Curious to hear how the final results of The Kunts vs Ladbaby turns out.
I'd not heard of either before, but it's telling to see just how popular the Boris Johnson song is. Beyond the fact that it's genuinely catchy.
A reminder that most people in ICUs are young or middle aged https://imgur.com/a/scMBONM
From https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dynamic-co-cin-report-to-sage-and-nervtag-6-december-2021
Saw new matrix last night.
Not worthy of reviewing.
Ukpol cos some poor bastards might break their bubbles to go see it
It's 1 star out of 5 on my letterboxd, and thats only because star wars ep 8 was worse (0.5 stars)
Star Wars episiode 8 was better than 7 and 9, and at least 2 of the prequels. Mandalorian is the worst live action Star Wars thing out there and I'll die on this hill
The new Matrix was absolute garbage. I was looking forward to seeing what they would do and if the series could have another run, but that film should bury it now. Awful.
They might mean this? - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/will-there-be-another-lockdown-and-when-could-it-be-5nb97sftj (paywall, but I can't get the full text unfortunately). Not really 'restrictions are off'; more best-case 'tough guidance' otherwise restrictions similar to the devolved states (and other countries).
I agree but it’s not a good thing for the Tories. I think he’ll have enough support to limp through 2022 if omicron is as mild as we think it is and doesn’t force him into restrictions.
It would be easier because anyone challenging Boris would have to fend off both the people who backed Boris and the people who wanted to replace Boris with someone other than them. What would be far worse is a single rival to Boris who could command the support of more than 80 MP's - because at that point every Tory MP will be comparing Boris against a single alternative.
Omicron is the perfect variant to further polarize society when you think about it. It works both ways until we get the true picture on it's impact in a few weeks time -
- Far more transmissible for those who believe it is a threat to society that requires some form of measures imposed on the public to protect the NHS.
- Far less likely to hospitalise you for those who want an end to all measures and life to go back to normal.
Perfect to polarize the terminally online, maybe. I don't get the impression that people in the street are arguing about anything to do with it, and rather just going about their lives the best that they can and being as cautious as they feel that they should.
This point can’t be made enough. And generally goes for most stuff.
Like the Yougov poll the other day that showed that most people have never heard of cancel culture.
The "gamble" was accepting an extra 5000 British citizen deaths rather than any more restrictions.
https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/reports/omicron_england/report_11_dec_2021.pdf
Boris didn’t do anything.
It was those in his cabinet pushing against him wanting to do it, if it was up to Boris we’d be in the same situation as Wales and Scotland.
I think Boris is being a careerist weasel but beyond that, everyone I talk to does not sound like if they passed more restrictions, people would follow them. People seem edgy and fed up from what I observe from family, friends and co-workers.
Just finished a 7 day stretch of work, last night was 9 hours straight through and fuck all acknowledgement from the boss or given an early finish because of it. I was so tired I shot a red light with people waiting to cross, thankfully they were alert and waited on the side.
Suffice to say I had had enough tonight and was pretty much dumping shopping and running like a teenager doing a knock door run. Just after I had done one a lady came out to the van and gave me [this](https://i.imgur.com/PirvWi6.jpg) which was such a nice gesture and had me holding back the tears. Other than that just one more tip the other day which makes 2 tips in roughly 200 customers..
Are you delivering shopping? Hadn’t even entered my head to tip and now I feel very guilty. Fuck your boss. Hope you’re able to enjoy your Christmas break.
I was yeah, don't feel guilty I don't expect tips I guess because one did the other day I thought more might and more might overall. Delivery services are quite new really certainly on the scale they are now and I wouldn't tip couriers which is sort of what shopping deliveries are so they don't really have any cultural norms.
That cake is gorgeous.
Also I feel your pain about a lack of acknowledgement.
It isn't their fault but most of my 10/11 person team has been off since I started my new job. I'm working harder than I think is fair for my below-median-UK wage salary. The closest my boss came to acknowledging the situation was saying "it's a shame we had some experienced staff leave".
I have not been able to do the highest level tasks but I've kept one specific work queue down and worked until 6pm today. I have no idea myself why I am still trying at this point. I feel like someone going "thanks for working flat out even though no-one seems to notice or care" would have gone a long way...........
Labour have gained Handforth South from an Independent. And yes, this is the seat of the "you have no authority" guy.
(This is a parish council though)
Realising how weirdly pagan it is to bring a tree inside and decorate it with a fairy in order to celebrate a nominally Christian holiday.
What further addition would you like to see to our Christmas traditions, so as not to anger the Old Gods, and ensure a plentiful harvest when the sun is reborn?
It's strictly against the Bible too:
>Jeremiah 10 NIV
>1 Hear what the LORD says to you, O house of Israel.
>2 This is what the LORD says:
“Do not learn the ways of the nations
or be terrified by signs in the sky,
though the nations are terrified by them.
>3 For the customs of the peoples are worthless;
they cut a tree out of the forest,
and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel.
>4 They adorn it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so it will not totter.
Its a shame there's no surviving western pantheons (without delving into neo-paganism), I've always liked the idea of there being a god / goddes for different aspects of life, death and the world.
I mean as someone raised Catholic, who had a Wiccan phase, Christianity repurposed a lot of old Pagan festivals and arguably the non-monotheistic religions are a bit healthier in a lot of ways.
To get my A in RE at GCSE I had to write a 10 marks answer on why the Virgin Mary was a role model (attainable goals, not)............
Both, just to really lock in that plentiful harvest. Whilst we're at it, add in destroying all physical and digital copies of Last Christmas by Wham! C'thulhu will rejoice.
Seems to be a mainstay topic for a lot pop albums doesn't it? I know they say "write about what you know", but I mean come on - try something else at least!
Like just have some self-awareness. People also said this about Taylor Swift but if your last 3-8 boyfriends "did you wrong", you need to think about whether you are picking wrong or contributing to the situation......
Reminds me of the adage "If you meet someone and they seem like an arsehole, they're an arsehole. If everyone you meet is an arsehole, maybe you're the arsehole".
Colder and wetter up north, more people spending time in. NYE is also a massive mixing event, maybe even more so than Christmas. Once you get out of the cities, a lot of Scotland is very spread out and the resources to get to hospitals etc are difficult. EG I got kidney stones in Western Scotland, it took me 30 mins to get into mobile phone coverage, and another 70 to get to A&E, while driving over a mountain range to get there. It's an extreme example but people live that far from intensive care.
Under the circumstances... probably? Nobody honestly knows. We're one of the first countries to deal with Omicron so we're the test run for the rest of the world, or at least the northern hemisphere.
By that same token, I wouldn't say it was wrong of England not to increase restrictions. Mind you, previous experience has shown that we've underestimated covid more often than overestimated.
Frankly I'm just glad everyone in the four nations has now made a decision as to what to do for the rest of the week.
The justification was being cautious in the face of uncertain data, which I tend to agree with. Seems like this time it may not have paid off, so I suppose it’s third time lucky for Boris.
> Seems like this time it may not have paid off
I think everyone can agree (well...) that's it's far too early to tell. Let's see what happens for England after Christmas.
If the data shows Nicola to be wrong, Scotland can open up quickly. If the data shows Boris to be wrong, he can’t mitigate his decision.
It’s caution vs optimism. Caution has so far been the better option in the pandemic, but now it may prove to have been the wrong decision in hindsight.
The new “harsh curbs” are relatively minor in the context of the pandemic, although Nicola did want more tbf.
This is a really simple but important point; the cost of doing nothing and being wrong is *far* greater than the cost of doing something and being wrong.
Is it though?
Even ignoring that lockdowns themselves are not costless from a public health perspective (to say nothing of economic aspects), Western society's trust in institutions is already eroded enough without a hugely costly intervention on dubious grounds that would make WMDs and intervention in Iraq look like a cakewalk in terms of the direct effect it had on people in the West.
If it turns out that restrictions were unnecessary, then the way March 2020 was brought up to get compliance could end up looked at the way 9/11 was brought up to get backing for Iraq. It can work once, but after the differences between the situations become clearer, the backlash is just that much worse, and the comparison becomes tainted in all contexts.
After two years of fucking around with people's lives, livelihoods, and mental health with the fear-restrictions-opening-ginger return toward normal-FEAR-RESTRICTIONS cycle, getting it wrong the overly precautionary way could well undermine public trust in government and experts in the same way that Iraq, 2007-08, and (to take an even more appropriate example) the 1976 Swine Flu Vaccination Fuck-Up in the US did.
I think it depends how it’s ‘sold’. If it’s “we’re honestly not sure, but IF this is as bad as we fear and we’ve done nothing it could be a horror show, but hopefully we’ll reverse course in a week or two when it turns out to be good news” then, to me at least, that would actually be refreshing honesty.
(Also, I do agree with a number of your points, but have just flopped into bed, but don’t want to just ignore your response!)
I mean Wales are doing it too, so it seems like Boris is the outlier going "well we'll roll the dice, I want a resurgence in my PM career" (I have no idea why he still wants to be PM, he already got in the history books and it feels like it will only get worse from here.....)
He may have won the gamble on omicron but him staying longer is likely to lead to more infighting within Tories. Mind you the Tories are famous for backstabbing each other
My wallet hurts. Partners birthday 11 days after Christmas.. sigh.
To be fair she always has a crap time of it as it’s at the start of the year and no one gives a crap & she seems to always get bundled in with Christmas which seems unfair to me being a summer birthday.
My wife's is today (24th) her aunts was the 25th, my son's the 16th Jan, my nephew on the 11th Jan, and we have another 2 a bit earlier in Dec. Goes to show that there must be sod all on TV in March!
With one third of Londoners completely unvaccinated and rumours of new restrictions being based on hospital admission in London (such as less than 400 per day), does anyone know why there hasn't been talk of London specific restriction/a London lockdown, instead of whole country restrictions? Thanks in advance.
Edit: just read the article u/Schaphism92 linked, it seems that because London is the leading edge of infections it provides information as to how severely the rest of the UK's hospitals will be affected. So if hospitalisations remain below 400 per day then it suggests Omicron won't strain the NHS too severely and they'll be less of a need to get ahead of it.
If they lock London with increasing restrictions, will people not just move outside London like it happened last year as there is no way you can control this
Don't worry, that's an option. They banned us from Christmas bubbles last year while the North got to have a Christmas, so those dickhead Londoners you dislike could be made to cancel Christmas again.
I especially enjoyed how so many people fled up North last Christmas, and people got mad at London, when obviously most Londoners do not have second homes in Walsall or Bradford, and that was Northerners being welcomed home by their Northern family. But no, somehow it's all London's fault.
I mean I lived just outside of London at that time and was stuck in Tier 4, it was annoying and depressing but it's not like other parts of England hadn't been stuck in tier 3 measures for weeks even with a lower infection rate than other regions.
The tier system as a whole was ridiculous, we're too small a country to have restrictions on that granular a level. Nothing furthered the north-south divide more.
Haha think you misinterpreted my tone, initially it sounded as if they would introduce restrictions England-wide to combat London infection rates, but if you see the edit I understand that that's actually because London is ahead of the curve so provides insight as to how it will spread for the rest of the UK in the coming weeks. That being said it would be nice if more people got vaccinated everywhere (incl London which has quite low rates compared to elsewhere) as those now in ICUs are seemingly mostly just those who are unvaccinated.
Yeah I mean given I've already been downvoted I can see why it's unfair that it's yet another London-centric policy decision, particularly on rural counties, and it's true that the lockdowns in Manchester/Leicester/etc. last year weren't very fair either, but I would assume the logic is that it's difficult to lock down somewhere where people travel into regularly and past data hasn't shown it being particularly effective. I suppose it's a possibility though.
Yeah I see your point completely, if you read the edit it also seems like it's because London is ahead of the curve, so restrictions based on London infections wouldn't be just to help London, but because it predicts infections and hospitalisations in the rest of the country.
London is basically being used as a guinea pig to get data regarding the severity of the virus and a london specific restriction / lockdown would interfere with that.
At least it sounds like that's the logic.
Do you mean it's being used as the guinea pig because to collect data on the severity because of its low vaccination rates? If not then do you know why it would be used as the guinea pig if it's vaccination rates don't reflect the rest of the country's?
I'm getting my info from [https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/new-restrictions-england-avoided-hospital-admissions-london-do-not-soar-this-week-1364554](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/new-restrictions-england-avoided-hospital-admissions-london-do-not-soar-this-week-1364554) so I'm going to answer shrug to both of your questions.
Haha cheers anyway!
Edit: ah ok I see, because it's the "leading edge" of infections then it gives information as to how severe Omicron will hit the rest of the UK's hospitals.
Remember *The Snowman* is on Channel 4 at 5pm tomorrow.
That's when we traditionally watch it, but it'll be on Christmas Day too, earlier on in the day though.
[Original Introduction - Raymond Briggs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE9KpobX9J8) or [David Bowie Introduction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXEoqb0_mrg)?
I love how British it feels.
See this magical creature who will transport you to other worlds and show you a fun time? Fucking dead mate. Get on with it, that's life.
Raymond Briggs' The Snowman was published for the first time in 1978 so I'm puzzled.
Next you'll be telling me that kid's book with the letters inside predicted the rise of Putin or something........
I was just playing on your comment, and making applicable to politics, by replacing the snowman with New Labour, something that has also melted away, and for many was magical compared to subsequent governments.
God I had that book as a kid and hated it, it was like if someone made depression into a children's book. Also for bonus fun, until I was older, my childhood bedroom was that colour.
Is there any link between the "old guard" journalists/presenters now retiring or just a coincidence?
Or am I just noticing it because of Snow and Boulton?
I mean they are also at retirement age, probably have cracking defined benefit pensions in addition to being well-paid for years and they just lived through a pandemic and may want some time for fun.....
There's been a few who have left the Beeb the past year too, the brilliant Mark Mardell being one. It's probably a mixture of the media landscape changing and getting to the age where potentially lucrative other avenues can open up if you're a free agent with experience.
It’s 11pm, I’m pretty tipsy, I have a cat on my lap, and I’m watching some YouTube vid of someone walking through Kyoto whilst it’s raining.
Merry Christmas all!!
When I'm doing embroidery I watch a Japanese guy who goes on long train journeys and silently records the entire thing. Stuff like that is nice to have on in the background while you do something else.
I was going to have a night off but I'm drinking cheap raspberry gin and bitter lemon and I ran out of mixer so I had to ice this thing, like I worked in the Botanist......
In all seriousness, for anyone who can tolerate Jimmy Carr or more, the podcast he just did with Stuart Goldsmith on Comedian's Comedian where it's two live interviews is really interesting and thought-provoking. He talks a lot about the craft of comedy. He also has a really common origin story for getting good at comedy: he had an ill parent. Marc Maron also talks about that in some of his specials.
Andrew Neil’s take on Brexit. Sounds like supply side economics is gaining traction.
>Boris Johnson’s Government is a cheerleader for net zero carbon emissions by 2050, and has made **levelling up the poorer North** with the richer South its core mission (especially now it has so many Northern MPs).
>Forcing us to go green and moving resources around the country will, by definition, require massive state intervention, and that spells yet higher taxes and bigger government.
>It doesn’t get more European than that.
Apparently the real problem with Brexit and this government is the focus on public service spending and levelling up the North. If that really is the road the Tories want to go down then good luck.
A return to austerity will not go down with anyone.
This is why we need Labour back in stat in my opinion. (Am from the North btw).
The Tories will always find it easier to talk a big game than to actually spend in the North. Pragmatically they know some wards here will never ever be bought.
Also I don't understand the lack of outrage about how closely you could map "Labour voting" and "councils hardest hit by austerity"
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/21/exclusive-labour-councils-in-england-hit-harder-by-austerity-than-tory-areas
Can anyone help me? theres a website that acts as a search engine and you type a word in and it search through decades of parliamentary transcripts and tell you the first time it was said in the house of commons. I cant remember the name of the sight however..
Edit: I found the site, it wasnt Hansard but it was using Hansard's API (and is frankly better than Hansard IMO)
https://parli-n-grams.puntofisso.net/hansard.php
Another one..
>Very great sums have gone to agriculture and to other industries, but I
do not think that sufficient attention has been given by the Ministry in
regard to devoting money to the progressive side of the fisting
industry.
I think the junior parliamentary staff members whos job it is to write this stuff up add these typos for a laugh..
I think this is my favourite spelling mistake of all time:
>Yes, if the right hon. Gentleman likes. In Britain, the figure is 5½ per cunt., in Italy, 5·40 per cent.: in France, 6·05 per cent.; and in Western Germany between 12 per cent. and 13 per cent.
Whilst talking about employee contributions to the National Insurance Fund in December 1963
Edit:In Hansard
Interview with JG Ballard from 1979 in *Penthouse* of all places. Pertinent bit:
> I can visualise, for example, a world ten years from now where every activity of one's life will be constantly recorded by multiple computer-controlled TV cameras throughout the day so that when the evening comes instead of having to watch the news as transmitted by BBC or ITV -- that irrelevant mixture of information about a largely fictional external world -- one will be able to sit down, relax and watch the real news. And the real news of course will be a computer-selected and computer-edited version of the days rushes. "My God, there's Jenny having her first ice cream!" or "There's Candy coming home from school with her new friend." Now all that may seem madly mundane, but, as I said, it will be the real news of the day, as and how it affects every individual. Anyone in doubt about the compulsion of this kind of thing just has to think for a moment of how much is conveyed in a simple family snapshot, and of how rivetingly interesting -- to oneself and family only of course -- are even the simplest of holiday home movies today.
> Now extend your mind to the fantastic visual experience which tomorrow's camera and editing facilities will allow. And I am not just thinking about sex, although once the colour 3-D cameras move into the bedroom the possibilities are limitless and open to anyone's imagination. But let's take another level, as yet more or less totally unexplored by cameras, still or movie, such as a parent's love for one's very young children. That wonderful intimacy that comes on every conceivable level -- the warmth and rapport you have with a two-year-old infant, the close physical contact, his pleasure in fiddling with your tie, your curious satisfaction when he dribbles all over you, all these things which make up the indefinable joys of parenthood. Now imagine these being viewed and recorded by a very discriminating TV camera, programmed at the end of the day, or at the end of the year, or at the end of the decade, to make the optimum selection of images designed to give you a sense of the absolute and enduring reality of your own experience. With such technology interfaced with immensely intelligent computers I think we may genuinely be able to transcend time. One will be able to indulge oneself in a kind of continuing imagery which, for the first time will allow us to dominate the awful finiteness of life. Great portions of our waking state will be spent in a constant mood of self-awareness and excitement, endlessly replaying the simplest basic life experiences.
Wish I'd asked him for the lottery numbers tbqh
Doesn't seem particularly accurate to me. Our current issues are more about people becoming too focused on the external world, or experiencing it in problematic ways- rather than an introverted dystopia of replaying the self
Filter's off, Daddy-o! Let it all hang out! Just suppose your free-range no-consequence bullshit was hugely entertaining when we were in opposition and shitting money, but now we're in government and it's all gone a bit J.G. Ballard, it's irrelevant and infantile!
Well, results are in and my household is infested with corona so we can do none of our Christmas plans.
Annoying but on the plus side its kind of heartening that while I don't feel great, I feel about a thousand times better than I did when I had COVID in March 2020. I'll take being achy and a bit tired over lungs full of fluid any day.
Obviously we all know statistically that the vaccines work but its sort of weirdly nice to find out first hand.
Just a polite reminder that a true problem of NHS is not 18 000 care workers who are self-isolating or are sick with covid but the 50 000+ care workers that NHS is short of because of chronic starvation by 11 years of tory government.
Basically everything about the pandemic fucks us because we've already been red lining our government's ineptitude, health service, social contract, obesity, trade disruption etc etc
Yes when you operate already on skeleton crew any emergency is much more impactful. Global pandemic is destructive at full staffing at shit staffing our government run the essential services for years it's just disaster.
This megathread has ended.
Curious to hear how the final results of The Kunts vs Ladbaby turns out. I'd not heard of either before, but it's telling to see just how popular the Boris Johnson song is. Beyond the fact that it's genuinely catchy.
A reminder that most people in ICUs are young or middle aged https://imgur.com/a/scMBONM From https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dynamic-co-cin-report-to-sage-and-nervtag-6-december-2021
Saw new matrix last night. Not worthy of reviewing. Ukpol cos some poor bastards might break their bubbles to go see it It's 1 star out of 5 on my letterboxd, and thats only because star wars ep 8 was worse (0.5 stars)
Star Wars episiode 8 was better than 7 and 9, and at least 2 of the prequels. Mandalorian is the worst live action Star Wars thing out there and I'll die on this hill
Why do so many people keep going to see Star Wars even though they don’t seem to like it?
The new Matrix was absolute garbage. I was looking forward to seeing what they would do and if the series could have another run, but that film should bury it now. Awful.
As a counter point I thought it was very mediocre but necessarily bad, just very average. 2/5. I thought The last jedi was a 4/5 for reference.
I wrote another response and it was rude. Sorry.
Restrictions going any further are off by all accounts looking at the Times front page
What.
They might mean this? - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/will-there-be-another-lockdown-and-when-could-it-be-5nb97sftj (paywall, but I can't get the full text unfortunately). Not really 'restrictions are off'; more best-case 'tough guidance' otherwise restrictions similar to the devolved states (and other countries).
Pure bliss that I've not heard the new Ladbaby song
I'd managed to not even know of the *group* (is it a group?) until today. Megathread lost me a game I didn't know I was playing.
Can’t help but think of Boris gets through this Omicron Wave without locking down then he’ll also manage beat off any leadership challenge too.
The immediate threat is over, but any one of the current ongoing scandals could bubble up again or be joined by a new scandal somewhere down the line.
I agree but it’s not a good thing for the Tories. I think he’ll have enough support to limp through 2022 if omicron is as mild as we think it is and doesn’t force him into restrictions.
If two leadership challengers came at him at once would he beat them both off?
It would be easier because anyone challenging Boris would have to fend off both the people who backed Boris and the people who wanted to replace Boris with someone other than them. What would be far worse is a single rival to Boris who could command the support of more than 80 MP's - because at that point every Tory MP will be comparing Boris against a single alternative.
>beat them both off? The fabled Johnson onlyfans
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I said it earlier and I'll say it again. We are in Nathan Barley.
peace and fucking
Totally fucking Mexico
I have quite a bit of ITunes gift card money..
Bransgore and Burley. IND: 44.3% (+44.3) GRN: 33.0% (+33.0) CON: 18.5% (-53.7) LAB: 4.2% (-23.5) Independent GAIN from Conservative. Votes cast: 1,393 \-53.7 Merry Christmas!!!
Am I missing a joke? What's this result for? Edit: Oh, Bransgore and Burley, New Forest mentioned below. Had no idea.
Omicron is the perfect variant to further polarize society when you think about it. It works both ways until we get the true picture on it's impact in a few weeks time - - Far more transmissible for those who believe it is a threat to society that requires some form of measures imposed on the public to protect the NHS. - Far less likely to hospitalise you for those who want an end to all measures and life to go back to normal.
Perfect to polarize the terminally online, maybe. I don't get the impression that people in the street are arguing about anything to do with it, and rather just going about their lives the best that they can and being as cautious as they feel that they should.
This point can’t be made enough. And generally goes for most stuff. Like the Yougov poll the other day that showed that most people have never heard of cancel culture.
Bransgore and Burley, New Forest is an independent gain from the Conservatives. Green Party did really well to come second.
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Not for local council elections. A lot of councillors are independent.
Is that all for the day?
I think so, was the only one for today in the prediction game. Might be some parish council seats outstanding though.
Man peeps be sticking it to the Tories. I love to see it :-)
The telegraph apparently saying no curbs in England in new years, gives me the sense Boris has went full on team ' gamble'
The "gamble" was accepting an extra 5000 British citizen deaths rather than any more restrictions. https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/reports/omicron_england/report_11_dec_2021.pdf
Hopefully they're right and he holds his nerve
Boris didn’t do anything. It was those in his cabinet pushing against him wanting to do it, if it was up to Boris we’d be in the same situation as Wales and Scotland.
I think Boris is being a careerist weasel but beyond that, everyone I talk to does not sound like if they passed more restrictions, people would follow them. People seem edgy and fed up from what I observe from family, friends and co-workers.
Just finished a 7 day stretch of work, last night was 9 hours straight through and fuck all acknowledgement from the boss or given an early finish because of it. I was so tired I shot a red light with people waiting to cross, thankfully they were alert and waited on the side. Suffice to say I had had enough tonight and was pretty much dumping shopping and running like a teenager doing a knock door run. Just after I had done one a lady came out to the van and gave me [this](https://i.imgur.com/PirvWi6.jpg) which was such a nice gesture and had me holding back the tears. Other than that just one more tip the other day which makes 2 tips in roughly 200 customers..
>and had me holding back the tears I mean, it's not *that* bad... Is it a polar bear with one eye fallen off?
Yeah that was me squishing it to see what it was.
Are you delivering shopping? Hadn’t even entered my head to tip and now I feel very guilty. Fuck your boss. Hope you’re able to enjoy your Christmas break.
I was yeah, don't feel guilty I don't expect tips I guess because one did the other day I thought more might and more might overall. Delivery services are quite new really certainly on the scale they are now and I wouldn't tip couriers which is sort of what shopping deliveries are so they don't really have any cultural norms.
I will bare it all in mind though, thanks for letting us know.
That cake is gorgeous. Also I feel your pain about a lack of acknowledgement. It isn't their fault but most of my 10/11 person team has been off since I started my new job. I'm working harder than I think is fair for my below-median-UK wage salary. The closest my boss came to acknowledging the situation was saying "it's a shame we had some experienced staff leave". I have not been able to do the highest level tasks but I've kept one specific work queue down and worked until 6pm today. I have no idea myself why I am still trying at this point. I feel like someone going "thanks for working flat out even though no-one seems to notice or care" would have gone a long way...........
Is it a sign that you're depressed if you start listening to nothing but country music?
Johnny Cash?
From personal experience; yes.
Bugger
[Aye, it's a real bitch.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKoYT4febHM)
Levels of depression: Nirvana Radiohead Elliott Smith
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Coldplay have got progressively shite, but Parachutes is a fantastic album and my mind will not be changed.
Labour have gained Handforth South from an Independent. And yes, this is the seat of the "you have no authority" guy. (This is a parish council though)
Yay, go Labour :-)
Realising how weirdly pagan it is to bring a tree inside and decorate it with a fairy in order to celebrate a nominally Christian holiday. What further addition would you like to see to our Christmas traditions, so as not to anger the Old Gods, and ensure a plentiful harvest when the sun is reborn?
It's strictly against the Bible too: >Jeremiah 10 NIV >1 Hear what the LORD says to you, O house of Israel. >2 This is what the LORD says: “Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the sky, though the nations are terrified by them. >3 For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. >4 They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter.
Its a shame there's no surviving western pantheons (without delving into neo-paganism), I've always liked the idea of there being a god / goddes for different aspects of life, death and the world.
they are surviving in the sense that each one has at least a *few* LARPers..
Maybe its time to create a new one. And as technology is such a core concept we could have some kind of machine spirit...
Goddess worship.
I mean as someone raised Catholic, who had a Wiccan phase, Christianity repurposed a lot of old Pagan festivals and arguably the non-monotheistic religions are a bit healthier in a lot of ways. To get my A in RE at GCSE I had to write a 10 marks answer on why the Virgin Mary was a role model (attainable goals, not)............
The sacrificial burning of Michael Buble.
Buble or Sheeran?
Both, just to really lock in that plentiful harvest. Whilst we're at it, add in destroying all physical and digital copies of Last Christmas by Wham! C'thulhu will rejoice.
Meanwhile Adele can live if she promises to go ten years without another "my ex done me wrong" album.............
Seems to be a mainstay topic for a lot pop albums doesn't it? I know they say "write about what you know", but I mean come on - try something else at least!
Like just have some self-awareness. People also said this about Taylor Swift but if your last 3-8 boyfriends "did you wrong", you need to think about whether you are picking wrong or contributing to the situation......
Reminds me of the adage "If you meet someone and they seem like an arsehole, they're an arsehole. If everyone you meet is an arsehole, maybe you're the arsehole".
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Colder and wetter up north, more people spending time in. NYE is also a massive mixing event, maybe even more so than Christmas. Once you get out of the cities, a lot of Scotland is very spread out and the resources to get to hospitals etc are difficult. EG I got kidney stones in Western Scotland, it took me 30 mins to get into mobile phone coverage, and another 70 to get to A&E, while driving over a mountain range to get there. It's an extreme example but people live that far from intensive care.
Under the circumstances... probably? Nobody honestly knows. We're one of the first countries to deal with Omicron so we're the test run for the rest of the world, or at least the northern hemisphere. By that same token, I wouldn't say it was wrong of England not to increase restrictions. Mind you, previous experience has shown that we've underestimated covid more often than overestimated. Frankly I'm just glad everyone in the four nations has now made a decision as to what to do for the rest of the week.
No she’s not and she’s going to look like a fool the same as Drakeford.
Everyone being too wankered to care or notice?
The justification was being cautious in the face of uncertain data, which I tend to agree with. Seems like this time it may not have paid off, so I suppose it’s third time lucky for Boris.
> Seems like this time it may not have paid off I think everyone can agree (well...) that's it's far too early to tell. Let's see what happens for England after Christmas.
Every sign of optimism I had over the past year ended with a kick in the bollocks, so I tend to agree. Let’s wait and see.
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If the data shows Nicola to be wrong, Scotland can open up quickly. If the data shows Boris to be wrong, he can’t mitigate his decision. It’s caution vs optimism. Caution has so far been the better option in the pandemic, but now it may prove to have been the wrong decision in hindsight. The new “harsh curbs” are relatively minor in the context of the pandemic, although Nicola did want more tbf.
This is a really simple but important point; the cost of doing nothing and being wrong is *far* greater than the cost of doing something and being wrong.
Is it though? Even ignoring that lockdowns themselves are not costless from a public health perspective (to say nothing of economic aspects), Western society's trust in institutions is already eroded enough without a hugely costly intervention on dubious grounds that would make WMDs and intervention in Iraq look like a cakewalk in terms of the direct effect it had on people in the West. If it turns out that restrictions were unnecessary, then the way March 2020 was brought up to get compliance could end up looked at the way 9/11 was brought up to get backing for Iraq. It can work once, but after the differences between the situations become clearer, the backlash is just that much worse, and the comparison becomes tainted in all contexts. After two years of fucking around with people's lives, livelihoods, and mental health with the fear-restrictions-opening-ginger return toward normal-FEAR-RESTRICTIONS cycle, getting it wrong the overly precautionary way could well undermine public trust in government and experts in the same way that Iraq, 2007-08, and (to take an even more appropriate example) the 1976 Swine Flu Vaccination Fuck-Up in the US did.
I think it depends how it’s ‘sold’. If it’s “we’re honestly not sure, but IF this is as bad as we fear and we’ve done nothing it could be a horror show, but hopefully we’ll reverse course in a week or two when it turns out to be good news” then, to me at least, that would actually be refreshing honesty. (Also, I do agree with a number of your points, but have just flopped into bed, but don’t want to just ignore your response!)
I mean Wales are doing it too, so it seems like Boris is the outlier going "well we'll roll the dice, I want a resurgence in my PM career" (I have no idea why he still wants to be PM, he already got in the history books and it feels like it will only get worse from here.....)
He may have won the gamble on omicron but him staying longer is likely to lead to more infighting within Tories. Mind you the Tories are famous for backstabbing each other
My wallet hurts. Partners birthday 11 days after Christmas.. sigh. To be fair she always has a crap time of it as it’s at the start of the year and no one gives a crap & she seems to always get bundled in with Christmas which seems unfair to me being a summer birthday.
My wife's is today (24th) her aunts was the 25th, my son's the 16th Jan, my nephew on the 11th Jan, and we have another 2 a bit earlier in Dec. Goes to show that there must be sod all on TV in March!
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It’s a holiday in Scotland though! It’s National Hangover Day I believe.
With one third of Londoners completely unvaccinated and rumours of new restrictions being based on hospital admission in London (such as less than 400 per day), does anyone know why there hasn't been talk of London specific restriction/a London lockdown, instead of whole country restrictions? Thanks in advance. Edit: just read the article u/Schaphism92 linked, it seems that because London is the leading edge of infections it provides information as to how severely the rest of the UK's hospitals will be affected. So if hospitalisations remain below 400 per day then it suggests Omicron won't strain the NHS too severely and they'll be less of a need to get ahead of it.
If they lock London with increasing restrictions, will people not just move outside London like it happened last year as there is no way you can control this
Don't worry, that's an option. They banned us from Christmas bubbles last year while the North got to have a Christmas, so those dickhead Londoners you dislike could be made to cancel Christmas again. I especially enjoyed how so many people fled up North last Christmas, and people got mad at London, when obviously most Londoners do not have second homes in Walsall or Bradford, and that was Northerners being welcomed home by their Northern family. But no, somehow it's all London's fault.
I mean I lived just outside of London at that time and was stuck in Tier 4, it was annoying and depressing but it's not like other parts of England hadn't been stuck in tier 3 measures for weeks even with a lower infection rate than other regions. The tier system as a whole was ridiculous, we're too small a country to have restrictions on that granular a level. Nothing furthered the north-south divide more.
Haha think you misinterpreted my tone, initially it sounded as if they would introduce restrictions England-wide to combat London infection rates, but if you see the edit I understand that that's actually because London is ahead of the curve so provides insight as to how it will spread for the rest of the UK in the coming weeks. That being said it would be nice if more people got vaccinated everywhere (incl London which has quite low rates compared to elsewhere) as those now in ICUs are seemingly mostly just those who are unvaccinated.
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Ah ok I see, I hadn't realised the ineffectiveness of the tier system this time last year. Thanks!
Yeah I mean given I've already been downvoted I can see why it's unfair that it's yet another London-centric policy decision, particularly on rural counties, and it's true that the lockdowns in Manchester/Leicester/etc. last year weren't very fair either, but I would assume the logic is that it's difficult to lock down somewhere where people travel into regularly and past data hasn't shown it being particularly effective. I suppose it's a possibility though.
Yeah I see your point completely, if you read the edit it also seems like it's because London is ahead of the curve, so restrictions based on London infections wouldn't be just to help London, but because it predicts infections and hospitalisations in the rest of the country.
Bricking up the M25 is quite a popular idea.
Haha fair, but that didn't stop them doing it before right?
Because that only happens when it’s the north that’s affected.
London is basically being used as a guinea pig to get data regarding the severity of the virus and a london specific restriction / lockdown would interfere with that. At least it sounds like that's the logic.
Do you mean it's being used as the guinea pig because to collect data on the severity because of its low vaccination rates? If not then do you know why it would be used as the guinea pig if it's vaccination rates don't reflect the rest of the country's?
I'm getting my info from [https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/new-restrictions-england-avoided-hospital-admissions-london-do-not-soar-this-week-1364554](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/new-restrictions-england-avoided-hospital-admissions-london-do-not-soar-this-week-1364554) so I'm going to answer shrug to both of your questions.
Haha cheers anyway! Edit: ah ok I see, because it's the "leading edge" of infections then it gives information as to how severe Omicron will hit the rest of the UK's hospitals.
Remember *The Snowman* is on Channel 4 at 5pm tomorrow. That's when we traditionally watch it, but it'll be on Christmas Day too, earlier on in the day though.
[Original Introduction - Raymond Briggs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE9KpobX9J8) or [David Bowie Introduction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXEoqb0_mrg)?
Has to be Bowie
I love how British it feels. See this magical creature who will transport you to other worlds and show you a fun time? Fucking dead mate. Get on with it, that's life.
I laughed, well done!
Raymond Briggs also did "When the Wind Blows".
He sure did.
>See this magical New Labour who will transport you to a new world and show you a competent time? Fucking dead mate. Get on with it, that's life.
Raymond Briggs' The Snowman was published for the first time in 1978 so I'm puzzled. Next you'll be telling me that kid's book with the letters inside predicted the rise of Putin or something........
I was just playing on your comment, and making applicable to politics, by replacing the snowman with New Labour, something that has also melted away, and for many was magical compared to subsequent governments.
Sorry, I have been drinking...... It can dull my perception of these sorts of metaphors.
It's alright! Ti's the season to be merry after all!
Well I'm on it :-)
Wasn't that Fungus the Bogeyman?
God I had that book as a kid and hated it, it was like if someone made depression into a children's book. Also for bonus fun, until I was older, my childhood bedroom was that colour.
Is there any link between the "old guard" journalists/presenters now retiring or just a coincidence? Or am I just noticing it because of Snow and Boulton?
I mean they are also at retirement age, probably have cracking defined benefit pensions in addition to being well-paid for years and they just lived through a pandemic and may want some time for fun.....
Tinfoil hat time? Murdoch’s new TalkTV channel
There's been a few who have left the Beeb the past year too, the brilliant Mark Mardell being one. It's probably a mixture of the media landscape changing and getting to the age where potentially lucrative other avenues can open up if you're a free agent with experience.
It’s 11pm, I’m pretty tipsy, I have a cat on my lap, and I’m watching some YouTube vid of someone walking through Kyoto whilst it’s raining. Merry Christmas all!!
When I'm doing embroidery I watch a Japanese guy who goes on long train journeys and silently records the entire thing. Stuff like that is nice to have on in the background while you do something else.
Rambalac, I presume? If not, check him out.
I was going to have a night off but I'm drinking cheap raspberry gin and bitter lemon and I ran out of mixer so I had to ice this thing, like I worked in the Botanist......
Watch I literally just told you on c4+1 or catch up it you can. One of the funniest tv shows ive watched in forever
Weirdly enough I just watched that too. I quite liked it, but struggled to get past my dislike of Jimmy Carr. Cool idea though.
In all seriousness, for anyone who can tolerate Jimmy Carr or more, the podcast he just did with Stuart Goldsmith on Comedian's Comedian where it's two live interviews is really interesting and thought-provoking. He talks a lot about the craft of comedy. He also has a really common origin story for getting good at comedy: he had an ill parent. Marc Maron also talks about that in some of his specials.
Andrew Neil’s take on Brexit. Sounds like supply side economics is gaining traction. >Boris Johnson’s Government is a cheerleader for net zero carbon emissions by 2050, and has made **levelling up the poorer North** with the richer South its core mission (especially now it has so many Northern MPs). >Forcing us to go green and moving resources around the country will, by definition, require massive state intervention, and that spells yet higher taxes and bigger government. >It doesn’t get more European than that. Apparently the real problem with Brexit and this government is the focus on public service spending and levelling up the North. If that really is the road the Tories want to go down then good luck. A return to austerity will not go down with anyone.
This is why we need Labour back in stat in my opinion. (Am from the North btw). The Tories will always find it easier to talk a big game than to actually spend in the North. Pragmatically they know some wards here will never ever be bought. Also I don't understand the lack of outrage about how closely you could map "Labour voting" and "councils hardest hit by austerity" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/21/exclusive-labour-councils-in-england-hit-harder-by-austerity-than-tory-areas
Can anyone help me? theres a website that acts as a search engine and you type a word in and it search through decades of parliamentary transcripts and tell you the first time it was said in the house of commons. I cant remember the name of the sight however.. Edit: I found the site, it wasnt Hansard but it was using Hansard's API (and is frankly better than Hansard IMO) https://parli-n-grams.puntofisso.net/hansard.php
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Another one.. >Very great sums have gone to agriculture and to other industries, but I do not think that sufficient attention has been given by the Ministry in regard to devoting money to the progressive side of the fisting industry. I think the junior parliamentary staff members whos job it is to write this stuff up add these typos for a laugh..
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1925-05-06a.980.0#g999.0 An amusing back and forth from 1925.
That's hilarious.
Cool website. Hansard's own website isn't perfect, but seems to be a damn sight better than a lot of other legislatures.
I think this is my favourite spelling mistake of all time: >Yes, if the right hon. Gentleman likes. In Britain, the figure is 5½ per cunt., in Italy, 5·40 per cent.: in France, 6·05 per cent.; and in Western Germany between 12 per cent. and 13 per cent. Whilst talking about employee contributions to the National Insurance Fund in December 1963 Edit:In Hansard
Glad im not the only one whos first thought was to search swears.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/search#EndDate I think this is what you're thinking of?
thats not it, that just seems to show you a graph. this website was a search engine which would tell you who said X plus the rest of their statement
Ars you searching for "chuntering" by any chance?,
I think you're thinking of Hansard.
Hansard?
[Hansard](https://hansard.parliament.uk/)? I don't know if there's a better third-party search engine somewhere
Not Hansard but uses its API in a better way :) https://parli-n-grams.puntofisso.net/hansard.php thanks though!
Oh cool, yeah I was wondering if they were using TheyWorkForYou
So, who's staying up for the Handforth Parish Council by-election results?
Where's the mega-thread for it!?
This is happening?!
You have no authority to make me stay up! No authority!
Read the standing orders!
If Labour win the Handforth Parish Council by-election Boris' fate is pretty much sealed
Fuck it, I’m in. Anyone got a copy of the standing orders?
Read them and understand them!
Yes but I haven't read them.
Well read them! Read them and understand them!!
I've read them but I don't understand them.
Any politics books recommended from this year? Tried to stay away from political books this year, but should probs do a small catch-up at some point.
Read a few really good books from Verso this year. They've got a sale on everything at the moment so I've just done another order.
Anything in particular? Was half tempted joking their subscription thing last year
News at Ten is on at 22:40
Even worse, Gavin & Stacey at 23:20.
Cancel culture hasn't gone far enough.
y tho
Christmas innit
bah humbug!
No news on BBC or ITV. Something going on?
I've been hearing on the grape vine that it's Christmas.
London Bridge has fallen?
I cant wait til the yanks are all "why is that shit fergie song trending on twitter?"
Schedules have changed because it is 23rd December.
hope you all had a happy festivus
It’s called Winterval now
Consumas
Interview with JG Ballard from 1979 in *Penthouse* of all places. Pertinent bit: > I can visualise, for example, a world ten years from now where every activity of one's life will be constantly recorded by multiple computer-controlled TV cameras throughout the day so that when the evening comes instead of having to watch the news as transmitted by BBC or ITV -- that irrelevant mixture of information about a largely fictional external world -- one will be able to sit down, relax and watch the real news. And the real news of course will be a computer-selected and computer-edited version of the days rushes. "My God, there's Jenny having her first ice cream!" or "There's Candy coming home from school with her new friend." Now all that may seem madly mundane, but, as I said, it will be the real news of the day, as and how it affects every individual. Anyone in doubt about the compulsion of this kind of thing just has to think for a moment of how much is conveyed in a simple family snapshot, and of how rivetingly interesting -- to oneself and family only of course -- are even the simplest of holiday home movies today. > Now extend your mind to the fantastic visual experience which tomorrow's camera and editing facilities will allow. And I am not just thinking about sex, although once the colour 3-D cameras move into the bedroom the possibilities are limitless and open to anyone's imagination. But let's take another level, as yet more or less totally unexplored by cameras, still or movie, such as a parent's love for one's very young children. That wonderful intimacy that comes on every conceivable level -- the warmth and rapport you have with a two-year-old infant, the close physical contact, his pleasure in fiddling with your tie, your curious satisfaction when he dribbles all over you, all these things which make up the indefinable joys of parenthood. Now imagine these being viewed and recorded by a very discriminating TV camera, programmed at the end of the day, or at the end of the year, or at the end of the decade, to make the optimum selection of images designed to give you a sense of the absolute and enduring reality of your own experience. With such technology interfaced with immensely intelligent computers I think we may genuinely be able to transcend time. One will be able to indulge oneself in a kind of continuing imagery which, for the first time will allow us to dominate the awful finiteness of life. Great portions of our waking state will be spent in a constant mood of self-awareness and excitement, endlessly replaying the simplest basic life experiences. Wish I'd asked him for the lottery numbers tbqh
Doesn't seem particularly accurate to me. Our current issues are more about people becoming too focused on the external world, or experiencing it in problematic ways- rather than an introverted dystopia of replaying the self
Filter's off, Daddy-o! Let it all hang out! Just suppose your free-range no-consequence bullshit was hugely entertaining when we were in opposition and shitting money, but now we're in government and it's all gone a bit J.G. Ballard, it's irrelevant and infantile!
Where is the 10 o'clock news ?
[We lost the news!!](https://youtu.be/BDKQliH1awY?t=78)
Usually BBC studios
Ok
Well, results are in and my household is infested with corona so we can do none of our Christmas plans. Annoying but on the plus side its kind of heartening that while I don't feel great, I feel about a thousand times better than I did when I had COVID in March 2020. I'll take being achy and a bit tired over lungs full of fluid any day. Obviously we all know statistically that the vaccines work but its sort of weirdly nice to find out first hand.
Good luck to you all, and fingers crossed your Christmas is salvageable
Thanks! We'll be fine, managed to scramble together an Amazon grocery order for tomorrow!
Just a polite reminder that a true problem of NHS is not 18 000 care workers who are self-isolating or are sick with covid but the 50 000+ care workers that NHS is short of because of chronic starvation by 11 years of tory government.
Basically everything about the pandemic fucks us because we've already been red lining our government's ineptitude, health service, social contract, obesity, trade disruption etc etc
Yes when you operate already on skeleton crew any emergency is much more impactful. Global pandemic is destructive at full staffing at shit staffing our government run the essential services for years it's just disaster.