen it in similar cartoons
And yes the hooked nose is a definite trope
I see what you mean, but look through a random selection of Brookes's work.
He's a bad enough cartoonist for that just to be him doing what he does for many of his subjects. He's very poor at capturing a caricature likeness, as opposed to just making his subjects look a much uglier version of themselves.
I dislike his work a lot, but I genuinely can't tell if it springs from malice or just lack of talent.
It's quite simple, cartoons critical of the Israeli govt with "antisemitic tropes" are anti-semitic and result in a massive pile on. A cartoon of a Jewish politician who is critical of the Israeli govt, that contains an anti-semitic trope, is not "anti-semitic" and will not result in a pile on. Get back to me in a couple of days when I've been proved right.
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
Thank goodness you were there to mansplain to these ignorant women the difference between truth and their 'woke nonsense'
I know, right? I manfully did my bit for Reality. You gotta start somewhere
I was just fascinated by their eagerness to believe stuff that is very basically untrue, because the false version fitted their worldview better
I realised quite quickly that politely saying “er, no, that’s not true” was going to get very old very quickly even if I was right each time. So I bit my tongue and moved the conversation on to happier topics
It was a truly interesting insight tho. Polls show that the genders have wildly diverged across the western world. With men moving slightly right and women going very left. Into this ludicrous woke-world of comfortable untruths
I saw a glimpse of that maybe. I also had a fab time with free wine, lion fights, and gorillas in the mist, so what gives
And now I must hie myself to the jewellers of Camden Market to fix an antique agate cross. Later!
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
One reason I buy stuff from John Lewis is that they actually do customer service - no quibble returns and replacements.
Which is why you hear politicians occasionally wobbling about making government services more “John Lewis like”.
That's the problem. John Lewis's niche is "quality goods, reasonably priced". But they tend to lose out to "dodgier goods, cheaply priced".
Is that anti-semitic? I don't really see it. As facial caricatures go, it seems quite mild to me.
The premise of the cartoon is thuddingly crass and unfunny - that's what people should be focusing on. "Har har he attacked the police verbally so I'm going to show him attacking them physically har har har."
No, it’s just fake offence and deflection given his and the greens issue on the subject this week
It's at least as anti-semitic as other cartoons in UK press that were deemed anti-semitic. A hooked nose is definitely an anti-semitic trope.
I agree. I despise Polanski, he’s a fool and a useful idiot for islamism. But you can’t pick and choose where you see anti Semitism and I see it in that cartoon as we’ve seen it in similar cartoons
And yes the hooked nose is a definite trope
Polanski has a hooked nose. If a caricature is to succeed it must take existing features and exaggerate them. This doesn't exaggerate his features that much - if the exaggeration were more pronounced, I might see it.
What you're effectively saying is that Jewish public figures may not be caricatured by cartoonists.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
I think you're right, and it's not really something for government to fix.
But if I had to guess, the problem is subcontracting. The ticket checkers aren't employed by the railway, the engineer isn't employed by AEG. So the incentives and moral obligations aren't to the customers, or even to the firms we think are running things.
And whilst the theory is that this is more efficient and cheaper, it's possible that a lot of the savings are just enshittification.
Are we prepared to pay a bit more for integrated organisations that provide better service? I'd love to think so, and it would probably be better for us all, but I suspect that we're wired to go for cheaper, even if it makes us miserable.
Maybe so, but I doubt integrated organisations would provide better service either. Plenty of them share the same issues.
But, incidentally, the thought that the over 60s residents have been evacuated to the local Harvester pub is a terrifying prospect. There is going to be a massive amount of all you can eat pile high plating going on.
I recall the lab fire at my then Chemistry department, which conveniently has us all evacuated and confirmed we were not likely to be getting back in any time soon pretty much on the dot of 11am and everyone went, right then, opening time. (we tottered back in to assess how soggy our work and lab books had ended up at around half five before returning to the pub - wisely most had pushed their pull out desks back under the lab benches).
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
They were no doubt embarrassed to encounter a bigoted 60s-something dinosaur pal.
No. I can give you an example
One of them was a woke food pundit. She said she’d been writing about how Britain appropriates foreign food and claims it as its own, in a bad way. She wasn’t shouting about it but it was an example of that mild anti-British negativity you get, quite a lot, from woke people
Her example? Was how Britain stole chicken tikka masala from India. She specifically said “chicken tikka masala”, not just “curry”. I GENTLY pointed out that chicken tikka masala was almost certainly invented in Britain. By a South Asian chef probably in Glasgow
She refused to believe this until I gave several unimpeachable sources. She then did the perplexed face I mentioned and then said - I quote - “oh well who cares anyway the British can have it” in a slightly peeved voice
I mean, it’s ridiculously trivial. But they kept saying this stuff and - as I mentioned - I stopped correcting them as it would have soured a properly jolly mood
A fascinating week
What’s wrong with appropriating foreign cuisine, anyway?
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
Test the resistance of the compressor windings. The sum of the lowest two values should equal the highest. If they don't your compressor is fucked. Also check your grounds (this applies to any appliance of any type).
Thanks, but I don't want to do any of that nor do I have the time or know-how.
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Malmsey does this stripe of solipsistic preening so much better.
Presumably this is another obscure character from your favourite TV show “One Foot In The Grave”, which you watch all day in your bungalow
No matter how much you try, you’re not going to get us to watch it along with you. Give up
Keep up, even I realised it’s a fellow PBer he’s talking about! Solipsistic Preener would make a decent username, though a bit of stiff competition over who deserves it most.
Ah.
I had thought your username was an ironic reference to the claimed Unionist Dividend for Scotland beloved of Scottish Unionist politicians. But I see now it is a more literal description. You are the embodiment of a unionist dividend for English posters to PB.com.
I thank you for your service.
Only doing my humble duty, putting a little bit of grit in the PB oyster (A FINE BITISH OYSTER!) so pearls will come forth.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
One reason I buy stuff from John Lewis is that they actually do customer service - no quibble returns and replacements.
Which is why you hear politicians occasionally wobbling about making government services more “John Lewis like”.
The ticket collector probably just had a crush on Robert Jenrick.
Having seen the shit ticket collectors put up with…
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
One reason I buy stuff from John Lewis is that they actually do customer service - no quibble returns and replacements.
Which is why you hear politicians occasionally wobbling about making government services more “John Lewis like”.
The ticket collector probably just had a crush on Robert Jenrick.
Having seen the shit ticket collectors put up with…
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
Thank goodness you were there to mansplain to these ignorant women the difference between truth and their 'woke nonsense'
I know, right? I manfully did my bit for Reality. You gotta start somewhere
I was just fascinated by their eagerness to believe stuff that is very basically untrue, because the false version fitted their worldview better
I realised quite quickly that politely saying “er, no, that’s not true” was going to get very old very quickly even if I was right each time. So I bit my tongue and moved the conversation on to happier topics
It was a truly interesting insight tho. Polls show that the genders have wildly diverged across the western world. With men moving slightly right and women going very left. Into this ludicrous woke-world of comfortable untruths
I saw a glimpse of that maybe. I also had a fab time with free wine, lion fights, and gorillas in the mist, so what gives
And now I must hie myself to the jewellers of Camden Market to fix an antique agate cross. Later!
On a positive note, there's probably an article there for a suitably imaginative writer to explore. If they can look beyond the woke obsession.
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
They were no doubt embarrassed to encounter a bigoted 60s-something dinosaur pal.
No. I can give you an example
One of them was a woke food pundit. She said she’d been writing about how Britain appropriates foreign food and claims it as its own, in a bad way. She wasn’t shouting about it but it was an example of that mild anti-British negativity you get, quite a lot, from woke people
Her example? Was how Britain stole chicken tikka masala from India. She specifically said “chicken tikka masala”, not just “curry”. I GENTLY pointed out that chicken tikka masala was almost certainly invented in Britain. By a South Asian chef probably in Glasgow
She refused to believe this until I gave several unimpeachable sources. She then did the perplexed face I mentioned and then said - I quote - “oh well who cares anyway the British can have it” in a slightly peeved voice
I mean, it’s ridiculously trivial. But they kept saying this stuff and - as I mentioned - I stopped correcting them as it would have soured a properly jolly mood
A fascinating week
What’s wrong with appropriating foreign cuisine, anyway?
Well yes, that’s how new cuisines and recipes are invented. The whole idea of “cultural appropriation” is dangerous Woke gibberish. Did the Indians culturally appropriate the chile pepper? After all, it comes from the Americas. Not India
But I thought I’d start with basic facts. You need those first. And then I realised their entire grasp of basic facts was appalling, and I shamefully gave up, paralysed by the enormity of the task
Is that anti-semitic? I don't really see it. As facial caricatures go, it seems quite mild to me.
The premise of the cartoon is thuddingly crass and unfunny - that's what people should be focusing on. "Har har he attacked the police verbally so I'm going to show him attacking them physically har har har."
No, it’s just fake offence and deflection given his and the greens issue on the subject this week
It's at least as anti-semitic as other cartoons in UK press that were deemed anti-semitic. A hooked nose is definitely an anti-semitic trope.
I agree. I despise Polanski, he’s a fool and a useful idiot for islamism. But you can’t pick and choose where you see anti Semitism and I see it in that cartoon as we’ve seen it in similar cartoons
And yes the hooked nose is a definite trope
Polanski has a hooked nose. If a caricature is to succeed it must take existing features and exaggerate them. This doesn't exaggerate his features that much - if the exaggeration were more pronounced, I might see it.
What you're effectively saying is that Jewish public figures may not be caricatured by cartoonists.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
On (1), didn’t Robert Jenrick make a huge fuss about staff not doing enough to stop fare dodgers last year? What’s the balance here?
Is that anti-semitic? I don't really see it. As facial caricatures go, it seems quite mild to me.
The premise of the cartoon is thuddingly crass and unfunny - that's what people should be focusing on. "Har har he attacked the police verbally so I'm going to show him attacking them physically har har har."
No, it’s just fake offence and deflection given his and the greens issue on the subject this week
It's at least as anti-semitic as other cartoons in UK press that were deemed anti-semitic. A hooked nose is definitely an anti-semitic trope.
I agree. I despise Polanski, he’s a fool and a useful idiot for islamism. But you can’t pick and choose where you see anti Semitism and I see it in that cartoon as we’ve seen it in similar cartoons
And yes the hooked nose is a definite trope
Polanski has a hooked nose. If a caricature is to succeed it must take existing features and exaggerate them...
Not particularly, if you browse through his photos. His teeth and ears (also amped up by Brookes) are more notable.
I also detected hints of the late Rev Ian Paisley in the caricature - which further shows how mediocre is Brookes.
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
They were no doubt embarrassed to encounter a bigoted 60s-something dinosaur pal.
No. I can give you an example
One of them was a woke food pundit. She said she’d been writing about how Britain appropriates foreign food and claims it as its own, in a bad way. She wasn’t shouting about it but it was an example of that mild anti-British negativity you get, quite a lot, from woke people
Her example? Was how Britain stole chicken tikka masala from India. She specifically said “chicken tikka masala”, not just “curry”. I GENTLY pointed out that chicken tikka masala was almost certainly invented in Britain. By a South Asian chef probably in Glasgow
She refused to believe this until I gave several unimpeachable sources. She then did the perplexed face I mentioned and then said - I quote - “oh well who cares anyway the British can have it” in a slightly peeved voice
I mean, it’s ridiculously trivial. But they kept saying this stuff and - as I mentioned - I stopped correcting them as it would have soured a properly jolly mood
A fascinating week
What’s wrong with appropriating foreign cuisine, anyway?
Nothing At all. All cuisines develop based on imported influences.
It’s a good thing. Especially the ‘fusion’ food. Love it.
Beats a Berni Inn.
The problem is when mental cases deem it ‘cultural misappropriation’ or want to silo cuisine to certain nationalities.
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
Thank goodness you were there to mansplain to these ignorant women the difference between truth and their 'woke nonsense'
I know, right? I manfully did my bit for Reality. You gotta start somewhere
I was just fascinated by their eagerness to believe stuff that is very basically untrue, because the false version fitted their worldview better
I realised quite quickly that politely saying “er, no, that’s not true” was going to get very old very quickly even if I was right each time. So I bit my tongue and moved the conversation on to happier topics
It was a truly interesting insight tho. Polls show that the genders have wildly diverged across the western world. With men moving slightly right and women going very left. Into this ludicrous woke-world of comfortable untruths
I saw a glimpse of that maybe. I also had a fab time with free wine, lion fights, and gorillas in the mist, so what gives
And now I must hie myself to the jewellers of Camden Market to fix an antique agate cross. Later!
On a positive note, there's probably an article there for a suitably imaginative writer to explore. If they can look beyond the woke obsession.
What about that chap at the Spectator? Is he up to it?
Is that anti-semitic? I don't really see it. As facial caricatures go, it seems quite mild to me.
The premise of the cartoon is thuddingly crass and unfunny - that's what people should be focusing on. "Har har he attacked the police verbally so I'm going to show him attacking them physically har har har."
No, it’s just fake offence and deflection given his and the greens issue on the subject this week
It's at least as anti-semitic as other cartoons in UK press that were deemed anti-semitic. A hooked nose is definitely an anti-semitic trope.
I agree. I despise Polanski, he’s a fool and a useful idiot for islamism. But you can’t pick and choose where you see anti Semitism and I see it in that cartoon as we’ve seen it in similar cartoons
And yes the hooked nose is a definite trope
Polanski has a hooked nose. If a caricature is to succeed it must take existing features and exaggerate them. This doesn't exaggerate his features that much - if the exaggeration were more pronounced, I might see it.
What you're effectively saying is that Jewish public figures may not be caricatured by cartoonists.
Yes. It's not an ugly nose, it's a strong nose, but that is the type. It is obviously far less pronounced when the angle of the photograph is from below.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
On (1), didn’t Robert Jenrick make a huge fuss about staff not doing enough to stop fare dodgers last year? What’s the balance here?
I do get very annoyed at rail inspectors insisting on maintaining the first class/standard class divide when a train is standing room only because the Company has cancelled a previous train due to shortage of train crew.
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
They were no doubt embarrassed to encounter a bigoted 60s-something dinosaur pal.
No. I can give you an example
One of them was a woke food pundit. She said she’d been writing about how Britain appropriates foreign food and claims it as its own, in a bad way. She wasn’t shouting about it but it was an example of that mild anti-British negativity you get, quite a lot, from woke people
Her example? Was how Britain stole chicken tikka masala from India. She specifically said “chicken tikka masala”, not just “curry”. I GENTLY pointed out that chicken tikka masala was almost certainly invented in Britain. By a South Asian chef probably in Glasgow
She refused to believe this until I gave several unimpeachable sources. She then did the perplexed face I mentioned and then said - I quote - “oh well who cares anyway the British can have it” in a slightly peeved voice
I mean, it’s ridiculously trivial. But they kept saying this stuff and - as I mentioned - I stopped correcting them as it would have soured a properly jolly mood
A fascinating week
What’s wrong with appropriating foreign cuisine, anyway?
US imported culture war bullshit.
I did giggle at one article that got close to demanding cultural purity in a rather blood & soil style.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
Outrage over Angela Rayner’s drinking at Westminster bar highlights hypocrisy in public life Boris or Farage are ‘men of the people’ when seen with pint in hand. For the Labour leadership hopeful, it proves she’s not up to the job
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
They were no doubt embarrassed to encounter a bigoted 60s-something dinosaur pal.
No. I can give you an example
One of them was a woke food pundit. She said she’d been writing about how Britain appropriates foreign food and claims it as its own, in a bad way. She wasn’t shouting about it but it was an example of that mild anti-British negativity you get, quite a lot, from woke people
Her example? Was how Britain stole chicken tikka masala from India. She specifically said “chicken tikka masala”, not just “curry”. I GENTLY pointed out that chicken tikka masala was almost certainly invented in Britain. By a South Asian chef probably in Glasgow
She refused to believe this until I gave several unimpeachable sources. She then did the perplexed face I mentioned and then said - I quote - “oh well who cares anyway the British can have it” in a slightly peeved voice
I mean, it’s ridiculously trivial. But they kept saying this stuff and - as I mentioned - I stopped correcting them as it would have soured a properly jolly mood
A fascinating week
What’s wrong with appropriating foreign cuisine, anyway?
US imported culture war bullshit.
I did giggle at one article that got close to demanding cultural purity in a rather blood & soil style.
All this talk of woke feels almost nostalgic. It’s like people arguing about the Corn Laws or the miners’ strike. It’s yesterday’s culture war. Trump has so completely upended democratic norms that the discourse has moved on to much bigger things, like the Iran War, oil running out, tariffs and the US Govt repaying $billions, etc.
But, yes, there is a nationalism about food that gets quite bizarre.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
I think you're right, and it's not really something for government to fix.
But if I had to guess, the problem is subcontracting. The ticket checkers aren't employed by the railway, the engineer isn't employed by AEG. So the incentives and moral obligations aren't to the customers, or even to the firms we think are running things.
And whilst the theory is that this is more efficient and cheaper, it's possible that a lot of the savings are just enshittification.
Are we prepared to pay a bit more for integrated organisations that provide better service? I'd love to think so, and it would probably be better for us all, but I suspect that we're wired to go for cheaper, even if it makes us miserable.
The problem is that it's very easy as a consumer to go for the more expensive option and still get the shit service - you simply pay for a higher profit margin.
This is why I think there is a role for government regulation, and also to improve access to the courts so that there's a way to get redress when a company tries to wriggle out of its obligations.
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
They were no doubt embarrassed to encounter a bigoted 60s-something dinosaur pal.
No. I can give you an example
One of them was a woke food pundit. She said she’d been writing about how Britain appropriates foreign food and claims it as its own, in a bad way. She wasn’t shouting about it but it was an example of that mild anti-British negativity you get, quite a lot, from woke people
Her example? Was how Britain stole chicken tikka masala from India. She specifically said “chicken tikka masala”, not just “curry”. I GENTLY pointed out that chicken tikka masala was almost certainly invented in Britain. By a South Asian chef probably in Glasgow
She refused to believe this until I gave several unimpeachable sources. She then did the perplexed face I mentioned and then said - I quote - “oh well who cares anyway the British can have it” in a slightly peeved voice
I mean, it’s ridiculously trivial. But they kept saying this stuff and - as I mentioned - I stopped correcting them as it would have soured a properly jolly mood
A fascinating week
What’s wrong with appropriating foreign cuisine, anyway?
US imported culture war bullshit.
I did giggle at one article that got close to demanding cultural purity in a rather blood & soil style.
All this talk of woke feels almost nostalgic. It’s like people arguing about the Corn Laws or the miners’ strike. It’s yesterday’s culture war. Trump has so completely upended democratic norms that the discourse has moved on to much bigger things, like the Iran War, oil running out, tariffs and the US Govt repaying $billions, etc.
But, yes, there is a nationalism about food that gets quite bizarre.
It’s seems very foreign to me (ha!)
The British thing is summed up in the episode of “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” where they are flummoxed that the waiter in a curry house in India doesn’t speak English. Because what’s more British than an Induan meal?
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
They were no doubt embarrassed to encounter a bigoted 60s-something dinosaur pal.
No. I can give you an example
One of them was a woke food pundit. She said she’d been writing about how Britain appropriates foreign food and claims it as its own, in a bad way. She wasn’t shouting about it but it was an example of that mild anti-British negativity you get, quite a lot, from woke people
Her example? Was how Britain stole chicken tikka masala from India. She specifically said “chicken tikka masala”, not just “curry”. I GENTLY pointed out that chicken tikka masala was almost certainly invented in Britain. By a South Asian chef probably in Glasgow
She refused to believe this until I gave several unimpeachable sources. She then did the perplexed face I mentioned and then said - I quote - “oh well who cares anyway the British can have it” in a slightly peeved voice
I mean, it’s ridiculously trivial. But they kept saying this stuff and - as I mentioned - I stopped correcting them as it would have soured a properly jolly mood
A fascinating week
What’s wrong with appropriating foreign cuisine, anyway?
I think the idea is that you have to acknowledge what you're doing to render it not-appropriation ? Or something like that.
In any event, isn't tikka masala just Anglo/sub-continent fusion ? But created by someone born in Pakistan (or at least that's the popular story).
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
On (1), didn’t Robert Jenrick make a huge fuss about staff not doing enough to stop fare dodgers last year? What’s the balance here?
Most fare dodgers, particularly the obvious ones, are men vaulting the barriers, not families with pushchairs. And a bit of friendliness to oil the interaction would be nice (albeit customer-facing staff are allowed to have days when they're grumpy at work for unrelated reasons).
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
They were no doubt embarrassed to encounter a bigoted 60s-something dinosaur pal.
No. I can give you an example
One of them was a woke food pundit. She said she’d been writing about how Britain appropriates foreign food and claims it as its own, in a bad way. She wasn’t shouting about it but it was an example of that mild anti-British negativity you get, quite a lot, from woke people
Her example? Was how Britain stole chicken tikka masala from India. She specifically said “chicken tikka masala”, not just “curry”. I GENTLY pointed out that chicken tikka masala was almost certainly invented in Britain. By a South Asian chef probably in Glasgow
She refused to believe this until I gave several unimpeachable sources. She then did the perplexed face I mentioned and then said - I quote - “oh well who cares anyway the British can have it” in a slightly peeved voice
I mean, it’s ridiculously trivial. But they kept saying this stuff and - as I mentioned - I stopped correcting them as it would have soured a properly jolly mood
A fascinating week
What’s wrong with appropriating foreign cuisine, anyway?
Well yes, that’s how new cuisines and recipes are invented. The whole idea of “cultural appropriation” is dangerous Woke gibberish...
As I pointed out to you, it's buggerall to do with woke; that's just your obsession. The China/S Korea I gave you is just one of many such between the two countries. Neither of which is at all 'woke'.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
I think you're right, and it's not really something for government to fix.
But if I had to guess, the problem is subcontracting. The ticket checkers aren't employed by the railway, the engineer isn't employed by AEG. So the incentives and moral obligations aren't to the customers, or even to the firms we think are running things.
And whilst the theory is that this is more efficient and cheaper, it's possible that a lot of the savings are just enshittification.
Are we prepared to pay a bit more for integrated organisations that provide better service? I'd love to think so, and it would probably be better for us all, but I suspect that we're wired to go for cheaper, even if it makes us miserable.
The problem is that it's very easy as a consumer to go for the more expensive option and still get the shit service - you simply pay for a higher profit margin.
This is why I think there is a role for government regulation, and also to improve access to the courts so that there's a way to get redress when a company tries to wriggle out of its obligations.
The courts don’t do much good. Unless you want to go back to the medieval courts, where there were no professional lawyers, the magistrate was a spare aristo and it was a dispute resolution system (95% of the time)
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
Yes, we are customers of a corporation
Fully agree- but at some level... that's been our choice.
Example. Because of who Mrs Romford and I are, we have got our white goods from one of those old-school small shops. (The one by Upminster Bridge station for any locals who are interested.) Limited range, higher prices, but they come out and fix things and we trust them to tell us when to stop trying to fix things.
OK, we're fortunate in that we can afford to pay more at the start. But plenty of other people could do the same, which would keep the non-corporate ecosystem going. But I suspect th atwhen the people running this shop want to retire, that will be it.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
I think you're right, and it's not really something for government to fix.
But if I had to guess, the problem is subcontracting. The ticket checkers aren't employed by the railway, the engineer isn't employed by AEG. So the incentives and moral obligations aren't to the customers, or even to the firms we think are running things.
And whilst the theory is that this is more efficient and cheaper, it's possible that a lot of the savings are just enshittification.
Are we prepared to pay a bit more for integrated organisations that provide better service? I'd love to think so, and it would probably be better for us all, but I suspect that we're wired to go for cheaper, even if it makes us miserable.
The problem is that it's very easy as a consumer to go for the more expensive option and still get the shit service - you simply pay for a higher profit margin.
This is why I think there is a role for government regulation, and also to improve access to the courts so that there's a way to get redress when a company tries to wriggle out of its obligations.
The courts don’t do much good. Unless you want to go back to the medieval courts, where there were no professional lawyers, the magistrate was a spare aristo and it was a dispute resolution system (95% of the time)
Call it what you will, and I don't really mind how it's implemented, as long as the aggrieved consumer gets a fair hearing (but chancers taking the piss are told to sling their hook), it's fast and cheap to access, and it isn't so influenced by the industry sector that it isn't effective (as I suspect is the case for many of the ombudsman type systems).
Ideally the companies should rationally conclude that it's cheaper for them to do their job properly in the first place, rather than to be compelled to do so.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
On (1), didn’t Robert Jenrick make a huge fuss about staff not doing enough to stop fare dodgers last year? What’s the balance here?
Most fare dodgers, particularly the obvious ones, are men vaulting the barriers, not families with pushchairs. And a bit of friendliness to oil the interaction would be nice (albeit customer-facing staff are allowed to have days when they're grumpy at work for unrelated reasons).
A lot of fare dodging is by respectable looking people, not just men vaulting the barriers. See:
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
I think you're right, and it's not really something for government to fix.
But if I had to guess, the problem is subcontracting. The ticket checkers aren't employed by the railway, the engineer isn't employed by AEG. So the incentives and moral obligations aren't to the customers, or even to the firms we think are running things.
And whilst the theory is that this is more efficient and cheaper, it's possible that a lot of the savings are just enshittification.
Are we prepared to pay a bit more for integrated organisations that provide better service? I'd love to think so, and it would probably be better for us all, but I suspect that we're wired to go for cheaper, even if it makes us miserable.
The problem is that it's very easy as a consumer to go for the more expensive option and still get the shit service - you simply pay for a higher profit margin.
This is why I think there is a role for government regulation, and also to improve access to the courts so that there's a way to get redress when a company tries to wriggle out of its obligations.
The courts don’t do much good. Unless you want to go back to the medieval courts, where there were no professional lawyers, the magistrate was a spare aristo and it was a dispute resolution system (95% of the time)
Like it or not, corporate lawyers are the experts in wriggling out of obligations (sorry to any corporate lawyers reading). If not, they wouldn't be worth paying for.
Some things can only be fixed by creating environments where human-scale decency is more valued than it is.
I think I encountered some low level anti-Semitism recently
Last week I was in Africa with a group of Gen Z/Millennial women. Late 20s to early 40s. They were all pleasant, funny, educated, smart. Nice bunch. We all had a genuinely lovely time
They were also misinformed on lots of issues. They believed lots of woke nonsense and seemed bewildered when I gently showed them the irrefutable facts. So they couldn’t argue. They just went quiet and frowned in a perplexed way, like when you buy a shiny new object and it simply doesn’t perform as expected. I didn’t do this a lot so as to keep the mood buoyant, I could have corrected them on plenty more occasions
Anyway at one point the subject “Manchester” came up and one woman, a mildly proud Manc, mentioned a Mancunian achievement by a Manc guy. He was Jewish so I said, as pure idle chit chat, “yes there’s a big Jewish community in Manchester isn’t there?”
I had absolutely no agenda. It was small talk over lunch. But her face clouded and she looked pained at the very idea - of a Jewish community in her town, of talking about Jews - and she gave the briefest nod and hurriedly said: “Manchester has lots of people from India, there’s a really big Muslim community, I love the food”
Am I over-interpreting? It was definitely odd albeit fleeting. It wasn’t overt antisemitism - “I hate Jews” - but it felt like a flicker of negativity, like a brief wish that the Jews weren’t there
They were no doubt embarrassed to encounter a bigoted 60s-something dinosaur pal.
No. I can give you an example
One of them was a woke food pundit. She said she’d been writing about how Britain appropriates foreign food and claims it as its own, in a bad way. She wasn’t shouting about it but it was an example of that mild anti-British negativity you get, quite a lot, from woke people
Her example? Was how Britain stole chicken tikka masala from India. She specifically said “chicken tikka masala”, not just “curry”. I GENTLY pointed out that chicken tikka masala was almost certainly invented in Britain. By a South Asian chef probably in Glasgow
She refused to believe this until I gave several unimpeachable sources. She then did the perplexed face I mentioned and then said - I quote - “oh well who cares anyway the British can have it” in a slightly peeved voice
I mean, it’s ridiculously trivial. But they kept saying this stuff and - as I mentioned - I stopped correcting them as it would have soured a properly jolly mood
A fascinating week
What’s wrong with appropriating foreign cuisine, anyway?
Well yes, that’s how new cuisines and recipes are invented. The whole idea of “cultural appropriation” is dangerous Woke gibberish. Did the Indians culturally appropriate the chile pepper?
That would be the Spanish and Portuguese who actually and undeniably appropriated it, at gun and sword point, along with the potato etc.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
Yes, we are customers of a corporation
Fully agree- but at some level... that's been our choice.
Example. Because of who Mrs Romford and I are, we have got our white goods from one of those old-school small shops. (The one by Upminster Bridge station for any locals who are interested.) Limited range, higher prices, but they come out and fix things and we trust them to tell us when to stop trying to fix things.
OK, we're fortunate in that we can afford to pay more at the start. But plenty of other people could do the same, which would keep the non-corporate ecosystem going. But I suspect th atwhen the people running this shop want to retire, that will be it.
We bought an expensive new bed and mattress in 2012 from a small family-run business. It came with an impressive guarantee.
Some years later the mattress had deteriorated and was uncomfortable, but we were well within the guarantee period. Turned out that, to claim on the guarantee, we had to pay upfront for someone to inspect the mattress. This would be refunded if they concluded the mattress should be replaced. Inspector duly turned up, measured the deformation of the mattress, declared it within the acceptable limits of deterioration for its age, told us we should have shared our bed with a third person to help it wear more evenly and that was that.
We've since bought our mattresses from IKEA.
Edit: And the bed frame? Now being held together with a ratchet strap (from Lidl, natch).
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
I think you're right, and it's not really something for government to fix.
But if I had to guess, the problem is subcontracting. The ticket checkers aren't employed by the railway, the engineer isn't employed by AEG. So the incentives and moral obligations aren't to the customers, or even to the firms we think are running things.
And whilst the theory is that this is more efficient and cheaper, it's possible that a lot of the savings are just enshittification.
Are we prepared to pay a bit more for integrated organisations that provide better service? I'd love to think so, and it would probably be better for us all, but I suspect that we're wired to go for cheaper, even if it makes us miserable.
The problem is that it's very easy as a consumer to go for the more expensive option and still get the shit service - you simply pay for a higher profit margin.
This is why I think there is a role for government regulation, and also to improve access to the courts so that there's a way to get redress when a company tries to wriggle out of its obligations.
The courts don’t do much good. Unless you want to go back to the medieval courts, where there were no professional lawyers, the magistrate was a spare aristo and it was a dispute resolution system (95% of the time)
Like it or not, corporate lawyers are the experts in wriggling out of obligations (sorry to any corporate lawyers reading). If not, they wouldn't be worth paying for.
Some things can only be fixed by creating environments where human-scale decency is more valued than it is.
I don’t think that’s true. It’s not easy to wiggle out of consumer regulations at all and there are not big loop holes available. It’s just people don’t know their legal rights.
Lawyers will put terms into T&Cs which they know are void or unlikely to be enforceable but the the calculation is that people will read them when in a distressed situation, conclude they are snookered, and give up.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
I think you're right, and it's not really something for government to fix.
But if I had to guess, the problem is subcontracting. The ticket checkers aren't employed by the railway, the engineer isn't employed by AEG. So the incentives and moral obligations aren't to the customers, or even to the firms we think are running things.
And whilst the theory is that this is more efficient and cheaper, it's possible that a lot of the savings are just enshittification.
Are we prepared to pay a bit more for integrated organisations that provide better service? I'd love to think so, and it would probably be better for us all, but I suspect that we're wired to go for cheaper, even if it makes us miserable.
The problem is that it's very easy as a consumer to go for the more expensive option and still get the shit service - you simply pay for a higher profit margin.
This is why I think there is a role for government regulation, and also to improve access to the courts so that there's a way to get redress when a company tries to wriggle out of its obligations.
The courts don’t do much good. Unless you want to go back to the medieval courts, where there were no professional lawyers, the magistrate was a spare aristo and it was a dispute resolution system (95% of the time)
Like it or not, corporate lawyers are the experts in wriggling out of obligations (sorry to any corporate lawyers reading). If not, they wouldn't be worth paying for.
Some things can only be fixed by creating environments where human-scale decency is more valued than it is.
I don’t think that’s true. It’s not easy to wiggle out of consumer regulations at all and there are not big loop holes available. It’s just people don’t know their legal rights.
Lawyers will put terms into T&Cs which they know are void or unlikely to be enforceable but the the calculation is that people will read them when in a distressed situation, conclude they are snookered, and give up.
If you’re ever confronted by a post termination non-compete in your employment contract, view it very very sceptically. They are incredibly hard to enforce and most employers don’t bother trying. Take it seriously but not too seriously.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
Yes, we are customers of a corporation
Fully agree- but at some level... that's been our choice.
Example. Because of who Mrs Romford and I are, we have got our white goods from one of those old-school small shops. (The one by Upminster Bridge station for any locals who are interested.) Limited range, higher prices, but they come out and fix things and we trust them to tell us when to stop trying to fix things.
OK, we're fortunate in that we can afford to pay more at the start. But plenty of other people could do the same, which would keep the non-corporate ecosystem going. But I suspect th atwhen the people running this shop want to retire, that will be it.
We bought an expensive new bed and mattress in 2012 from a small family-run business. It came with an impressive guarantee.
Some years later the mattress had deteriorated and was uncomfortable, but we were well within the guarantee period. Turned out that, to claim on the guarantee, we had to pay upfront for someone to inspect the mattress. This would be refunded if they concluded the mattress should be replaced. Inspector duly turned up, measured the deformation of the mattress, declared it within the acceptable limits of deterioration for its age, told us we should have shared our bed with a third person to help it wear more evenly and that was that.
We've since bought our mattresses from IKEA.
Edit: And the bed frame? Now being held together with a ratchet strap (from Lidl, natch).
“ …told us we should have shared our bed with a third person to help it wear more evenly”
98% probability that someone fiddled with the gas supply to bypass the meter.
And did it in more than one house.
This has happened many, many times before.
Probably. I've not heard it with gas before but know it goes on with electricity.
I used to know a farmer up Glossop way. Had a massive gas fired kitchen range. His gas meter was fitted between two navy unions, so he used to take it out, turn it round, then run the range with every oven and hob flat out to unwind the meter (I'm supprised the meter design meant this worked, but I witnessed this performance on one occasion, and it definitely did).
He was one of life's characters in many ways. I recall his neighbours both sides getting burgled the same night, and his yard being left alone. He concluded from this that the perps were locals who were afraid of him (he'd been a cage fighter in his youth, and he'd hospitalised some lads who'd tried helping themselves to his quad bike recently enough that everyone knew about it*), so he made some "enquiries", and lo and behold a couple of nights later the neighbours were un-burgled again.
*the plod knew about it too. They sent 6 officers to arrest him, in case he wasn't minded to come quietly, but they failed to establish enough concrete evidence of what had occured to prosecute.
Polanski has really and totally misread the situation over Golders Green, hasn't he? I always knew he'd fall but honestly not this soon.
You think he's fallen, and perhaps he has, but are Green voters and potential Green voters noticing? There's not been a dip in their polling yet.
Well he's in a hole of some sorts, and insisting on continued excavation.
Polanski stands by concerns over police response to Golders Green attack
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78q6w1vzz7o Zack Polanski said he remains concerned over the actions of police officers who arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack, after previously apologising for sharing a critical social media post. The Green Party leader told the BBC everyone who works in public service "should not be above scrutiny" and action must be "proportionate no matter how brave". Polanski apologised on Friday for "sharing a tweet in haste" after he reposted a message on X accusing officers of "repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by Taser". Communities Secretary Steve Reed said it was "shameful" that Polanski was "still questioning the police's response". His repost was criticised at the time by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who accused Polanski of amplifying "inaccurate and misinformed commentary" in a letter published by the force. Pressed on whether he believed the police were heavy-handed, Polanski told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: "I was very concerned by what I saw and I remain concerned."..
Of all the manifold failings of the Met, this is not one.
Polanski has really and totally misread the situation over Golders Green, hasn't he? I always knew he'd fall but honestly not this soon.
You think he's fallen, and perhaps he has, but are Green voters and potential Green voters noticing? There's not been a dip in their polling yet.
Well he's in a hole of some sorts, and insisting on continued excavation.
Polanski stands by concerns over police response to Golders Green attack
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78q6w1vzz7o Zack Polanski said he remains concerned over the actions of police officers who arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack, after previously apologising for sharing a critical social media post. The Green Party leader told the BBC everyone who works in public service "should not be above scrutiny" and action must be "proportionate no matter how brave". Polanski apologised on Friday for "sharing a tweet in haste" after he reposted a message on X accusing officers of "repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by Taser". Communities Secretary Steve Reed said it was "shameful" that Polanski was "still questioning the police's response". His repost was criticised at the time by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who accused Polanski of amplifying "inaccurate and misinformed commentary" in a letter published by the force. Pressed on whether he believed the police were heavy-handed, Polanski told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: "I was very concerned by what I saw and I remain concerned."..
Of all the manifold failings of the Met, this is not one.
None of this will do him much harm with Green voters.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
Yes, we are customers of a corporation
Fully agree- but at some level... that's been our choice.
Example. Because of who Mrs Romford and I are, we have got our white goods from one of those old-school small shops. (The one by Upminster Bridge station for any locals who are interested.) Limited range, higher prices, but they come out and fix things and we trust them to tell us when to stop trying to fix things.
OK, we're fortunate in that we can afford to pay more at the start. But plenty of other people could do the same, which would keep the non-corporate ecosystem going. But I suspect th atwhen the people running this shop want to retire, that will be it.
We bought an expensive new bed and mattress in 2012 from a small family-run business. It came with an impressive guarantee.
Some years later the mattress had deteriorated and was uncomfortable, but we were well within the guarantee period. Turned out that, to claim on the guarantee, we had to pay upfront for someone to inspect the mattress. This would be refunded if they concluded the mattress should be replaced. Inspector duly turned up, measured the deformation of the mattress, declared it within the acceptable limits of deterioration for its age, told us we should have shared our bed with a third person to help it wear more evenly and that was that.
We've since bought our mattresses from IKEA.
Edit: And the bed frame? Now being held together with a ratchet strap (from Lidl, natch).
“ …told us we should have shared our bed with a third person to help it wear more evenly”
Polanski has really and totally misread the situation over Golders Green, hasn't he? I always knew he'd fall but honestly not this soon.
You think he's fallen, and perhaps he has, but are Green voters and potential Green voters noticing? There's not been a dip in their polling yet.
Well he's in a hole of some sorts, and insisting on continued excavation.
Polanski stands by concerns over police response to Golders Green attack
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78q6w1vzz7o Zack Polanski said he remains concerned over the actions of police officers who arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack, after previously apologising for sharing a critical social media post. The Green Party leader told the BBC everyone who works in public service "should not be above scrutiny" and action must be "proportionate no matter how brave". Polanski apologised on Friday for "sharing a tweet in haste" after he reposted a message on X accusing officers of "repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by Taser". Communities Secretary Steve Reed said it was "shameful" that Polanski was "still questioning the police's response". His repost was criticised at the time by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who accused Polanski of amplifying "inaccurate and misinformed commentary" in a letter published by the force. Pressed on whether he believed the police were heavy-handed, Polanski told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: "I was very concerned by what I saw and I remain concerned."..
Of all the manifold failings of the Met, this is not one.
None of this will do him much harm with Green voters.
Perhaps not. But if he continues to display an inability to admit he's wrong, I'd expect more gaffes over the next couple of years which will.
Polanski has really and totally misread the situation over Golders Green, hasn't he? I always knew he'd fall but honestly not this soon.
You think he's fallen, and perhaps he has, but are Green voters and potential Green voters noticing? There's not been a dip in their polling yet.
Well he's in a hole of some sorts, and insisting on continued excavation.
Polanski stands by concerns over police response to Golders Green attack
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78q6w1vzz7o Zack Polanski said he remains concerned over the actions of police officers who arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack, after previously apologising for sharing a critical social media post. The Green Party leader told the BBC everyone who works in public service "should not be above scrutiny" and action must be "proportionate no matter how brave". Polanski apologised on Friday for "sharing a tweet in haste" after he reposted a message on X accusing officers of "repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by Taser". Communities Secretary Steve Reed said it was "shameful" that Polanski was "still questioning the police's response". His repost was criticised at the time by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who accused Polanski of amplifying "inaccurate and misinformed commentary" in a letter published by the force. Pressed on whether he believed the police were heavy-handed, Polanski told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: "I was very concerned by what I saw and I remain concerned."..
Of all the manifold failings of the Met, this is not one.
None of this will do him much harm with Green voters.
No, it won’t. If they have been sensible they won’t be competing with the Gaz Indy’s in inner cities but working together.
I was in Heaton yesterday for a foodie afternoon and I saw a few green signs in local gardens and one Lib Dem sign which has a couple of Palestine Flag stickers decrying genocide placed on it.
Polanski has really and totally misread the situation over Golders Green, hasn't he? I always knew he'd fall but honestly not this soon.
You think he's fallen, and perhaps he has, but are Green voters and potential Green voters noticing? There's not been a dip in their polling yet.
Well he's in a hole of some sorts, and insisting on continued excavation.
Polanski stands by concerns over police response to Golders Green attack
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78q6w1vzz7o Zack Polanski said he remains concerned over the actions of police officers who arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack, after previously apologising for sharing a critical social media post. The Green Party leader told the BBC everyone who works in public service "should not be above scrutiny" and action must be "proportionate no matter how brave". Polanski apologised on Friday for "sharing a tweet in haste" after he reposted a message on X accusing officers of "repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by Taser". Communities Secretary Steve Reed said it was "shameful" that Polanski was "still questioning the police's response". His repost was criticised at the time by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who accused Polanski of amplifying "inaccurate and misinformed commentary" in a letter published by the force. Pressed on whether he believed the police were heavy-handed, Polanski told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: "I was very concerned by what I saw and I remain concerned."..
Of all the manifold failings of the Met, this is not one.
None of this will do him much harm with Green voters.
Perhaps not. But if he continues to display an inability to admit he's wrong, I'd expect more gaffes over the next couple of years which will.
He also seems to find it difficult under pressure. He looked quite angry at Trevor Phillips line of questions earlier.
Outrage over Angela Rayner’s drinking at Westminster bar highlights hypocrisy in public life Boris or Farage are ‘men of the people’ when seen with pint in hand. For the Labour leadership hopeful, it proves she’s not up to the job
Was she 'seen with a pint in hand' or did she get trashed and wreck a door? I think if either Boris or Farage did that there would be a lot more of a to do about it than we've seen over Rayner.
Hasn't he said the cash wasn't for Reform? I thought the whole thing is being explained as a personal gift to Farage "outside politics" that's why he's saying it wasn't declared.
The Dan Hodges article from Washington East, a place and people many PB’ers will loathe for wrongthink, was interesting in so far as the voters he found will still go Reform but the prior praise of Farage is declining and they are seen more and m9re as just one of the above.
Hasn't he said the cash wasn't for Reform? I thought the whole thing is being explained as a personal gift to Farage "outside politics" that's why he's saying it wasn't declared.
Isn’t all income above a certain level published in the register of interests, or is it only for certain activities?
Hasn't he said the cash wasn't for Reform? I thought the whole thing is being explained as a personal gift to Farage "outside politics" that's why he's saying it wasn't declared.
Polanski has really and totally misread the situation over Golders Green, hasn't he? I always knew he'd fall but honestly not this soon.
You think he's fallen, and perhaps he has, but are Green voters and potential Green voters noticing? There's not been a dip in their polling yet.
Well he's in a hole of some sorts, and insisting on continued excavation.
Polanski stands by concerns over police response to Golders Green attack
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78q6w1vzz7o Zack Polanski said he remains concerned over the actions of police officers who arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack, after previously apologising for sharing a critical social media post. The Green Party leader told the BBC everyone who works in public service "should not be above scrutiny" and action must be "proportionate no matter how brave". Polanski apologised on Friday for "sharing a tweet in haste" after he reposted a message on X accusing officers of "repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by Taser". Communities Secretary Steve Reed said it was "shameful" that Polanski was "still questioning the police's response". His repost was criticised at the time by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who accused Polanski of amplifying "inaccurate and misinformed commentary" in a letter published by the force. Pressed on whether he believed the police were heavy-handed, Polanski told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: "I was very concerned by what I saw and I remain concerned."..
Of all the manifold failings of the Met, this is not one.
I get the impression that much of the Met rage over the incident is that the film of the event is being shown (repeatedly), unless one enjoys the sight of people getting booted in the head it doesn’t look great whatever the justification.
What I’d like to know is who is the old chuff right at the end of the clip taking a vicarious boot at the ‘terrorist’ once he’d been incapacitated. He’s the spirit animal of all have-a-go armchair heroes everywhere.
The Norstat poll in the ST today is good news for the Tories, they are forecast to win 16 MSPs, the same as Labour. I think the Tories would bite your hand off for that right now.
SNP on 57 and the Greens on 11. Greens look a little low to me. The SNP may well have a serious apathy problem but not enough to cause them major problems. Labour on 16 would be not much short of catastrophic. Reform on 19 would be a major change in Scotland.
hard to see that being anything but a fantasy unless it is just to avoid reform/greens etc
Hasn't he said the cash wasn't for Reform? I thought the whole thing is being explained as a personal gift to Farage "outside politics" that's why he's saying it wasn't declared.
Yes, which makes the phrasing in Kemi's tweet a bit odd. Reform's defence about non-disclosure is precisely that the cash wasn't for Reform (not that this "personal gift" defence seems likely to work given the requirements of disclosure).
However, none of that matters. It stinks of shit. If you're quibbling over the details, you've already lost. This is an area of weakness for Farage. We've seen polling before that the message that Farage is in the pocket of rich donors cuts through strongly. He's looking ever more like Trump, and looking like Trump doesn't win you votes any more.
Ongoing investigations also means the story will run and run.
Hasn't he said the cash wasn't for Reform? I thought the whole thing is being explained as a personal gift to Farage "outside politics" that's why he's saying it wasn't declared.
Personal gift of £5m? I need to get better friends.
Bit like Clarence Thomas and all the trips and goodies given to him by billionaire 'friends', we should be so lucky (that he is an experienced and intelligent judge but also claims to be too stupid to realise you should declare expensive gifts as it might look bad is a different matter)
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
I paid over the odds for AEG and their fridge/freezers are crap, overpriced cheap tat.
(1) The sullen hostility of rail travel. Passengers are treated putative criminals, not customers. I scanned (just one) of my train tickets yesterday so my family of four could go through the wide gate with the pushchair and all our luggage as one at Hampton Court, and then one "friendly" one walked over and scanned every single one of my tickets and then, not being satisfied they hadn't caught us out there, asked to see my Network Rail Card. I didn't get a thank you, Sir, enjoy your trip; she was clearly disappointed. And that's just leisure travel. I often see three lines of defence at Waterloo at peak hours too where you have ticket guards, backed up by revenue protection (as close to a British gestapo as you can get) and private security guards behind them. No smiles. Just looking for prey.
(2) No-one owning a problem. My AEG freezer broke down 2 weeks ago after just 3 years and it was very obvious from the way the engineer behaved from the second they walked in through my front door that they saw their job as to find reasons to void the warranty, not fix the problem. He also inadvertently let slip that his firm was on a fixed price contract. So, he claimed it wasn't installed to 'specification', and voided the warranty. Not helping us in any way to fix the freezer until I asked, and then he mumbled something about a new compressor and re-gassing it - if not a new fridge/freezer - but didn't do it or offer to do it if we paid him. Our original kitchen installer, once contacted, said it was precisely installed to specification and there was no issue, and said it's a fault with the appliance, and AEG's fault. So we have two groups of people more interested in avoiding blame than resolving the problem for the customer. And, consequently, we still have no working freezer.
That's Britain's real problem today: ordinary people are treated as a problem to manage (if not the true problem themselves) rather than people to help, with a real air of mutual unpleasant mistrust and suspicion.
I paid over the odds for AEG and their fridge/freezers are crap, overpriced cheap tat.
Would say the whole point of a free call out from an employee has to be escape as quickly as you can before it costs us money..
As for the train, if you don't ask the staff they will have reason to think you are pulling a fast one which creates problems. simply rule in life ask for things that are reasonable and you can get away with murder which in my most recent case was travelling with tickets I bought for March 1st rather than Feb 1st on Feb 1st. Manager laughed and said grab any seat in first class that isn't reserved.
Hasn't he said the cash wasn't for Reform? I thought the whole thing is being explained as a personal gift to Farage "outside politics" that's why he's saying it wasn't declared.
Personal gift of £5m? I need to get better friends.
Bit like Clarence Thomas and all the trips and goodies given to him by billionaire 'friends', we should be so lucky (that he is an experienced and intelligent judge but also claims to be too stupid to realise you should declare expensive gifts as it might look bad is a different matter)
Thomas should be in jail for the scale of corruption he’s been involved with.
Hasn't he said the cash wasn't for Reform? I thought the whole thing is being explained as a personal gift to Farage "outside politics" that's why he's saying it wasn't declared.
Yes, which makes the phrasing in Kemi's tweet a bit odd. Reform's defence about non-disclosure is precisely that the cash wasn't for Reform (not that this "personal gift" defence seems likely to work given the requirements of disclosure).
However, none of that matters. It stinks of shit. If you're quibbling over the details, you've already lost. This is an area of weakness for Farage. We've seen polling before that the message that Farage is in the pocket of rich donors cuts through strongly. He's looking ever more like Trump, and looking like Trump doesn't win you votes any more.
Ongoing investigations also means the story will run and run.
It stinks like all of Sir Keir’s mealy mouthed excuses for the things he looked bang to rights for I’m afraid, and just reminds me of American politics, which I find quite sleazy.
Never mind Mandelson, needing this snooker crowd vetted. Another disturbance
Snooker casuals?
I remember seeing a report years ago where one lad said that if trouble at football was clamped down on too tightly then they'd take it to the snooker instead.
Mind, I never did see the CCS causing bother with Stephen Hendry fans.
Actually he doesn't! What he does have is a long nose (the tip is level with, or lower than, the point where the node joins the philtrum) and a strong nose, but it's entirely straight and not hooked.
Polanski has really and totally misread the situation over Golders Green, hasn't he? I always knew he'd fall but honestly not this soon.
You think he's fallen, and perhaps he has, but are Green voters and potential Green voters noticing? There's not been a dip in their polling yet.
Well he's in a hole of some sorts, and insisting on continued excavation.
Polanski stands by concerns over police response to Golders Green attack
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78q6w1vzz7o Zack Polanski said he remains concerned over the actions of police officers who arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack, after previously apologising for sharing a critical social media post. The Green Party leader told the BBC everyone who works in public service "should not be above scrutiny" and action must be "proportionate no matter how brave". Polanski apologised on Friday for "sharing a tweet in haste" after he reposted a message on X accusing officers of "repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by Taser". Communities Secretary Steve Reed said it was "shameful" that Polanski was "still questioning the police's response". His repost was criticised at the time by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who accused Polanski of amplifying "inaccurate and misinformed commentary" in a letter published by the force. Pressed on whether he believed the police were heavy-handed, Polanski told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: "I was very concerned by what I saw and I remain concerned."..
Of all the manifold failings of the Met, this is not one.
None of this will do him much harm with Green voters.
No, it won’t. If they have been sensible they won’t be competing with the Gaz Indy’s in inner cities but working together.
I was in Heaton yesterday for a foodie afternoon and I saw a few green signs in local gardens and one Lib Dem sign which has a couple of Palestine Flag stickers decrying genocide placed on it.
Genocide?
Heaton has got a lot rougher since I was last there.
Six months out from November’s midterms and President Trump scores his worst approval ratings ever: Overall, 37% approve, 62% disapprove of his second-term record. On his handling of the Cost of Living, only 23% approve, 76% disapprove. On Inflation it’s 27% v 72% disapproval. On the economy overall it’s 34% approve, 65% disapprove. On Trump’s War with Iran, 66% disapprove, 33% approve. There’s no way back from these dire ratings before November — and the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed the worse his approval ratings will get. An entirely self-inflicted albatross.
Polanski has really and totally misread the situation over Golders Green, hasn't he? I always knew he'd fall but honestly not this soon.
You think he's fallen, and perhaps he has, but are Green voters and potential Green voters noticing? There's not been a dip in their polling yet.
Well he's in a hole of some sorts, and insisting on continued excavation.
Polanski stands by concerns over police response to Golders Green attack
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78q6w1vzz7o Zack Polanski said he remains concerned over the actions of police officers who arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack, after previously apologising for sharing a critical social media post. The Green Party leader told the BBC everyone who works in public service "should not be above scrutiny" and action must be "proportionate no matter how brave". Polanski apologised on Friday for "sharing a tweet in haste" after he reposted a message on X accusing officers of "repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by Taser". Communities Secretary Steve Reed said it was "shameful" that Polanski was "still questioning the police's response". His repost was criticised at the time by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who accused Polanski of amplifying "inaccurate and misinformed commentary" in a letter published by the force. Pressed on whether he believed the police were heavy-handed, Polanski told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: "I was very concerned by what I saw and I remain concerned."..
Of all the manifold failings of the Met, this is not one.
None of this will do him much harm with Green voters.
No, it won’t. If they have been sensible they won’t be competing with the Gaz Indy’s in inner cities but working together.
I was in Heaton yesterday for a foodie afternoon and I saw a few green signs in local gardens and one Lib Dem sign which has a couple of Palestine Flag stickers decrying genocide placed on it.
Genocide?
Heaton has got a lot rougher since I was last there.
If you think Heaton is rough nowadays you should go to Whitley Bay.
Six months out from November’s midterms and President Trump scores his worst approval ratings ever: Overall, 37% approve, 62% disapprove of his second-term record. On his handling of the Cost of Living, only 23% approve, 76% disapprove. On Inflation it’s 27% v 72% disapproval. On the economy overall it’s 34% approve, 65% disapprove. On Trump’s War with Iran, 66% disapprove, 33% approve. There’s no way back from these dire ratings before November — and the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed the worse his approval ratings will get. An entirely self-inflicted albatross.
Hasn't he said the cash wasn't for Reform? I thought the whole thing is being explained as a personal gift to Farage "outside politics" that's why he's saying it wasn't declared.
People don’t just give other people £5m
Are you sure? It's only the hope that keeps me going.
The perils of talking to AI with no personal checks and balances:
Adam is one of 14 people the BBC has spoken to who have experienced delusions after using AI. They are men and women from their 20s to 50s from six different countries, using a wide range of AI models.
Their stories have striking similarities. In each case, as the conversation drifted further from reality, the user was pulled into a joint quest with the AI.
Large language models (LLMs) are trained on the whole corpus of human literature, says social psychologist Luke Nicholls from City University New York, who has tested different chatbots for their reaction to delusional thoughts.
"In fiction, the main character is often the centre of events," he says. "The problem is that, sometimes, AI can actually get mixed up about which idea is a fiction and which a reality. So the user might think that they're having a serious conversation about real life while the AI starts to treat that person's life as if it's the plot of a novel."
Comments
Many such examples:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-55129805
I'd have asked if they liked fusion food.
But if I had to guess, the problem is subcontracting. The ticket checkers aren't employed by the railway, the engineer isn't employed by AEG. So the incentives and moral obligations aren't to the customers, or even to the firms we think are running things.
And whilst the theory is that this is more efficient and cheaper, it's possible that a lot of the savings are just enshittification.
Are we prepared to pay a bit more for integrated organisations that provide better service? I'd love to think so, and it would probably be better for us all, but I suspect that we're wired to go for cheaper, even if it makes us miserable.
Anyone who meddles with their gas supply in any way whatsoever is more insane than Donald Trump.
Which is why you hear politicians occasionally wobbling about making government services more “John Lewis like”.
A cartoon of a Jewish politician who is critical of the Israeli govt, that contains an anti-semitic trope, is not "anti-semitic" and will not result in a pile on.
Get back to me in a couple of days when I've been proved right.
I realised quite quickly that politely saying “er, no, that’s not true” was going to get very old very quickly even if I was right each time. So I bit my tongue and moved the conversation on to happier topics
It was a truly interesting insight tho. Polls show that the genders have wildly diverged across the western world. With men moving slightly right and women going very left. Into this ludicrous woke-world of comfortable untruths
I saw a glimpse of that maybe. I also had a fab time with free wine, lion fights, and gorillas in the mist, so what gives
And now I must hie myself to the jewellers of Camden Market to fix an antique agate cross. Later!
See also the triumph of Ryanair.
What you're effectively saying is that Jewish public figures may not be caricatured by cartoonists.
The problem is wider than that.
But, incidentally, the thought that the over 60s residents have been evacuated to the local Harvester pub is a terrifying prospect. There is going to be a massive amount of all you can eat pile high plating going on.
I recall the lab fire at my then Chemistry department, which conveniently has us all evacuated and confirmed we were not likely to be getting back in any time soon pretty much on the dot of 11am and everyone went, right then, opening time. (we tottered back in to assess how soggy our work and lab books had ended up at around half five before returning to the pub - wisely most had pushed their pull out desks back under the lab benches).
I want someone to come out and fix it.
If they can look beyond the woke obsession.
But I thought I’d start with basic facts. You need those first. And then I realised their entire grasp of basic facts was appalling, and I shamefully gave up, paralysed by the enormity of the task
But enough! To the silversmiths
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/02/man-of-the-people-zack-polanski-hauls-play-safe-greens-into-the-spotlight
His teeth and ears (also amped up by Brookes) are more notable.
I also detected hints of the late Rev Ian Paisley in the caricature - which further shows how mediocre is Brookes.
It’s a good thing. Especially the ‘fusion’ food. Love it.
Beats a Berni Inn.
The problem is when mental cases deem it ‘cultural misappropriation’ or want to silo cuisine to certain nationalities.
Like the loonies who got this place closed.
https://pdx.eater.com/2017/5/22/15677760/portland-kooks-burrito-cultural-appropriation
I did giggle at one article that got close to demanding cultural purity in a rather blood & soil style.
Boris or Farage are ‘men of the people’ when seen with pint in hand. For the Labour leadership hopeful, it proves she’s not up to the job
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/comment/opinion/outrage-over-angela-rayners-drinking-at-westminster-bar-highlights-hypocrisy-in-public-life/a/150862544.html
But, yes, there is a nationalism about food that gets quite bizarre.
From a year ago: 3 out of 3 isn’t bad, but it doesn’t seem to have done Starmer or Labour any good
https://x.com/JohnRentoul/status/2050898583621148957?s=20
This is why I think there is a role for government regulation, and also to improve access to the courts so that there's a way to get redress when a company tries to wriggle out of its obligations.
The British thing is summed up in the episode of “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” where they are flummoxed that the waiter in a curry house in India doesn’t speak English. Because what’s more British than an Induan meal?
Or something like that.
In any event, isn't tikka masala just Anglo/sub-continent fusion ? But created by someone born in Pakistan (or at least that's the popular story).
The China/S Korea I gave you is just one of many such between the two countries. Neither of which is at all 'woke'.
Example. Because of who Mrs Romford and I are, we have got our white goods from one of those old-school small shops. (The one by Upminster Bridge station for any locals who are interested.) Limited range, higher prices, but they come out and fix things and we trust them to tell us when to stop trying to fix things.
OK, we're fortunate in that we can afford to pay more at the start. But plenty of other people could do the same, which would keep the non-corporate ecosystem going. But I suspect th atwhen the people running this shop want to retire, that will be it.
Ideally the companies should rationally conclude that it's cheaper for them to do their job properly in the first place, rather than to be compelled to do so.
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a70986398/rail-fare-evasion-fine/
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/transport/article/how-to-catch-fare-dodger-waterloo-station-london-qzdwrj728
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/38255143/wealthy-banker-banned-rail-dodging-fares/
https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/work/article/middle-class-fare-dodgers-vhxbct6ph
Some things can only be fixed by creating environments where human-scale decency is more valued than it is.
What that means today is questionable.
Some years later the mattress had deteriorated and was uncomfortable, but we were well within the guarantee period. Turned out that, to claim on the guarantee, we had to pay upfront for someone to inspect the mattress. This would be refunded if they concluded the mattress should be replaced. Inspector duly turned up, measured the deformation of the mattress, declared it within the acceptable limits of deterioration for its age, told us we should have shared our bed with a third person to help it wear more evenly and that was that.
We've since bought our mattresses from IKEA.
Edit: And the bed frame? Now being held together with a ratchet strap (from Lidl, natch).
Lawyers will put terms into T&Cs which they know are void or unlikely to be enforceable but the the calculation is that people will read them when in a distressed situation, conclude they are snookered, and give up.
@NickPalmer to the red courtesy phone, please.
flat out to unwind the meter (I'm supprised the meter design meant this worked, but I witnessed this performance on one occasion, and it definitely did).
He was one of life's characters in many ways. I recall his neighbours both sides getting burgled the same night, and his yard being left alone. He concluded from this that the perps were locals who were afraid of him (he'd been a cage fighter in his youth, and he'd hospitalised some lads who'd tried helping themselves to his quad bike recently enough that everyone knew about it*), so he made some "enquiries", and lo and behold a couple of nights later the neighbours were un-burgled again.
*the plod knew about it too. They sent 6 officers to arrest him, in case he wasn't minded to come quietly, but they failed to establish enough concrete evidence of what had occured to prosecute.
Polanski stands by concerns over police response to Golders Green attack
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78q6w1vzz7o
Zack Polanski said he remains concerned over the actions of police officers who arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack, after previously apologising for sharing a critical social media post.
The Green Party leader told the BBC everyone who works in public service "should not be above scrutiny" and action must be "proportionate no matter how brave".
Polanski apologised on Friday for "sharing a tweet in haste" after he reposted a message on X accusing officers of "repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by Taser".
Communities Secretary Steve Reed said it was "shameful" that Polanski was "still questioning the police's response".
His repost was criticised at the time by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who accused Polanski of amplifying "inaccurate and misinformed commentary" in a letter published by the force.
Pressed on whether he believed the police were heavy-handed, Polanski told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: "I was very concerned by what I saw and I remain concerned."..
Of all the manifold failings of the Met, this is not one.
But if he continues to display an inability to admit he's wrong, I'd expect more gaffes over the next couple of years which will.
I was in Heaton yesterday for a foodie afternoon and I saw a few green signs in local gardens and one Lib Dem sign which has a couple of Palestine Flag stickers decrying genocide placed on it.
He’s similar to Farage in that respect.
If it had been the US the assailant would be with Nana and the Angles.
Why did Farage run scared from news interviews today?
It’s because there’s something fishy about the £5 million he took. And he knows it.
He’s normally very happy to shout from a TV studio -as long as he controls the terms.
The truth is that cash wasn’t for Reform.
Watch👇
https://x.com/kemibadenoch/status/2050897032928219324?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Wherever you are, happy Paul Caddis day
https://x.com/bcfc/status/2050907062876418158?s=61
The Dan Hodges article from Washington East, a place and people many PB’ers will loathe for wrongthink, was interesting in so far as the voters he found will still go Reform but the prior praise of Farage is declining and they are seen more and m9re as just one of the above.
For me the big thing is a party that claimed to be NOTA is becoming just the same as the rest.
It will harm them in the long run.
What I’d like to know is who is the old chuff right at the end of the clip taking a vicarious boot at the ‘terrorist’ once he’d been incapacitated. He’s the spirit animal of all have-a-go armchair heroes everywhere.
However, none of that matters. It stinks of shit. If you're quibbling over the details, you've already lost. This is an area of weakness for Farage. We've seen polling before that the message that Farage is in the pocket of rich donors cuts through strongly. He's looking ever more like Trump, and looking like Trump doesn't win you votes any more.
Ongoing investigations also means the story will run and run.
Bit like Clarence Thomas and all the trips and goodies given to him by billionaire 'friends', we should be so lucky (that he is an experienced and intelligent judge but also claims to be too stupid to realise you should declare expensive gifts as it might look bad is a different matter)
As for the train, if you don't ask the staff they will have reason to think you are pulling a fast one which creates problems. simply rule in life ask for things that are reasonable and you can get away with murder which in my most recent case was travelling with tickets I bought for March 1st rather than Feb 1st on Feb 1st. Manager laughed and said grab any seat in first class that isn't reserved.
An absolute joy to see the bugger squirm.
I remember seeing a report years ago where one lad said that if trouble at football was clamped down on too tightly then they'd take it to the snooker instead.
Mind, I never did see the CCS causing bother with Stephen Hendry fans.
Heaton has got a lot rougher since I was last there.
Andrew Neil
@afneil
Six months out from November’s midterms and President Trump scores his worst approval ratings ever:
Overall, 37% approve, 62% disapprove of his second-term record.
On his handling of the Cost of Living, only 23% approve, 76% disapprove.
On Inflation it’s 27% v 72% disapproval.
On the economy overall it’s 34% approve, 65% disapprove.
On Trump’s War with Iran, 66% disapprove, 33% approve.
There’s no way back from these dire ratings before November — and the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed the worse his approval ratings will get. An entirely self-inflicted albatross.
https://x.com/afneil/status/2050925089550413971
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJCqxgJK1VY
Adam is one of 14 people the BBC has spoken to who have experienced delusions after using AI. They are men and women from their 20s to 50s from six different countries, using a wide range of AI models.
Their stories have striking similarities. In each case, as the conversation drifted further from reality, the user was pulled into a joint quest with the AI.
Large language models (LLMs) are trained on the whole corpus of human literature, says social psychologist Luke Nicholls from City University New York, who has tested different chatbots for their reaction to delusional thoughts.
"In fiction, the main character is often the centre of events," he says. "The problem is that, sometimes, AI can actually get mixed up about which idea is a fiction and which a reality. So the user might think that they're having a serious conversation about real life while the AI starts to treat that person's life as if it's the plot of a novel."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c242pzr1zp2o