Wednesday, 24th February 2021

[PorFavor]

Good morfternoon.

[refitman]

Can you imagine how much of a mess Liverpool would be, if we didn't have the sensible Centrists in charge?

[AnatolyKasparov]

I'm just waiting for an explanation of who took that decision and why.

[citizenJA]

Good afternoon, everyone.

[Willow904]

Jack Lopresti (Con) asks if the government will ensure more affordable housing is built in the south-west of England.

Johnson says this is a problem everywhere. He praises what Tim Bowles, the mayor of the West of England, has done on this.

Tim Bowles did something? News to me.

[AnatolyKasparov]

I suspect that "who?" was the commonest reaction, even in your area.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Ok I think I've finally really lost it after suffering an extended hallucination where Nicolas Cage fought animatronic robot animals possessed by the souls of serial killers.

Oh no wait, it was real!

Willy's Wonderland

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8114980/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Nicolas Cage doesn't have a single line of dialogue, he literally says nothing for the whole film, he doesn't even have a name, all he does is grunt a few times while fighting the possessed animatronic robot animals. In between these bouts of combat he takes regular breaks to clean the place up or play pinball. It was glorious. I'm not sure he can outdo this. We may have reached peak Nicolas Cage.



(*Edited because I spelled his name wrong every single time.)

[AnatolyKasparov]

Nice to see somebody finally brushing away the tumbleweed.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Actually thinking about it I reckon Nicolas Cage's next move should be to put on a dress and become Mayor of Liverpool.

[tinyclanger2]

I keep thinking of this for some reason (maybe helping the tumbleweed along)

[tinyclanger2]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... s-diplomat" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(small sigh emoticon)

[tinyclanger2]

For future use:

000 = tumbleweed emoticon

: o = small sign emoticon

>_< = not wild about this [pick your word] emoticon

[tinyclanger2]

For example:

am >_< about this new mid covid diet

[tinyclanger2]

000

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Anybody else out in a t shirt today? A week and a half ago I was freezing my arse off out walking and today it was so warm I saw one guy wearing shorts. It must have been about 16°c.

I'm sure this is fine and not a sign of the imminent collapse of our biosphere.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... s-diplomat
(small sigh emoticon)

The Yorkshire Post is also getting in on the 'Johnson is a lying piece of shit' act.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has denied that a northern transport body will be subject to a 40 per cent cut in its budget, despite official documents claiming the opposite.

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/po ... im-3145396

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Am >_< the final result of season two of 'Blown Away'.

[tinyclanger2]

Oh! - I was quite about it. I liked both finalists though.

Thought S2 was superior entertainment to S1. But a good distraction either way. Like a 30 minute car chase without any cars.

[tinyclanger2]

I know increasing numbers of people (including, on and off me) who give up reading the news because it's all too depressing. Was it Big Brother that launched the era of relentlessly bad news? I remember when Coronation Street was ace and even East Enders was fun.

On other matters have I mentioned Russian Doll? Another great watch if you haven't seen it already.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Oh! - I was quite about it. I liked both finalists though.

Thought S2 was superior entertainment to S1. But a good distraction either way. Like a 30 minute car chase without any cars.

I enjoyed Season 1 more because I thought the right person won it. Season 2 not so much. I thought the winner's work was technically impressive but all a bit too literal and obvious. Guess I'm more of a conceptual glasswork kinda guy.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Oh and by the way, in the film Nicolas Cage still looked like someone had stuck Silvio Berlusconi's hair on his face in the form of a beard. Someone needs to have a word with him about that.

[RogerOThornhill]

I keep thinking of this for some reason (maybe helping the tumbleweed along)

One of my favourite bands in the 70s...and when they played the old Ilford Odeon it was the only gig I've ever walked to there and back...

Meanwhile, that Brexit deal is really going well isn't it...oh...

Lucy Fisher
@LOS_Fisher
EXC: Northern Ireland protocol must be abolished rather than tweaked, demand ERG in new report

Tory Brexiteers call for a “mutual enforcement” arrangement to replace it

The 38 page report, out tomo, follows Unionist outcry & heaps major pressure on Govt

Funny how they never managed to produce such a report a while ago which might have been useful in outlining issues before we actually voted...

[RogerOThornhill]

Meanwhile two ex-teachers who became right wing activists/pundits have rightly come in for some stick for laying into the HT whose school council renamed their houses to those thought more up to date and relevant.

School shaming while these two were teachers? Bad, very bad
Now that they're not teachers? Fair game in the culture war

One of them posted up the schools last Ofsted report and ignored those who pointed out that the HT hadn't even been at the school when they went to Requires Improvement. Unpleasant people, both if them.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Actually thinking about it I reckon Nicolas Cage's next move should be to put on a dress and become Mayor of Liverpool.

Have seen it claimed today that the Labour machine caused this chaos because they want the Liverpool mayoralty abolished, and this business will remove any local resistance to that being rushed through before this May's elections.

Its certainly a galaxy brained take, but equally its arguably no more improbable than any other vaguely feasible explanation.

[citizenJA]

Goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA

[tinyclanger2]

Yeah. Decidedly >_< about the Cage beard.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... s-diplomat
(small sigh emoticon)

She describes “the partisans of Brexit as reciting a history in which the UK is never defeated, never invaded”. She suggests a country that considers it singlehandedly won the second world war, liberating the continent and deserving of gratitude.

The English are funny about their history, take Canute for example, mostly known today for the misunderstood apocryphal tale of him trying to turn back the tide (whereas in fact in the story he's proving to his sycophantic courtiers that he can't). What's not remembered is he was A Dane and invaded England at the head of an army, defeating Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and became king through conquest. He executed much of the Anglo-Saxon nobility and extracted Danegeld, looting the country. English history acknowledges the Norman invasion because it's pretty hard to ignore it, but how many history books (or lessons, I was never taught this at school) ever mention the fact that England was conquered by the Vikings? It's as if because it doesn't fit the Anglo-saxon national myth then it didn't happen.

Don't get me wrong, all countries have their national myths and perversions of history to suit them, but to brush an invasion and conquest under the carpet hoping nobody will notice seems bizarre.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Have seen it claimed today that the Labour machine caused this chaos because they want the Liverpool mayoralty abolished, and this business will remove any local resistance to that being rushed through before this May's elections.

Its certainly a galaxy brained take, but equally its arguably no more improbable than any other vaguely feasible explanation.

So you don't go for the 'let's blow it all up and make ourselves look like incompetent idiots so the Corbynista doesn't win' explanation?

[AnatolyKasparov]

If that was the motivation, there would surely be less clod-hopping ways to achieve it? But maybe I overestimate Labour HQ in this regard.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Funny how they never managed to produce such a report a while ago which might have been useful in outlining issues before we actually voted...

I do recall the ERG surprisingly producing a work of science fiction in which the Irish border was patrolled by drones with x-ray and infrared vision. Curiously such geniuses as Mark Francois and Iain Duncan Smith had not taken into account the difficulties involved in this.

For example, X-ray machines are rather heavy because they require cooling and involve the use of radioisotopes. They require cooling because they produce high energy electrons travelling at relativistic speeds (a large fraction of the speed of light). The more energy a particle has the more it can fuck you up at an atomic level, so imagine being a lorry driver crossing the Irish border being bombarded by x-rays from a drone controlled by some bozo employed by Serco on minimum wage. Yay, radiation sickness and cancer!

But that's not the biggest hurdle, X-rays need something to detect them, so every lorry, every car, every motorbike would have to have some kind of detector fitted in them that sent its results to wherever the results were being processed.

Infrared fine, X-Ray's batshit crazy. But that's what these idiots were proposing. And funnily enough they are, almost to a man and woman the same fucking morons who don't understand the basics of how the exponential growth of a virus works despite having over a 100,000 deaths to learn from.

[AnatolyKasparov]

John Crace with his best piece for a while today.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

If that was the motivation, there would surely be less clod-hopping ways to achieve it? But maybe I overestimate Labour HQ in this regard.

Well apparently nobody cares about the truth anymore so they might as well lie and make shit up. Same for the SNP with their wee feud. Although the problem is that Labour party members will care (up to a point) what the truth of the matter is as will the SNP.

But I can guarantee you one thing, if Salmond (and I think he has been stitched up appalingly) comes close to damaging Sturgeon the SNP membership will rally around her no matter what. Which in a country which is increasingly becoming a one party state, at least until independence, is disturbing. Just because she seems reasonable and polite and Scottish nationalism is welcome to all doesn't mean she and her party have the right to abuse their power and try to send an innoccent man to jail.

Personally I think Salmond is a fool but it's not good to see a party influencing a judiciary then getting involved in judicial enquiries to ruin a man's life because he's politically inconvenient.

Especially not if you want to persuade a populace their legal system will be independent once you have independence.

Sorry what were we talking about again?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[PorFavor]